Welcome to The Last of UsAbby’s Version.
Photo: Liane Hentscher/HBO
Spoilers ahead for “Convergence,” the season-two finale of HBO’s The Last of Usas well as the video game it adapts.
The Last of Us finished its emotionally devastating and divisive second season without the closure of the HBO adaptation’s acclaimed first outing, cutting off abruptly at roughly the halfway point of the video game sequel on which it’s based. Naturally, this leaves a lot of open questions about the fates and futures of Ellie, Dina, Tommy, Jesse (well, maybe not so much Jesse), and especially Abby, who reappears in the closing moments of “Convergence” to blast out a cliffhanger and then reset the timeline to “Seattle, Day One.”
Viewers who have played The Last of Us Part II will have a good idea where this is headed in the confirmed third season, but also some questions of their own based on the additions and omissions in season two. So like last time, we’re dividing our big questions about season three into sections for those who have played the source material and those who haven’t; be warned that game spoilers intensify in the second half.
Let’s start off with the big question dangling over the finale’s closing credits…
The season ends with Abby shooting Jesse in the face to launch a heated showdown between her and Ellie. Abby says through gritted teeth, “I let you live, and you wasted it,” points her gun at a disarmed Ellie, and then shoots as we cut to black. That can’t be it for Ellie, right? Those who have played The Last of Us Part II know the answer, as this moment is more or less a direct lift from the game. But show-only viewers who don’t want to look it up will have to wait to learn Ellie’s fate — possibly for most of the third season, since that cliffhanger remains unresolved while the finale swings back a few days to start Abby’s arc in Seattle. Which leads us to…
After Abby was such a major part of the first two episodes, her absence hung over the remainder of the season like a loaded gun until her violent reappearance in the final moments of the finale. So what has she been up to between Joel’s death and the moment she shoots poor Jesse? This season included plenty of references to Abby’s activity, especially with the Washington Liberation Front, but what she’s been doing while Ellie has been picking off her collaborators will clearly be the narrative focus of season three. (Catherine O’Hara recently confirmed as much.) We’ll have to wait and see whether and how Ellie’s time in Seattle will be incorporated into that focus, but expect to spend much more time with the WLF. And speaking of them…
Jeffrey Wright was a stealth weapon this season, dropping in to steal the fourth episode, and doing great work again in the finale, where we see the WLF leader preparing for a mission from which he expects not to return. What is he up to? Why does he seem so obsessed with Abby? And what’s he after in terms of the bigger picture? He heads into his final scenes of the season proclaiming that Abby will lead the WLF into the future, but it remains unclear why Isaac is willing to sacrifice himself and what exactly he expects Abby to inherit. Fans of the game know way more about Isaac than the show has revealed, choosing to cast his motives and origin in shadow until the third season, when viewers can expect to learn a lot more about this elusive character. And on the subject of elusive characters…
Fans still mourning the loss of Pedro Pascal’s Joel fell to pieces over the sixth episode “The Price,” which masterfully compiled most of the flashbacks from the second game. Now. There’s at least one key scene that the show didn’t replicate in which Joel takes Ellie to find some guitar strings, hacking a bloater to death with a machete along the way. It’s one of the most beloved chapters of the game, which raises the question of whether showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann just skipped it, or it’s possible they’re holding on to it as an excuse to bring Pascal back for season three. Imagine it showing up in a similar space as the flashback chapter this season, a reminder of what all of this has been about as the third year comes to an end. Also, is it impossible to imagine the writers devising new flashbacks that could bring Joel back for even more? Of course not — and there’s a large portion of the fan base that would love to see it. All of which leads to…
Will TLOU fans be as patient to wait out that cliffhanger following a season that’s had a cooler reception than the first, and ends halfway through the game? The wild critical and commercial success of the first game engendered more patience for the sequel than viewers may have here, and HBO would be wise to strike quickly to keep this story going. However, a production of this scale, with a feature-film-level budget for each episode, does not tend to move quickly, and Mazin has said the third season will be longer than the second. On top of that, Isabela Merced, who plays Dina, recently said filming wouldn’t begin until next year; on the other hand, if the third season takes place mostly in and around the Seattle locations that have already been established in season two, that could help expedite the production somewhat. Given all that, it feels rational to hope for a return in around two years — possibly even exactly that, so they don’t miss another Emmys season. If you had to wager, the safe bet is March-April 2027.
The most notable character in the TLOU universe that we have yet to meet on the HBO show is Lev, a refugee from the Seraphites, the cult members in a war for Seattle with the WLF. Lev was born Lily, transitioning after he was about to be forced into an arranged marriage. On the run from the Seraphites, he becomes Abby’s closest ally, a sort of mirror image of the Joel/Ellie relationship in that Abby is forced to make tough decisions to protect her new ward. How will he fit into the show’s vision? He’s not exactly a talkative character, but that could change for the show. However they shift Lev, he’s essential in terms of defining Abby’s character. The show is going to need that, especially with viewers having less familiarity with the new lead. Expect him to pop up early, maybe even in the third season premiere. And on that note…
There are some major set pieces from the game to come — the burning village! — but the big question for any fans of source material that’s being adapted is that of fidelity to the original. Mazin and Druckmann arguably didn’t stray as far from the narrative of the game in the second season as some fans expected; outside of some tweaks related to who was there when Joel died, who went to Seattle when, etc., a lot of the main beats were the same, and it ended with familiar sequences at the aquarium and theater. Will this continue? Will season three stay loyal to Abby and Lev’s story, or feel the temptation to bring in Ellie or even Joel (via flashback) in ways we didn’t see in the game? It all comes back to the question of…
Craig Mazin has said there’s “no way to complete this narrative in three seasons,” indicating that the show may not wrap up the story of the second game in the third season, which Mazin has also said will be longer than this one. At the same time, he remains insistent that the show will not be pulling a Game of Thrones and extending the narrative beyond the source material. So how is that going to work? It feels like they’re halfway through the game after the second season, but they could make some major narrative alterations, like the aforementioned flashbacks, or just expand on one section. The most straightforward scenario is that season three plays out much like the second half of the game, with viewers learning Abby’s story, then a fourth season would combine her and Ellie’s stories as they collide for the final chapters. That collision is arguably not long enough to fill out a full season, but Mazin and Druckmann could easily change that, fleshing out Abby and Ellie’s final showdowns and even the sequences between Dina and Ellie when she’s forced to choose between completing her quest for revenge or a happy family life. In fact, given how much of this season felt rushed, less plotting in a character-driven fourth season that builds to the second game’s brutal finale sounds great. Whether that happens, though, depends on the question…
Not having Tommy witness Joel’s death, the rushed Dina pregnancy dialogue, how long it took Ellie to leave Jackson — many of the changes from game to show in season two led to online drama. Now, some of the backlash is led by a troll subculture that should be largely ignored, but there are some valid complaints, most of them regarding how often this season felt like 12 episodes of plot in a seven-episode box. Even the finale feels incredibly rushed, pushing through a lot of story in under 50 minutes. Will Mazin and Druckmann listen to any of the feedback, or just plow forward, knowing that the angry portion of the fan base is still a minority? For now, at least.
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