Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Last of Us” Season 2, Episode 7.
The final moments of “The Last of Us” Season 2 are bound to raise questions about what Season 3 will look like.
Season 2 came to a close after a mere seven episodes, right as Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) collided after Joel’s death back in Episode 2. A quick cut to black and the tease of a jump back in time are bound to have fans wondering just where Season 3 is going.
Luckily, this is still all in line with how “The Last of Us Part II” video game played out. Here’s what happens and what to likely expect when Season 3 of the series returns to HBO.
How Season 2 Ended
The second season of “The Last of Us” saw Ellie and Abby finally confront each other – albeit briefly. Much of the finale centered on Ellie and Jesse (Young Mazino) searching Seattle until they hear the WLF have Tommy (Gabriel Luna) pinned down. Jesse leaves to help Tommy while Ellie — still on her revenge streak — continues on searching for Abby.
Her search puts her in direct collision with Owen (Spencer Lord) and Mel (Ariela Barer). She demands they tell her where Abby is and they’ll live because Ellie “isn’t like them.” Owen tries to pull a gun on Ellie but she’s quicker at the trigger and the bullet passes through him and grazes Mel as well. Two more of Abby’s friends die as Ellie flees back to the theater.
She barely has time to check on Dina with Jesse and a returned Tommy before she hears a struggle in the front of the theater. Worrying that Tommy is being attacked, Jesse and Ellie rush through the doors only for Jesse to be killed and Tommy revealed to be held at gunpoint by Abby. She turns the gun on Ellie and fires before we cut to Abby back on the first day Ellie arrived in Seattle.
What Happens Next in Season 3?
Hopefully viewers are fans of Abby — which has infamously not been the case — because they’ll be getting a lot more of her in the third season. Like the graphic hinted at in the final moments of the Season 2 finale, the show turned back the clock to Ellie’s first day in Seattle, with the intention of replaying them from Abby’s perspective.
There is a reason Abby was so elusive in Season 2. She was having enough problems of her own as she worked through the WLF and Scars war for the city — all while her friends were being killed off one by one thanks to Ellie.
“We understand that both Ellie and Abby are moving forward in trouble,” showrunner Craig Mazin said in a press conference discussing Season 2 finale. “They are in moral trouble because their certainty is beginning to fail them, and we can see it here with Ellie for sure, because she’s faced with the consequences of the things she’s done and people that didn’t deserve to die, dying. She’s starting to feel maybe a swing of the pendulum, and we don’t know where these two are going to end, but what I would hope the audience feels is that they are not done. They’re not done growing, or they are not done falling. We’ll have to wait and see which it is.”
This is a similar split that happened in the game. After hours of mercilessly hunting down Abby’s friends who witnessed Joel’s death, they were forced to jump back days and play as Abby, seeing her friendships with each person fated to die and her work with Isaac and the rest of the WLF group.
It’s unclear if Season 3 will be entirely focused on Abby’s days in Seattle while Ellie was scurrying about in the shadows, or if it will just be a few episodes in the larger season. But after recent comments from showrunners pointing to the likelihood of a fourth season needed to wrap up the story, it certainly seems possible that Season 3 is Abby heavy and Ellie light.
“There is another side to this story that we have yet to really delve into,” Druckman added. “There’s no question that Abby is the hero of her story … Where we go next? All I can say is it will always be centering somebody, whether it’s Ellie and Dina, or whether it’s Abby and Abby’s relationship with Owen or new relationships. If you play the game, you probably know what I’m talking about. But everything is under the cloud or sunlight of Joel, what Joel did to Abby and what Joel did for Ellie, and that will never change.”
“The Last of Us” Seasons 1-2 are now streaming on Max.
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