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The Last of Us Season 2 debuted on HBO this past Sunday night.
Heading into the episode, fans were focused on Bella Ramsey’s Ellie and Pedro Pascal’s Joel and what state these characters would be in after their zombie-based adventure that comprised Season 1.
Coming out of the premiere, however?
All the buzz is centered on Kaitlyn Dever as Abby.
Viewers met Abby as soon as the season premiered, as she and other new characters were both mourning the Fireflies Joel killed on last year’s finale… and plotting their revenge.
Or at least this is what Abby was doing.
“When we kill him, we kill him slowly,” the seemingly vicious young woman said to her friends of Joel.
The episode then concluded with this same group coming up on Jackson, Wyoming five years after the events that wrapped up the first season, having finally tracked Joel and company down.
“She’s heartbroken, she’s sad, she’s lost and she’s trying to pick up the pieces,” Dever told The Hollywood Reporter of Abby, adding in a post-premiere interview:
“When she walks into a room, she comes through with this intense strength. It’s what makes her scary and intimidating. But it’s all because of how much pain she’s gone through.”
The Last of Us, meanwhile, is based on a video game.
Therefore, those who have played it are familiar with Abby, a former Firefly soldier who is just overflowing with muscles in the game.
In the game, Abby’s size makes her an intimidating physical threat to both Joel and Ellie… and Dever’s frame and stature led to some complaints about her casting after the premiere aired.
“Abby on the HBO Last of us is not jacked enough for me. She should at least bench 225 and have 16 inch arms,” wrote one critic on social media, while another agreed as follows:
“how tf are you gonna cast the role of abby anderson for the last of us and not cast a bitch with arms built like a mack truck?? whatever…”
The drama’s showrunners, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, addressed these concerns in an interview back in February.
“We would’ve struggled to find someone as good as Kaitlyn to play this role,” Druckmann told Entertainment Weekly, before saying that in the game, Abby is “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.”
Added Mazin:
“I personally think that there is an amazing opportunity here to delve into someone who is perhaps physically more vulnerable than the Abby in the game, but whose spirit is stronger.
“And then the question is, ‘Where does her formidable nature come from and how does it manifest?’ That’s something that will be explored now and later.”
