Warning! This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us Part II.
The Last of Us season 3 will adapt Abby’s side of the story, which is the most polarizing and hotly debated part of the game by far, so the TV show needs to get certain things right. A few months ago, The Last of Us season 2 finally aired on HBO, and it was a bit of a disappointment.
The changes it made to Ellie’s story fundamentally weakened it on both a dramatic and thematic level. If The Last of Us season 3 makes the same mistakes, then the entire show could be a write-off. After a so-so second season, The Last of Us can’t afford to botch Abby’s story in season 3.
Abby’s Flashback With Her Dad
Since The Last of Us season 2 already explained who Abby’s dad is, and the final moments of the last episode skipped ahead to Abby waking up at the stadium, it’s possible that season 3 won’t include Abby’s flashback with her dad. But it’s a crucial part of her story, showing just how much her dad meant to her before Joel killed him.
We see that Jerry is a good guy when he reunites an injured zebra with her baby. We see that he grappled with the morality of killing Ellie for a cure in his conversation with Marlene. And we see that Abby is absolutely distraught when she finds him lying in a pool of his own blood. The TV show has to get all these beats just right.
Abby Meets Lev & Yara
The inciting incident of Abby’s story is when she’s strung up by a Seraphite patrol and saved by a couple of Seraphite runaways, Lev and Yara. Initially, they’re reluctant, uneasy allies who only work together so they can all make it out of the stalker-infested forest in one piece.
But over the course of the next couple of days, Abby will come to love these kids like younger siblings. She’ll become fiercely protective of them and abandon her ties to the W.L.F. for them. If that relationship doesn’t get off on the right foot, then the whole story falls apart.
Abby Confronts Owen On The Boat
Abby spends the first day of her story trying to get to the aquarium to reunite with Owen, who’s gone A.W.O.L. When she finds him drinking alone on the sailboat he’s trying to fix up to get away from the civil war, they have an honest heart-to-heart about their allegiance to the W.L.F. and Owen’s desire to reunite with the Fireflies.
This confrontation builds to a steamy sex scene, which makes it one of the most HBO-friendly sequences in the game. But, while the sex overshadows a lot of the discussion of this scene, it has to capture Owen’s disillusionment and Abby’s conflicted feelings about the war as much as it has to capture the sexual tension boiling over.
Abby Goes Back To Save Lev & Yara
After having sex with Owen, Abby has a horrific vision of Lev and Yara hanged in the woods, so she decides to go back for them. The Last of Us season 2 already ruined one of Abby’s nightmare sequences by randomly including a second Abby to spell out everything that was happening.
A powerful image says more than a second Abby could with all the dialogue in the world. The sight of Lev and Yara dead, hanging from a tree, tells us more about Abby’s guilt than an exposition dump would.
Abby Helps Lev With His Gas Mask
On the second day of Abby’s journey, she and Lev have to venture across the city to collect medical supplies for Yara. Just before they go into the belly of the beast — a spore-ridden, bombed-out hotel festering with stalkers, clickers, and bloaters — Abby helps Lev put his gas mask on.
It’s just a little moment, but it says so much about their relationship. Abby is becoming like a big sister to Lev, always looking out for him. It’s important to show tender moments like this from Abby in between her displays of ruthless brutality.
Abby Defeats The Rat King
On her way to get the medical supplies, Abby comes across a friendly fella called the Rat King — a Resident Evil-style monstrosity fused together from dozens of patient-zero infected — living in the hospital basement. Craig Mazin has already teased the Rat King’s appearance for season 3, and the show needs to do justice to this breathtaking set-piece.
The beauty of this sequence is that it’s not just a boss fight; it’s a poetic culmination of Abby’s arc. This killing machine tearing through the hospital — located within the “Trauma Center,” no less — is a big, loud, terrifying symbol for Joel. Abby faces her trauma head-on and emerges victorious.
Mel Chastises Abby
After Abby gets the supplies back to the aquarium and Mel manages to safely amputate Yara’s arm, these two long-time friends finally address the rift growing between them. Mel has been quietly disgusted by Abby’s actions in Jackson, and that resentment has only been compounded by her suspicions that Abby has slept with Owen.
This feud comes to a head when Mel finally tells Abby how she really feels: “You’re a piece of s***, Abby!” This is a key juncture in Abby’s emotional journey. Just when she’s starting to feel some peace and a sense of redemption, Mel swoops in to tell her, in no uncertain terms, that she’s still a bad person.
Abby Stands Up To Isaac
When Abby and Yara sail out to the Seraphites’ island to get Lev, they find themselves in the midst of the W.L.F.’s foreshadowed invasion. As she comes face-to-face with Isaac, her mentor and father figure, Abby makes a firm decision to abandon the Wolves and protect her new Seraphite friends.
This is a tense confrontation in the game, and the TV show needs to do it justice. Kaitlyn Dever and Jeffrey Wright have the gravitas to pull it off, so it all depends on the writing.
Abby Spares Ellie & Dina’s Lives
In The Last of Us’ season 2 finale, the show teased the climactic confrontation between Ellie and Abby at the theater. When season 3 finally gets back around to that confrontation, it’ll need to live up to years’ worth of build-up.
In the game, Abby is about to kill Ellie and Dina in retaliation for Owen and Mel’s deaths, making the exact same mistake all over again, but she stops in her tracks when she sees Lev. The TV show can’t afford to ruin this beautiful unspoken moment of mercy with Mazin’s notoriously on-the-nose dialogue.
Ellie Finds Abby On The Beach
The Last of Us might not get around to the Santa Barbara epilogue in its third season — it’s already been suggested that a fourth season will cover that — but if it does cover this section in season 3, it has to recapture the intensity of the game. This final stretch of the game is a grueling slog, and that’s very much by design.
Ellie finding Abby tied to a pillar on the foggy beach is a breathtaking image, and a haunting culmination of this epic saga. Seeing an emaciated Abby with her signature braid crudely chopped off is a horrifyingly stark contrast from the unstoppable badass we’ve seen throughout the rest of the game. The Last of Us season 3 needs to capture that contrast.
