Original Abby Actor Reveals Opinion on Kaitlyn Dever’s Performance in The Last of Us Season 2

It was clear from the outset that the success of The Last of Us Season 2 would hinge on the actress cast to play Abby, the antagonist who murders Pedro Pascal's Joel and kicks the story off in a different direction. Eventually Apple Cider Vinegar star Kaitlyn Dever was cast, and fans praised her performance. But what does the original Abby think?

In the original The Last of Us game series, Abby is played by Laura Bailey. She offered her opinion on Dever's acting to Entertainment Weekly at Comic-Con - and she was all positive about it. "She's just phenomenal, every moment that I saw that she was in, I just loved how much she brought to the character and made it her own," she said. "It's kind of like watching your child get up and start walking for the first time. Once you put it out there it's somebody else's and she's just embraced it."

She added, "I just had lunch with Neil [Druckmann, seasons 1-2 showrunner] about this, how happy I was with everything that she did,"

Abby is a controversial character in the Last of Us fandom. Her killing of Joel, a fan favorite, absolutely infuriated some players of the game - and some of them went way overboard. In 2020, not long after the game came out, Bailey shared some of the messages she had received after playing Abby and they were sobering stuff. She later talked about what happened in the documentary Grounded II (via Insider Gaming).

She told viewers, "The worst of it – the really like hardcore death threats, they got passed along and they… You know, made sure that they weren’t anyone that lived close by. Yeah, they were like threatening my son who was born during all of it, and yeah, it was rough. It was rough. But you know, more than anything it just kind of taught me to keep a distance, you know?"

However, Bailey wasn't put off The Last of Us entirely by her bad experience. She appeared in season 1 of the show as a nurse helping with the operation that would have killed Ellie.

The Last Of Us Has Lost A Showrunner Ahead Of Season Three

Fans of The Last of Us were shocked recently when it transpired Neil Druckmann would not be returning for season three. Instead, Craig Mazin would showrun the series by himself. "I've made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in The Last of Us on HBO," Druckmann said in a statement. "With work completed on Season 2, and before any meaningful work starts on Season 3, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects." Some people wondered if one of those future projects might be The Last of Us Part III, but there continues to be no news about a game threequel.

Season 3 of The Last of Us will be a showcase for Abby as a character, with Kaitlyn Dever taking central stage. A release date for the season has not been set yet.