The first season of The Last of Us was a bona fide TV phenomenon – a video game adaptation that defied doubters by winning over both existing fans and those with no prior knowledge of it, and turning Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal into superstars overnight. Now, another Hollywood insider is joining their ranks for the show’s second instalment and, thus, taking her career to a whole new level: Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever.
The 27-year-old actor, who also delivered an extraordinary performance in Netflix’s Unbelievable in 2019 and was Emmy nominated for her turn in 2021’s Dopesick, is set to play Abby, a ruthless soldier who’s part of a Seattle-based militia group. In The Last of Us Part II, the video game sequel on which the series’s second season will be based, Abby, alongside the first instalment’s lead, Ellie, is one of the two playable central characters.
Season one ends with Joel (Pascal) rescuing Ellie (Ramsey) from the surgeons who’d been preparing to operate on her in hopes of developing a cure for Cordyceps, and then lying to her about what happened. If the show follows the structure of the game, it should open with Joel telling his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) the truth about his retrieval of Ellie. Then, we move forward by four years, to see Joel, Ellie, Tommy and co living together in Wyoming. It’s then that Joel and Tommy, while on patrol, come across a stranger named Abby and save her from an infected horde. She’s part of the Washington Liberation Front and, unbeknownst to them, on a quest for revenge that will have a profound impact on them all.
Per Deadline, Dever emerged as the frontrunner for the part shortly after the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike in November, and closed the deal soon after. “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,” series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann told the publication. “Nothing matters more than talent, and we’re thrilled to have an acclaimed performer like Kaitlyn join Pedro, Bella and the rest of our family.”
Also joining the ensemble? Oscar nominee Jeffrey Wright as Isaac, described as “the quietly powerful leader of a large militia group who sought liberty but instead has become mired in an endless war against a surprisingly resourceful enemy”; Schitt’s Creek’s own Moira Rose, Catherine O’Hara, in an undisclosed guest role; Beef’s Young Mazino as Jesse, “a pillar of his community who puts everyone else’s needs before his own, sometimes at terrible cost”; and Madame Web’s Isabela Merced as Dina, Jesse’s ex and Ellie’s new girlfriend who “is a freewheeling spirit whose devotion to Ellie will be tested by the brutality of the world they inhabit”. “I can’t wait for that storyline,” Ramsey told British Vogue last summer of Ellie and Dina’s relationship, in their cover interview for the July 2023 issue. Neither can we.
Look out for the new season in 2025 – and take solace in the fact that, though it’ll be shorter than the first instalment with just seven episodes, a potential third season will be “significantly larger”, per the creators. Oh, and a fourth season isn’t out of the question either. “One thing is absolutely for sure, I don’t see how we could tell the story that remains after season two is complete in one more season,” Mazin recently told Deadline. “We want every episode to feel like its own blockbuster.”
Desperate for a taster? Just watch the HBO sizzle reel, released on 5 August, which features the first footage from the forthcoming season – and is guaranteed to leave you counting down the days until release.
