By After avoiding answering it directly in recent weeks, it has now been publicly confirmed that Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby will lead the third season of HBO’s “The Last of Us”.
Franchise creator and series co-creator Neil Druckmann confirmed the news at Monday night’s FYC panel for the show whilst discussing the amount of creative freedom HBO gives him and co-creator/showrunner Craig Mazin.
The second season finale ends with a switch in perspective from Bella Ramsey’s character, Ellie, to Dever’s Abby who made brief cameos in the second season premiere and finale but had a decent-sized role in the second episode. Druckmann says:
“I can’t believe that they let us structure the series in this way, meaning like, we just ended Season 2, and Season 3 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.”
The perspective switch is in line with “The Last of Us Part II” game which consists of four major sections – a short Jackson-set prologue and Seattle Days 1-3 from Ellie’s perspective which were translated in the show’s second season, Seattle Days 1-3 from Abby’s perspective which will form the basis of Season 3, and a short fourth section that will presumably form the basis of for Season 4.
Whereas the game offered little insight into Abby before the switch, the TV series has been much more forthcoming about her motivation for her actions. Like the game though, we’ll also learn much more about her cohorts Mel, Owen, Nora and Manny next season. Druckmann also teased the new season will involve a lot more water than past two.
Much like the second game, the more divisive nature of the story has led to more divisive reaction online for the show’s second season than the first with the backlash the same on certain fronts, but different on others – the rushed nature of the Seattle segments and the softening of Ellie’s descent into the dark side amongst the game fan complaints. Even so, the season remains one of the most acclaimed on TV this season and is expected to be a serious contender at the Emmys alongside “Andor,” “Severance,” “The Pitt,” “Slow Horses,” “The Diplomat” and “The White Lotus”.
At last report a few weeks back the second season was averaging 37 million viewers per episode and rising and is still a month away from calculating its total viewers. On Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming charts, the season is coming in 5th, 3rd, 5th and 7th for its first four episodes thus far – on par with “Andor” though that show was releasing three episodes per week to TLOU’s one.
Source: Variety
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