Entertainment
‘The Last of Us’ Season 3 Is Making Its Biggest Story Change Yet
HBO Max’s The Last of Us is one of the channel’s most critically acclaimed vehicles and is arguably the series that gave respect to the medium of video game adaptations. The series was championed by Craig Mazin in collaboration with the creative director of the game, Neil Druckmann. Even throughout the changes made to Season 1, The Last of Us largely remained thematically and spiritually close to its source material.
Pedro Pascal became beloved in the role of grizzled Joel Miller, a survivor ferrying a teenage girl through the dystopian landscape of an Infected America. Fans were understandably devastated during his Season 2 demise, but this allowed the series to grow and change with the times. The storyline neatly follows Joel’s journey in the second game and makes way for the big Season 3 change that everyone has been waiting for.
‘The Last of Us’ Season 3 Will Finally Show Abby’s Perspective
The Last of Us Part II pulled off one of the most ambitious stories, and not just in video game form. The narrative shows the path of violence and how it turns into a cycle. It does this by posing Ellie as a potential hero who turns into a monster. On the flip side of the coin is Abby Anderson, the person responsible for Joel’s traumatizing and brutal death.
Played by Kaitlyn Dever in the HBO Max series, Abby seems like an easy villain. She is unrelenting in her pursuit of Joel, but it isn’t so easy as that. When Ellie embarks on her revenge against Abby, it becomes clear that the two aren’t that different. Season 3 will ensure that Abby isn’t the villain, and it will do this by making a significant change from the second season.
The Last of Us Season 3 will be primarily from Abby’s point of view as she suffers indignities and trauma just as Ellie has. Abby’s path towards revenge perfectly mirrors Ellie’s, but while Joel’s surrogate daughter becomes more monstrous, his killer becomes more understanding and empathetic.
The success of this is more or less dependent on how Ellie is perceived. The yin and yang of Abby and Ellie doesn’t necessarily work if the protagonist doesn’t turn into a bloodthirsty villain. Ellie’s character left a lot to be desired, but the final season will change so significantly that viewers may forget about that. It will be Abby’s show in Season 3 and will change to something unexpected.
‘The Last of Us’ Season 3 Will Turn Into a High-Octane War Thriller
Ellie’s world is considerably small, all things considered. She lives a generally cushy life when compared to others in this dystopian world. While Jackson acts like a commune, Abby’s home in Seattle is run like a military dictatorship. Viewers have already seen the evils that Isaac (Jeffrey Wright) is capable of, but Season 3 will likely turn into a war drama, if the storyline of the games is any indication.
The WLF doesn’t just worry about the Infected, but a decades-long battle with fellow survivors, known derogatorily as the Scars. This group is a fundamentalist religious group, who prefer the term Seraphites. They mark their faces when they come of age and adhere to strict gender roles. The conflict between the Wolves and the Scars is largely over territory, but battles have been fought for less.
The sophomore season of The Last of Us gave viewers a taste of what is to come, but Season 3 will throw audiences full tilt into a world of war, violence, and ethical quandaries. Abby’s arc revolves around her prejudice against the Seraphites until she meets a brother and sister on the run from them.
Yara and Lev were born into the community but became pariahs because of their beliefs. Abby rejects any sort of camaraderie with them before slowly becoming more educated and understanding their plight. The blood fued between the Seraphites and the Wolves maintains that there are no winners in war.
Season 3 will demonstrate another cycle of violence, but on a greater scale. Even at the end of the world, with Clickers and Bloaters to worry about, people will still kill people for no real reason at all. This type of storytelling is what puts The Last of Us ahead of any other modern series. It delivers on its promise and is incredibly ambitious in doing so. While the beginning of the show was closer to a relatively quiet character drama, the final showdown will be a high-octane tragedy where everyone involved becomes the walking wounded.
- Release Date
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January 15, 2023
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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Craig Mazin
- Directors
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Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, Mark Mylod, Stephen Williams, Jasmila Žbanić, Liza Johnson, Nina Lopez-Corrado
- Writers
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Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin, Halley Wegryn Gross
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