HBO’s The Last of Us is considered to be faithful to the source material, but it does have a tendency to change a few things here and there since it’s a completely different medium when it comes to storytelling.
With co-protagonist Abby getting introduced in Season 2, a lot of fans realized that actress Kaitlyn Dever isn’t as muscular as Abby in the game—which was a major part of her design. As it turns out, Abby’s muscles weren’t the most important thing about her in the series.
Live-Action Abby Gets Nerfed
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, game creator Neil Druckmann talks a bit about casting Dever and why they didn’t think it was necessary for her to bulk up for the series. He explains:
"We need someone to really capture the essence of those characters.... We don't value as much, 'Do they look exactly like the character with their eyebrows or their nose or their body?' Whatever it is. It's not nowhere on the priority list, but it's below a bunch of other things that we consider."
To Druckmann, the reason that Abby was so buff in the game was simply because of game design, as they wanted Abby to feel like Joel in that she was pretty tough and muscular. For the television series though, they prioritized Abby being more of a mirror to Ellie as a character. Druckmann continues:
“We would've struggled to find someone as good as Kaitlyn to play this role… In the game, you have to play both characters [Ellie and Abby] and we need them to play differently. We needed Ellie to feel smaller and kind of maneuver around, and Abby was meant to play more like Joel in that she's almost like a brute in the way she can physically manhandle certain things. That doesn't play as big of a role in this version of the story because there's not as much violent action moment to moment. It's more about the drama. I'm not saying there's no action here. It's just, again, different priorities and how you approach it.”
Dever’s Meta-Casting as Abby
Though Dever may not have the same physicality as Abby, some can consider her getting the role of Abby as a meta-casting move from the showrunners.
Way before Bella Ramsey got cast as Ellie, Dever was the top fan choice to play the role, since she looked and even sounded the part. With her getting cast as Abby, there’s already a kind of meta-connection between the two actresses, which furthers the mirror of Ellie and Abby as characters in the overall story.
How Much is Season 2 Going to Cover?
It’s unclear how much Season 2 is going to cover of The Last of Us Part II, but it does look like it’s going to cut around the halfway point of the game. By the looks of the trailer, it’s going to cover mostly Ellie’s rampage through Seattle up to the point where she runs into Abby again.
As for Abby’s part, it does seem like most of her story is going to take place in Season 3, seeing that there aren’t any castings for her supporting characters like Lev and Yara. However, it does seem like Season 2 is fully going to contextualize her story arc and why she’s connected to Ellie in the first place.
Plus, it also seems like there’s going to be more story filled in for the WLFs, and their leader Isaac doesn’t show up as much in the game. Maybe there’s going to be some backstory for the Seraphites as well. Fans will just have to wait and see.
The Last of Us Season 2 premieres on Max this coming April.