Danny Ramirez Won’t Return for THE LAST OF US Season 3 as HBO Plans a Recast
HBO’s hit video game adaptation The Last of Us is heading into its third season with a notable change. Danny Ramirez will not be back when the series returns, meaning his character Manny Alvarez will be recast going forward.
Ramirez appeared in four episodes of Season 2 as Manny, a fellow Firefly fighting alongside Abby, played by Kaitlyn Dever. According to Deadline, the actor exited the show ahead of Season 3 due to scheduling conflicts, not because of any creative shake-up tied to the story.
The series, co-created by Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, was renewed for Season 3 before Season 2 premiered on HBO last April. That early renewal gave the creative team room to map out the next chapter, which the Season 2 finale strongly hinted would rewind events and retell them from Abby’s point of view. Viewers are expected to relive three brutal days again, only this time through a very different lens.
Even with character deaths and shifting perspectives, Mazin has made it clear that the show isn’t done with its core players. He previously shared:
“We haven’t seen the last of Kaitlyn Dever, and we haven’t seen the last of Bella Ramsey, and we haven’t seen the last of Isabela Merced, and we haven’t seen the last of a lot of people who are currently dead in the story.”
Season 3 will also arrive with another behind-the-scenes adjustment. In July, it was confirmed that Druckmann is stepping back from the day-to-day creative duties and will not write or direct episodes for the upcoming season.
He’s still staying on as co-creator and executive producer, keeping a guiding hand on the adaptation even if he isn’t in the writer’s room.
Mazin has also teased that the next season will finally dig into long-simmering mysteries that fans of both the show and the game have been waiting on. He said the story will tackle questions like:
“What is going on? How did that war start? Why? How did the Seraphites start? Who is the prophet? What happened to her? What does Isaac [Jeffrey Wright’s character] want? What’s happening at the end of Episode 7? What is this explosion? What is all of it?”
As for Ramirez, he’s next set to appear Avengers: Doomsday as Joaquin Torres, the new Falcon.