The Last of Us Season 2 may be over, but the story of The Last of Us Part II is just getting started. The sprawling sequel game is being adapted into at least two (but probably three) seasons of the HBO series, and in the Season 2 finale, we finally learned what the cliffhanger ending is — and it’s something we probably won’t get closure on for a long, long time.
Here’s everything you need to know about the final moments of Season 2, from what it changed from the game to what you can look forward to in Season 3.
Warning! Major spoilers for the Season 2 finale of The Last of Us ahead!
Season 2 Episode 7 of The Last of Us shows Ellie catching up to Abby at long last, but it's not without its casualties — she murders her collaborator Owen, and accidentally shoots the pregnant Mel along the way. Eventually, she joins up with Jesse and tracks down Tommy, who is being held hostage by Abby.
That’s when everything kicks off. Less than a second after Jesse and Ellie walk into the room, Abby shoots Jesse, and he immediately falls to the ground. Ellie comes out from hiding and tries to subdue Abby, saying that she’s the one who is immune and the cause of all of this trouble. Abby simply points her pistol at her, and we hear a gunshot.
The very next shot we cut to is of Abby, waking up in WLF headquarters three days earlier. She looks out on a football stadium — presumably the one where the Seattle Seahawks played pre-apocalypse — now filled with crops, livestock, and everything a community needs to survive.
This is more or less what happens in the game, but with some subtle differences. In the game, Mel attacks Ellie, and she murders her in self-defense. The final moment before the fade to black doesn’t include the gunshot sound effect, and the first flashback after that moment isn’t to three days before, but four whole years.
But flashing back just to a few days prior establishes a big precedent for Season 3: just as Season 2 followed Ellie over the course of her three-day trek to Seattle to find Abby, Season 3 will show that same span of time for Abby. And just as all the flashbacks interspersed throughout Ellie’s story were limited to one episode, it’s likely we’ll see the same next season for Abby.
The Last of Us Part II’s secret weapon was forcing the player into the shoes of Abby, the young woman who committed the most shocking act of revenge in the entire saga. In The Last of Us Season 3, TV viewers will see Abby’s side of the story. It means less screentime for the characters we’ve seen so far, but we’ll get a welcome glimpse behind this complicated character.
