Bella Ramsey on Ellie's new love interest in The Last of Us S2

The Last of Us S2, one of the most anticipated series of 2025, is now airing on M-Net and Showmax, with new episodes every Monday.  

Last year, the post-apocalyptic series won seven Critics Choice Super Awards, including Best Horror and Best Superhero Series, as well as Best Actor (Pedro Pascal) and Actress (Bella Ramsey). The HBO show also collected eight Emmys and is one of IMDb’s highest-rated series of all time.  One of the most anticipated series of 2025, Season 2 has lived up to the high expectations, with a 95% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Isabela Merced, one of IMDb’s Top Stars to Watch in 2025, joins the cast this season as Ellie’s love interest, Dina. You’ll recognise her as Izabella in Transformers: The Last Knight, Isabel in Sicario 2, and Dora in the live action Dora and the Lost City of Gold.  

“My first impression of Isabela was that she was so extroverted compared to me,” says Bella (Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones). “I’m quite shy and she’s so easy to be around, funny and great at talking. Just a real joy. She has such an energy that carried me throughout the whole season. It’s so important to have someone like that on set; someone who just brings a levity and wildness. She’s quite unhinged (Laughs). In a really good way! And I’m not. She helped to loosen me up a bit; she definitely is the life of the party.” 

She believes this dynamic spilled over into their characters’ mutual attraction. “They really balance each other out, similarly to me and Isabela. Ellie has sort of a hard heart, and her emotions are quite repressed; Dina’s aren’t as much. Dina brings out a lightness to Ellie that I think taps back into her childishness and kid joy. I love how their relationship blossoms and develops.” 

“I can’t wait for people to see Ellie and Dina’s relationship develop over this season,” says Emmy winner Craig Mazin (Chernobyl), the show’s co-creator, executive producer, writer and director. “Bella and Isabela together are just magical; it’s quite a thing to watch. People talk about chemistry… boy, they’re fun. And boy, do we need a little bit of that in a show like ours.” 

He’s quick to point out their unique context. “Ellie’s in an interesting position. The world essentially ended in 2003; it hasn’t experienced the progress that we’ve experienced in the last 22 years,” says Craig. “And even though Ellie is not ‘closeted,’ she has never lived in a world where there are pride flags. In fact Ellie and Dina encounter the flags this season and have no idea what they are. Dina also doesn’t quite know what to do about the fact that she doesn’t have a sexuality that everybody seems to call normal. So the two of them are struggling their way towards something.”  

“Ellie is impulsive, but powerful. She is fearless. She has a superpower, which is immunity. She is decisive and that is attractive,” says Craig. “Dina is a lot of other things. She’s smart, fun, charming, shrewd, careful and strategic. They need each other. They complement each other. Beautifully. “ 

Craig believes tribalism is a key theme this season. “Season 1 was so much about love; how it can be weaponised, how it can corrupt and lead to horrible acts. In Season 2, we start to see how groups that are united by love can begin to identify as ‘us’ and see everybody else as ‘them.’ Tribalism is a love among a few or maybe many. For Jackson, their tribe is the community. It’s everything inside the wall. Or as Joel says, ‘What’s inside the wall? People. What’s outside? Monsters.’ Everyone outside is ‘them.’ And we are ‘us.’.. With these kinds of identifications, the risk is: By protecting the people we love and maintaining loyalty to that community, and that pro-social nature that humans have, we begin to other and dehumanize everybody else. What our source material does brilliantly and what we’ve tried to do ourselves as best we can is force the audience to keep going around, ‘Who is us and who is them?’ And we will keep moving you until you start to feel extremely uncomfortable. Because narrative that doesn’t let you have an us and a them is uncomfortable. And that’s where we kind of want you to be.” 

Ellie is part of complicating this. “Ellie’s not really a ‘community person’” says Craig. “Maybe Ellie’s just an Ellie person, or maybe Ellie’s tribe is just Ellie and Joel, and her tribe is sort of struggling.”  

Dina complicates that even further. Craig says, “The question is: What does it mean for somebody like Ellie to expand her community beyond just Joel? And can she?“ 

Other new cast members this season include Oscar nominee Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction), Emmy winner Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek), Emmy nominees Kaitlyn Dever (Unbelievable) and Young Mazino (Beef), and Ariela Barer, Danny Ramirez, and Tati Gabrielle, three more of IMDb’s Top Stars to Watch in 2025.  

The Last of Us Season 2 premieres on M-Net (DStv Channel 101) at 21:00 on 14 April 2025, with new episodes on Mondays, express from the US. It’s also available to stream on Showmax.  

Watch the trailer, which has over 25m views

While you wait for new episodes, re-watch The Last Of Us Season 1 on Showmax.