The Last of Ushas found its Abby Anderson. Kaitlyn Dever will play Abby in the second season of theHBOshow, joining fellow cast members Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal. Dever is best known for her roles in shows like Dopesick and Unbelievable, as well as films including Booksmart and Dear Evan Hansen.
This ends more than a year of speculation on who will play Abby, almost definitely the most important casting decision for the second season of The Last of Us. Katy O’Brian and Florence Pugh were both put forward by fans as actors who could play Abby, but Dever’s name emerged last November, following reportsthat she was in talks to join The Last of Us' cast.
We now know that these reports were legitimate, as Dever has been confirmed to play Abby in The Last of Us season 2. She takes over from Laura Bailey, who played Abby inThe Last of Us Part 2.
Dever waspreviously considered for the role of Ellie in The Last of Us, back when the live-action adaptation was set to be a film. However, by the time production on the show had started, it was felt that she had aged out of the role. Therefore, it makes sense for her to now play Abby, a character that only appears in the second game after the time jump in between instalments. But this won’t be the first time Dever has been involved in aNaughty Dogseries, as she previously played Cassie Drake inUncharted 4.
Spoilers for the events of The Last of Us Part 2 ahead.
While it’s generally accepted that the second season of The Last of Us won’t be enough to cover the entirety of the second game, we can take an educated guess on what moments Dever will be filming for it. Right off the bat, we’ll almost definitely see the death of Joel at the hands of Abby, perhaps as soon as the first episode. When fans found this scene in the game (or earlier, since many story elements leaked ahead of launch), Abby quickly became a deeply unpopular figure within the playerbase. Some took it much too far,sending abuse to Laura Baileyover the actions of the character she played.
It remains to be seen how fans of the show, or at least those who have somehow avoided spoilers for this long, react to seeing these events depicted on screen. We don’t know when the first episode will premiere, only thatfilming is set to wrap in September.
