The Last Of Us Season 2 Has Found Its Abby In Rising Star Kaitlyn Dever
According to the Max streaming service Twitter account, Kaitlyn Dever has officially been cast as Abby in the upcoming second season of HBO's hit post-apocalyptic drama "The Last of Us." Dever is one of Hollywood's best and brightest up-and-coming stars, having appeared in an excellent collection of TV shows and films since she was very young. Her resume includes "Short Term 12," "Justified," "Booksmart," "Unbelievable," and last year's "No One Will Save You," just to name a few.
Abby, who did not appear in the first game or the first season of "The Last of Us," may be the most significant character in the entire second game and will be equally crucial in the show. Variety describes Abby as "a skilled soldier whose black-and-white view of the world is challenged as she seeks vengeance for those she loved," but frankly, that barely scratches the surface of this character.
"Our casting process for season two has been identical to season one: we look for world-class actors who embody the souls of the characters in the source material," co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann said in a statement. "Nothing matters more than talent, and we're thrilled to have an acclaimed performer like Kaitlyn join Pedro [Pascal], Bella [Ramsey], and the rest of our family."
Kaitlyn Dever is a terrific choice for Abby
Spoilers for "The Last of Us Part II" and the second season of the show ahead.
Abby might be one of the most hated characters in modern video games by a certain subset of players, so my hope is that Dever doesn't suffer too much blowback from toxic fandom once people realize what her role in the show is going to entail. Abby is the daughter of one of the surgeons Joel murdered in the hospital to save Ellie's life, and she enacts her revenge by brutally murdering Joel in the opening minutes of the second game. The game makes the player actually play as Abby, and since the player has obviously spent the whole previous game building a relationship with Joel and Ellie, it's a challenging narrative decision to ask audiences to play as her. But through slowly getting to know Abby over the course of the game, the player eventually realizes the violence they wrought as Joel and Ellie in the previous game has consequences, and has to grapple with what that means in a world where the human characters are often scarier than the zombie-esque figures wandering the country. "The Last of Us Part II" is a genuinely bold, brave game that interrogates cycles of violence and makes the player question the comfortability they have with committing mass murder, even in a survival scenario, so I expect the second season to be even better and more thorny than season 1.
Dever is a fantastic actress who is more than capable of pulling off the hard-nosed complexity and eventual empathy of a role like this. Not to mention, she also has previous experience in the world of video games, having voiced the character of Cassie in Naughty Dog's "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End." Now she'll just need to hit the gym to try to approximate Abby's famously jacked physique.
"The Last of Us" season 2 is currently slated to hit HBO and Max sometime in 2025.