The Last Of Us Fans Discuss Whether More Bloaters Will Feature In Season 2

HBO's The Last of Us has concluded, sucking up attention and spewing out Internet discussion, column inches, and debate over Joel and Ellie. But as the finale rounded things out, speculation will naturally turn towards the second season, and the showrunners will have a meaty story to wrap their hands around.

The Last of Us Gamers will know this of course. Those who've played The Last of Us and its sequel know what's in store. Not just the fate of Ellie and Joel, but what lies ahead in the form of the scary creatures that have transformed the world in which the characters find themselves. These are the infected and Part 2 had some really impressive examples of the fungal-human forms. (You know what lies in that hospital...) But fans have been wondering about the bloaters, and whether they will appear in Season 2.

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On The Last of Us subreddit, hundreds of comments joined in over the subject "Considering how rare they are in Part II, do you think bloaters will appear in season 2?" The thread has many thousands of upvotes making it one of the most popular discussions about the show.

A bloater has already appeared on the show, memorably tearing some cast members apart in the fifth episode. The heavyweights are very dangerous, just as in the Game, with incredible strength, imposing statures, and thick armour-like skin. These infected are the rarest and most dangerous of the four stages, with bloaters taking years to become what they are.

So we've seen a bloater already, but since players only see three of them in The Last of Us Part 2, it does have fans wondering if they'll turn up in the second season of the show. Remember that the Game also features Shamblers in Part 2, which are like bloaters except they "took a turn".

However, since we've seen the bloater already, many in the thread looked toward the massive moment in Part 2 when Abby comes across the Rat King, an enormous infected made up of multiple smaller infected somehow joined up in a monstrously terrifying form.

"It has to be more than the bloater moment we got", wrote one commentor, referring to episode five. "One thing that really makes these moments intense is that our protagonists are the ones up against these big monsters. The fact that Joel didn't really have any part in the bloater moment bummed me out. Not necessary to the story in the end though". They believe Abby facing off against the Rat King will help sell her story to viewers, inasmuch as to the lengths she will go to.

But many referred to the hospital encounter as the "big zombie moment" with a comment to that effect getting hundreds of upvotes. Who knows if showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin are listening, but fans of the Games will surely be expecting to see the horror of the novel infected in the next season. We will have to wait and see.

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