Spoilers ahead for The Last of Us Season 2 on HBO!
The Last of Us series co-creator Neil Druckmann has confirmed that Season 3 will be lead by Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby.
As reported by Variety and THR, Druckmann shared the news during an Emmys FYC panel while discussing the creative freedom HBO allows the team in bringing this video game story to life on television.
“I think it was good to go on that journey to end up at HBO and end up at a place that leaned into those controversial decisions, I guess,” Druckmann said. “But the decisions are just what the story required, and even now, it’s like I can’t believe that they let us structure the series in this way. Meaning like, we just ended season two, and season three is going to be starring — spoiler alert — Kaitlyn.”
Dever joined the panel virtually and spoke about her experience playing Abby, a character who has been surrounded by toxicity long before The Last of Us was ever a series.
“I guess the controversy surrounding Abby was never really a concern for me, just given my first meeting with Craig and Neil and how wonderful they are and how talented they are,” Dever said. “I’ve never felt so carried on a set in my life. I know we just watched Episode 2, doing that scene in the chalet… I was going through a lot personally, but it was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had as an actor, just because it really, really felt like such a team effort.”
Dever was obviously speaking of the moment Abby killed Joel, and series co-creator Craig Mazin had a few things to say about the death of the beloved character played by Pedro Pascal.
“In a show where we try and keep things as grounded as possible, and we want people to feel in real danger, then yes, sometimes the people that we can’t imagine dying die. That’s because, for me, this is not a show about revenge. It’s a show about grief,” Mazin said. “To invest all this time and then go away for a long time and then come back, it’s even more dangerous to do what we did, and that’s why I thought it should be done, because it doesn’t happen enough.”
Mazin and Druckmann also gave us the smallest tease about this upcoming season, first noting that the team has tended to “light things on fire, smash them, tear them down” when developing the show. For Season 3, however, things will be a bit different.
“It’s more of a water season than a fire season,” Druckmann revealed, as Mazin confirmed, “It’s a wetter season than a hotter season.”
For more, check out how Dever previously shared with us why Abby is “so much more” than her rage, our explainer of the ending of Season 2, and The Last of Us’ creative team on how they crafted this season’s most crucial episodes.
Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst, Instagram, and TikTok, and listen to his show, Talking Disney Magic.
