The Last Of Us fans won't have to miss out on Super Bowl 2023 this weekend, as HBO has revealed that the next episode will premiere early in the US!
Instead of the usual Sunday night slot on HBO and HBO Max, the next installment of The Last Of Us is dropping two days early on Friday, February 10 at 9 pm ET / 6 pm PT on HBO On Demand and HBO Max.
This means you'll still be able to catch all the action from the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona as the Philadelphia Eagles face off against the Kansas City Chiefs (which gets underway at 6.30 pm ET/ 3.30 pm PT on Sunday, February 12 on Fox).
Aside from this small schedule change, new episodes of The Last Of Us will continue to air on Sundays at 9 pm ET/ PT, with the season finale coming on March 12, 2023.
HBO is likely trying to maintain the momentum that the series has been enjoying by ensuring their audience doesn't have to decide whether to tune into the Super Bowl or find out what Joel and Ellie (Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey) get up to next.
Figures from the latest episode were not available at the time of writing, but episode 3 of the series saw an additional 12% of viewers tuning in for a total of 6.4 million Sunday night viewers (a 37% rise from the series' debut in January). This marks the first time HBO has had four current TV shows tracking at over 15 million viewers per episode (when you account for delayed viewership): The Last Of Us, The White Lotus, Euphoria, and House of the Dragon.
The one thing this does mean is that UK viewers are going to have to be even more vigilant for spoilers, as there's no word on whether the episode will be released early across the pond to compensate.
UPDATE: It has since been confirmed that episode 5 will also stream early on NOW and Sky TV from 2 am on Saturday, February 11 (before airing on Monday morning as normal) to coincide with the early release in the United States.
*the rest of this article contains mild spoilers for The Last Of Us season 1*
If you're not already caught up just yet, The Last Of Us episode 4 saw Joel and Ellie continue their journey after having restocked for their journey at Bill and Frank's compound in Lincoln. They were en route to try and track down Tommy (Gabriel Luna), Joel's brother in the hopes that he'd know where Ellie could be handed over to the Fireflies.
Having stocked up, they hit the road again and reached Kansas City, though they soon came across some less than friendly revolutionary group (headed up by Melanie Lynskey's villainous figure, Kathleen) that had taken over control of the area from FEDRA...
