[This story contains spoilers from the season two premiere of The Last of Us, “Future Days.”]
Over the course of its first season, The Last of Us put forth a variety of villains, from people-eating preachers to people-eating fungi. But with its second season premiere, the show has introduced its fiercest foe yet, even if it doesn’t look like it yet.
The season two premiere, called “Future Days,” begins with a group of characters we have never met before, led by a person with an intimate connection to main protagonists Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey): Abby, played by Kaitlyn Dever. Abby is one of just a few surviving members of the Firefly resistance group Joel wiped out at the end of season one, all in an effort to stop them from performing an operation on Ellie that would have ended her life, while potentially ending the cordyceps infection that started everything. Needless to say, while we at home love Joel and Ellie, Abby’s not a fan.
“Slowly,” she says in the opener, in one of the single most chilling words uttered throughout the entire series. “When we kill him, we kill him slowly.” That’s how she wants to seek her revenge against Joel, the man who killed Abby’s Firefly father. The rest of this episode then jumps ahead and takes place five years later, with Joel and Ellie firmly established in the Jackson, Wyoming, settlement they reached by the end of season one. Things between the veritable father and daughter are strained, and stand to be further tested as Abby and her allies close the hour arriving at Jackson’s outskirts.
As one of the most dangerous and divisive characters featured in the Last of Us video games, Abby enters season two with a bit of a reputation. Played by Dever, however, she also enters the season with extraordinary dramatic weight, a powerhouse actor tasked with bringing a powerhouse player to life. It’s not Dever’s first dance with the franchise, either. A number of years ago, when Neil Druckmann and his Naughty Dog video game studio were eying The Last of Us as a film, Dever was in line to play a different character altogether.
“I had met with Neil years ago to potentially play Ellie,” she tells The Hollywood Reporter. It didn’t work out then, but years later, following an eventual collaboration with Naughty Dog providing voice work and motion capture on Uncharted 4, the right role boomeranged back around — colliding directly into Ellie’s story. “I’m still shocked to this day that it happened this way.”
According to Dever, she did not have to audition for Abby; the role was hers, should she choose to accept it. Other new cast members on season two report a similar story, including Isabela Merced as Ellie’s new love interest Dina and Young Mazino as Jesse, one of Jackson’s most loyal soldiers. Dever says the way Druckmann, showrunner Craig Mazin and the rest of the team cast their series directly reflects how the show gets made.
“They’re very confident storytellers,” she says. “They know who is right for their story, and they have such confidence in that. It’s very helpful when you’re making something like this, because it allows for freedom, and for feeling safe to play these characters.”
Feeling safe does not come easily in the world of The Last of Us, and that extends to every single character, not the least of whom is Abby. While she’s a tough survivor in her own right, Abby’s story brings her into direct conflict with many of our most beloved veterans from season one, and some new fan-favorites as well. But she’s also a character who stands in direct conflict with viewers, given her dark motivations of revenge and how that stands to play out in the show.
“The way into Abby is knowing how grief feels and how loss affects you, especially in the immediate aftermath,” says Dever. “There’s just this shock and this desire to make it all go away.”
Dever points to the her first scene in the second season as an example of Abby’s devastation. There’s no doubt about that line of hers (“Slowly”) as an incredibly unnerving moment. “Chilling,” Dever agrees. “She’s a chilly ice queen!” Viewed another way, however, it’s a moment of grief laid out on the proverbial operating table, raw and exposed for all to see.
“She just needs something to make it all better,” says Dever. “And in that moment, the only thing she can think about is revenge. She’s heartbroken, she’s sad, she’s lost and she’s trying to pick up the pieces.”
Reeling from her father’s death and hellbent on revenge, Dever’s Abby has something in common with one of the actress’ other notable television roles: Loretta McCready, the pot-slinging kid at the heart of Justified’s second season, who also sought vengeance against the people who killed her father.
“You’re the first person to bring that up,” Dever says, noting the similar journeys Loretta and Abby find themselves on, albeit on two very different shows. “I’d love to find some way to bring her back. I should call Graham Yost to see how he’s doing…”
Whether or not a Justified resurgence is in the cards, Dever’s got her hands full with Abby, a new horror icon in the making. And no, she’s not the scream queen; she’s the queen that makes you scream.
“When she walks into a room, she comes through with this intense strength,” says Dever. “It’s what makes her scary and intimidating. But it’s all because of how much pain she’s gone through.” Lord have mercy on anyone who stands in the way of that pain.
The Last of Us releases new episodes on HBO and Max Sundays at 9 p.m.
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