The second season of HBO’s live-action The Last of Us show is premiering in April and follows the story from the video game sequel, The Last of Us Part II. The first season was a mostly faithful recreation of the original 2013 game, and what we’ve seen of season two looks pretty close to the sequel. One notably different aspect, however, is Abby, the co-protagonist of the game, now played by Kaitlyn Dever in the show. One of Abby’s most prominent features was her hulking physique. Fans, including us, were hoping this part of Abby’s character would survive the transition to live-action and wondered if Dever would be bulking up. But after seeing her a few times in the trailers, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and part of the explanation for why is kind of silly.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin gave two reasons for why Dever wasn’t hitting the gym to match Abby’s muscular frame in the game. The first is pretty reasonable: They wanted someone who could play the part more than just look the part.
“We value performance over anything else,” Druckmann said. “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.”
But the second reason is where I raise an eyebrow. Druckmann goes on to explain that because the show isn’t recreating the mechanics of playing The Last of Us Part II, they didn’t see the need to differentiate Abby’s physicality from Bella Ramsey’s Ellie.
“We would’ve struggled to find someone as good as Kaitlyn to play this role,” Druckmann explains. “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.”
Yeah, Abby having a different kit played into her brute strength, but I think boiling down her muscular build to something entirely mechanical is a bit reductive. We see Abby through a few different points in her life in The Last of Us Part II, and her physical transformation echoes her emotional one. She starts working out as a reaction to her father’s murder, and by the time she is ready to avenge him, she’s physically unrecognizable from the small child she was when he passed. It’s as much a sign of her emotional arc as it is a mechanical tool for Naughty Dog’s developers to implement. She’s obsessive, and exercise is as much an outlet to channel her anger as it is a means of survival. I’m curious to see how the show finds some other way to communicate that part of her if Dever isn’t going to bulk up.
The Last of Us’ second season premieres in April and will include at least a few new characters, in addition to the ones from the game. Schitt’s Creek actor Catherine O’Hara plays one new role, apparently bringing some levity to an otherwise dark story.