Posted in: HBO, TV | Tagged: the last of us

The Last of Us Season 2: Abby's Backstory Needed "Shortcut": Druckmann

HBO's The Last of Us' Neil Druckmann on why Season 2 needed to take a "shortcut" with Abby's backstory as compared to the video game.

It's a fair expectation that the experience from fans of The Last of Us video game and the HBO TV series of the same name will shift dramatically, and that's thanks to Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann, who worked on both to deliver two unique experiences. Season one followed the events of the 2013 PlayStation 3 game, which has been remade twice, with the latest as the rebrand of The Last of Us Part I for PlayStation 5 with enhanced graphics and controls but delivering the same story. The TV series integrated the game's DLC "Left Behind" as part of season one's narrative and the changes will continue for season two as it starts telling the events of 2020's Part II, which takes place years following the season one finale that saw Joel (Pedro Pascal) save Ellie (Bella Ramsey) from fatal surgery that could have saved humanity from the Cordyceps plague. Druckmann, who co-created the HBO series with Craig Mazin broke down why viewers will experience Abby's (Kaitlyn Dever) backstory much sooner than in the game.

The Last of Us Creator Neil Druckmann on Shifting Narrative to Tell Abby's Story Sooner

At the start of season two, the show resumes the journey of Joel and Ellie, who settled in Jackson, Wyo, a community that's shared with Joel's brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and his wife Maria (Rutina Wesley). The game focuses on both as they will be attacked by the Washington Liberation Front, which Abby is a part of. "There are two reasons why we moved certain things up in the story," Druckmann said in a press conference (via Entertainment Weekly), "one of which [is] in the game…you play as Abby, so you immediately form an empathic connection with her because you're surviving as her, you're running through the snow, you're fighting infected, and we can withhold certain things and make it a mystery that will be revealed later in the story. We couldn't do that in the show because you're not playing as her. So we need other tools, and that context gave us that shortcut."

Druckmann also explained the narrative difficulties that emerge when trying to align TV with the game. "If we were to stick to a very similar timeline, viewers would have to wait a very, very long time to get that context," he noted. "It would probably get spoiled to them between seasons, and we didn't want that. So it felt appropriate for those reasons to move that up and give that context right off the bat." Also joining the cast for season two of The Last of Us include Isabella Merced, Young Mazino, Catherine O'Hara, Joe Pantoliano, Robert John Burke, Noah Lamanna, Alanna Ubach, Ben Ahlers, Hettienne Park, and Jeffrey Wright, who reprises his Part II role as Isaac. Season two premieres on April 13th on HBO and is available to stream on Max. For more, you can check out the piece.

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