As Someone Who Never Played The Last Of Us, I Don’t Understand The Abby Outrage Despite What She Did

WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for The Last of Us season 2, episode 2!As someone who never played The Last of Us games, I came into the HBO adaptation knowing little about the plot and characters. After being incredibly impressed with season 1’s storytelling, and only catching onto the fun video game Easter eggs like Ashley Johnson’s cameo later on, I decided I would still try going into season 2 as blind as possible. However, with avoiding spoilers being nearly impossible today, I entered The Last of Us season 2 already knowing two major things: Joel was going to die brutally, and it seemed like everyone hated the new character Abby.

After just two episodes of knowing Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby and seeing Pedro Pascal back as Joel, I found out exactly why. I didn’t expect Joel’s death to happen so quickly, given how much of a draw Pascal has been for the series, but once Abby told her comrades who Joel was, I knew it was over for him. It’s hard not to dislike Abby in that moment, considering how much audiences love Joel. But, without the context of the games, I can’t understand how Abby’s complex actions in the show could deserve as much intense hatred as she received in the games.

Abby Killing Joel Was Brutal & Wrong, But Her Rage At Him Is Justified

Abby Is A Grieving Human In A World That Requires Violence To Survive

It’s easy to see that The Last of Us season 2 is making Abby its complicated main antagonist. Abby kills Joel after vengefully tracking him down for five years. It’s not the basis of a character we’re supposed to like, regardless of how many changes The Last of Us episode 2 seemingly makes to Abby and Joel’s interactions. Still, we see that Abby has been letting this anger fuel her for years, and she’s a complex, rage-filled, young soldier who arguably knows nothing in this world other than violence and unjustly watching those around her die.

Related

How Controversial The Last Of Us’ Joel & Abby Story Was When The Game Released 5 Years Ago

When The Last of Us Part II released in 2020, the storyline that The Last of Us season 2 is adapting with Joel and Abby was wildly controversial.

However, while she can kill the infected without some moral dilemma and understand that their cordyceps-controlled minds give them no other motivation but to kill and spread the infection, having her father and community slaughtered by another living human is different. Her actions against Joel in The Last of Us season 2, episode 2’s ending aren’t justified, but her rage certainly is. Joel unjustly killed 18 people in order to save Ellie – not just soldiers, but doctors who had no weapon but a scalpel in their hand.

Of course, both sides were wrong in The Last of Us season 1’s ending, making Joel’s actions all the more morally complex. Were his means of killing 18 people to stop them from killing an innocent teenager justified? Were the Fireflies right to sacrifice Ellie in the hopes of saving thousands of lives with a cure for the infection? Joel’s motivations are much more complex than Abby’s revenge-fueled, sadistic murder, but she also knows little of what went into that massacre other than that Joel ruthlessly killed her father.

It’s difficult to hear Abby’s monologue before killing Joel and not sympathize with her anger. The show gives audiences some semblance of sympathy and compassion for her rage before deteriorating into an animalistic state of cruelty. When I learned how divisive Abby was in The Last of Us’ games, I expected a monstrous character without any room for redemption. It may be different for the games, but I believe HBO’s The Last of Us gave us a remarkably complex, dark, intriguing character who doesn’t warrant the backlash her game counterpart received at this point in the narrative.

The World’s End Gave Abby Nothing Else To Focus On But Revenge For 5 Years

Abby’s Need For Revenge Has Helped Motivate Her To Survive For 5 Years

Abby’s actions can’t be excused by any means, but they can be explained. In a grim apocalyptic world where the population has generally only been taught to fight to survive, there isn’t much to keep The Last of Us’ characters motivated about the future. However, after Abby lost her father, her motivation to survive was to avenge him.

As far as The Last of Us season 2, episode 3’s preview trailer has revealed, it sounds like that’s exactly the path that Ellie will be going on. Ellie tragically watched as Joel was brutally murdered, and her guilt related to their rocky relationship over the past five years is going to send her down a dark, revenge-motivated road similar to Abby. One big game-based spoiler that I’ve been spared from is whether Ellie ends up killing Abby, but it sounds like Ellie’s journey will essentially show us what Abby’s life was like leading up to finally killing Joel.

The Last Of Us Game’s Version Of Abby Killing Joel Sounds Worse, But It Still Reveals Her Complex Motivations

Abby Still Turns Out To Not Be As Terrible As A Villain In The Games

From what I’ve learned about The Last of Us‘ changes to the game, Abby doesn’t give a speech about her deeper motivations before killing Joel – she just sadistically kills one of the two main characters. That certainly must have fueled the hatred for Abby as players continued the game after Joel’s death and went through Ellie’s revenge arc. That said, Abby’s reason for killing Joel does eventually come to light in the games. Just as in the show, it doesn’t excuse or justify her brutality, but it should have relived much of the intense, unforgiving hatred toward her.

Related

How That Last Of Us Season 2 Big Death Compares Scene-By-Scene With The Games

The Last of Us season 2 just had the show’s biggest moment yet. Here’s how it compares to its divisive video game counterpart from 2020.

The Last of Us is filled with complex, morally gray characters, and that’s a big reason why Joel and Ellie’s narrative is so compelling, with Abby testing viewers’ ability to sympathize with Ellie and Joel’s adversaries. The outrage against her from the games seems to parallel the intense hatred for characters like Game of Thrones’ Joffrey or Ramsey, but her actions thus far don’t come close to their cruelty. There was no sympathy to be had for those villains, whereas Abby appears to be through with her desire for blood and revenge after taking out Joel.

There are plenty of compelling, divisive villains who kill off beloved characters, but the hatred for them often isn’t defined by just that action. I find the hatred for Abby from the games to be most similar to the backlash against Negan in The Walking Dead, who killed two major characters to begin his reign of terror against Rick’s group of survivors. However, Negan’s motives for killing Glenn and Abraham were far more sadistic and dangerous than Abby’s reason for killing Joel.

Of course Abby’s actions are misguided and inexcusable, but they’re rooted in her intense emotional grief. She puts that pain into anger against someone who she sees as an irredeemable monster, and although Joel saves Abby’s life and brings her to safety, she can’t let go of the five years she spent waiting for the moment to kill him and avenge her father. My opinion on Abby could certainly change as The Last of Us season 2 progresses, but if the strong backlash against her is primarily based on Joel’s murder, it feels overblown.

The Last Of Us

8/10

Release Date

January 15, 2023

Network

HBO

Showrunner

Craig Mazin

Directors

Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, Mark Mylod, Stephen Williams, Jasmila Žbanić, Liza Johnson, Nina Lopez-Corrado

Writers

Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin