The Last of Us season 2 ended on a massive cliffhanger, with Ellie (Bella Ramsey) staring down the barrel of a gun. We hear the shot that comes next, but don't see what happens to her. Instead, the scene shifts, putting us in the perspective of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), the young woman who just shot at Ellie and who brutally beat Ellie's foster father Joel (Pedro Pascal) to death with a golf club in the second episode of the season. The ending stinger of the season rewinds the clock to the day one of Ellie's blood-soaked rampage through Seattle, except this time, we're going to see it all through Abby's eyes.
This is also how the story progresses in The Last of Us: Part II video game, but before the second season of the show aired, we didn't know whether it would follow suit. The video game was highly controversial for its untraditional approach to structure, which had players spend a solid half of the game as Ellie before forcing them to play as Abby, humanizing the person who was supposed to be the villain of the story. If the show stuck to that formula, it would mean that Bella Ramsey will rarely appear in season 3.
Now, we have solid confirmation: The Last of Us will follow the game's format, putting Kaitlyn Dever front and center as Abby for season 3. Showrunner and game creator Neil Druckmann "was sure that [HBO] wouldn't let us do this," but fortunately, the studio has "leaned into what makes...the story special."
Neil Druckmann was shocked HBO let The Last of Us follow the game's weird structure
Druckmann appeared alongside co-showrunner Craig Mazin on June 9 at a pair of For Your Consideration panels, hyping up The Last of Us ahead of awards season. The first panel was moderated by Variety’s Jazz Tangcay, and saw Mazin and Druckmann take to the stage with Director of Photography Ksenia Sereda, Costume Designer Ann Foley, Editor Timothy Good, Co-Composer David Fleming, Production Designer Don Macaulay, and VFX Supervisor Alex Wang to break down the magic that went into making the show.
The second panel was moderated by actor Rob McElhenney (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), who was effusive with his praise for what he believes is "the best show on television." That one featured cast members Bella Ramsey, Isabela Merced (Dina), Gabriel Luna (Tommy), Young Mazino (Jesse), and Kaitlyn Dever (Abby), with Dever joining digitally from Australia since she's currently hard at work on another project. This panel is where we got the confirmation Abby will lead season 3, along with a bunch of other juicy information.
Druckmann discussed how he turned down other offers to adapt The Last of Us in the past, holding out for the right fit. “I think it was good to go on that journey to end up at HBO, end up at a place that leaned into those controversial decisions, I guess,” he explained per The Hollywood Reporter, referencing the shocker death of Pascal's Joel. “But the decisions are just what the story required, and even now, it’s like I can’t believe that they let us structure the series in this way. Meaning like we just ended season two, and season three is going to be starring — spoiler alert — Kaitlyn.”
"I was sure that they wouldn’t let us do this when we started adapting this, but they’ve leaned into what makes, I believe, the story special. And allowed us not only the time but the creative freedom to be able to take these swings, and I think the audience really appreciates that."Neil Druckmann
Kaitlyn Dever reflects on Joel's death and what's ahead for Abby
Dever reflected on the experience of filming the traumatic scene involving Joel. “It was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had as an actor, just because it really felt like such a team effort," she recalled, according to a press release. "Our director, Mark Mylod, would huddle us all together to give us our lines like we were on a sports team, and I just had never experienced anything like that before.”
Joel's death is arguably one of the most controversial scenes in video game history; the backlash it inspired when The Last of Us Part II first released in 2020 is the stuff of gaming legend. But for Dever, "the controversy surrounding Abby was never really a concern for me, just given my first meeting with Craig and Neil and how wonderful they are and how talented they are. Getting on set, I've never felt so carried on a set in my life."
When it comes to season 3, Dever is understandably excited to tackle this next chapter in Abby's story, saying it "makes me so happy to be a part of this family and to get to look forward to the journey we have ahead, too."
Why HBO is the right home for The Last of Us
Co-showrunner Craig Mazin also talked a little bit about the daring decision to kill off Joel, and why it's the sort of thing that makes him glad to be partnering with a studio like HBO. “HBO is still a place where humans make decisions. There is no algorithm, I don’t want to disagree with a computer, I’d rather disagree with a human," he explained, adding that one of the things setting HBO apart from other studios is “they give us the production time to make prestige television. The scene at the chalet in 202 was shot over many days because they let us. That’s how you get good television.”
Despite Mazin's glowing words for HBO, there were still a lot of nerves around the way this season was structured. From killing off one of the show's leads early, to having a truncated episode count, to flipping to a totally different protagonist for season 3, The Last of Us is taking a lot of risks.
“To invest all this time and then go away for a long time and then come back, it’s even more dangerous to do what we did, and that’s why I thought it should be done, because it doesn’t happen enough,” Mazin said. “I think plot armor is a real problem and in a show where we try and keep things as grounded as possible, and we want people to feel in real danger, then yes, sometimes the people that we can’t imagine dying die...Because, for me, this is not a show about revenge, it’s a show about grief. Well, how are we supposed to grieve if nobody we truly, truly are invested in dies?”
Ellie's drive for revenge if fueled by love and hatred for Joel "for what he did"
Let's circle back around to Ellie, the star of season 2. She went on quite a journey, setting off on a bloody quest to avenge her surrogate father Joel that brought out the absolute worst in her. Part of what makes Ellie's revenge story so compelling is that it's messy. She loves Joel, but by the start of the season the two aren't on speaking terms after she's figured out that he killed a hospital full of Firefly soldiers to save her life rather than let them kill her to make a cure for the cordyceps plague which had destroyed society.
That was a big journey for Bella Ramsey to go on as an actor. "We see Ellie at 19 now instead of 14, which is a big change," Ramsey said. "I'm so glad that we get that episode six, flashback episode to kind of see what's happened and why things are the way they are. She comes into this season, especially after what just happened. She has a single-minded focus of like, this person that she loves so much who hurt her so much. She just has to do anything to like try and heal from sort of the grief of all of that. I think if she just loved him so much and didn't also hate him so much for what he did, I think it would almost be simpler for her. But I think because of how complex that relationship has become, it's just, she's so driven for justice to be done, sort of beyond justice and it gets into some kind of dangerous territory with her.”
By the end of season 2, there's no going back for Ellie. Even if the TV show toned down some of her more heinous behavior from the game, I wouldn't expect too much of a redemption arc for Ellie when The Last of Us returns, especially considering she probably won't appear much in season 3. Abby, on the other hand, will undergo plenty of changes as she navigates three chaotic days in Seattle, leading up to that fateful confrontation at the abandoned theater.
The Last of Us season 3 is not expected to film until sometime in 2026, so it may be quite a while before we see what happens next. Until then, there's always a rewatch to tide us over.
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