Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2 and The Last of Us Part II.
Abby brings four friends on her quest for revenge in The Last of Us season 2, and Abby’s group in the TV show has a few key similarities and differences compared to their video game counterparts. In both versions of the story, Abby and her friends are former Fireflies who want to find and kill Joel in retaliation for his massacre of their militia group. But Abby has a more personal reason for wanting Joel dead. She didn’t just lose her comrades that day; she lost family. The surgeon who was going to create a cure was her dad, Jerry.
In The Last of Us Part II, Abby and her friends are known as the Salt Lake crew. In the game, the group consists of eight members. But the TV show trimmed it down to the most essential five. Ellie kills Jordan shortly upon arriving in Seattle, and Nick and Leah get killed off-screen (the former by Tommy and the latter by Seraphites), so they don’t get much development in the game. The TV show only adapts the five characters with the most well-rounded personalities and tangible arcs. But who are they, and how do they compare to the game?
5
Abby
The most important member of Abby’s crew is, of course, Abby herself. In The Last of Us season 2, Abby is played by Kaitlyn Dever, inheriting the role from video game royalty Laura Bailey. When The Last of Us Part II was released, Abby proved to be a wildly controversial character. Some players appreciated what this groundbreaking story was trying to do and eventually came around to empathizing with Abby, but some players just couldn’t get past what she did and only ever saw her as Joel’s killer. Despite the controversy, the TV show has remained faithful to the character.
The biggest change the TV show makes to Abby is getting rid of her muscular build. In the game, Abby’s intimidating physique not only differentiates her gameplay from Ellie’s; it also shows just how all-consuming her desire for revenge is. She’s spent four years turning her body into an unstoppable killing machine, all in preparation for her showdown with Joel. Although she’s not as muscular, Dever has proven to be a great Abby. In just the first few episodes, Dever has perfectly recaptured everything that made Bailey’s performance so powerful: her rage, her grief, her brute force, her well-guarded vulnerability.
The TV show makes one other major change in its approach to Abby. It tells the audience upfront that Abby is an ex-Firefly, the surgeon was her dad, and she wants to avenge him by killing Joel. In the game, players have no idea who Abby is when she kills Joel — just that she’s one of the many enemies he’s made over the years. It’s not until they’ve followed Ellie on her own relentless quest for vengeance that they see Abby’s side of the story and realize she’s not so different. The series makes Abby more sympathetic from the offset.
4
Owen
The closest person in Abby’s life after her late father is the love of her life, Owen, who’s played by Spencer Lord in the series. When Abby’s dad was killed, she was just starting to fall in love with Owen. After Jerry’s death, they started a relationship, but Abby struggled to enjoy Owen’s company and get intimate with him, because she was always distracted by the fact that Joel was still out there. Despite Owen’s best efforts, his relationship with Abby eventually ended and he started dating one of their other friends, Mel. But he still has feelings for Abby.
So far, the TV show hasn’t overtly hinted at Abby and Owen’s romantic history, but it has shown that they have a closer bond than anyone else in the group. When Abby first proposed tracking down Joel to exact revenge, Owen was the one who talked her into a compromise. In the game, much like in the TV show, when they get to Jackson, Owen wants to give up on the revenge mission. But in the show, it’s simply because they’re outmatched; in the game, it’s because he just found out Mel is pregnant and doesn’t want to endanger her.
3
Mel
Ariela Barer plays Mel. Unlike the rest of the Salt Lake crew, who are all soldiers, Mel is a doctor. She studied under Abby’s dad and looked up to him as a mentor, so she wanted revenge for his death, but she’s not as comfortable with violence as her friends. This is shown in the TV adaptation when she keeps butting in to make sure Abby won’t hurt anyone besides Joel — she’s even hesitant to sedate Dina. The TV show hasn’t revealed whether Mel is pregnant yet, but her pregnancy is a big part of her character in the game.
2
Manny
Manny is played by Danny Ramirez, best known as the MCU’s new Falcon. In The Last of Us Part II, Manny is Abby’s roommate. Abby and Manny are renowned as the W.L.F.’s two most formidable soldiers, each carrying an impressive body count. When the Wolves are planning a major military operation, Abby and Manny are chosen to lead the charge. While the rest of the Salt Lake crew are shown to be a little uneasy about Abby’s chosen method of killing Joel, Manny is a seasoned warrior who takes just as much sadistic pleasure from the retribution as Abby does.
The TV show skips one of Manny’s most hated moments from the game — when he spits on Joel’s corpse — because it prevented many players from wanting to empathize with him. Ramirez is a close physical match for Manny, down to the facial hair that Manny’s dad wants him to shave off, and he has the charisma to do the character justice, too. The TV show hasn’t had a chance to show it yet, but Manny is known for his promiscuity. When Abby is reintroduced in the game, she’s sleeping in the library, because Manny was having sex in their apartment.
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Nora
The fifth member of Abby’s group, Nora, is played by Tati Gabrielle, who’s also starring in Naughty Dog’s next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Nora is a medic like Mel, but she has more combat experience, so she’s desensitized to violence. In the game, Nora is characterized as being fiercely loyal to her friends. When a couple of them go A.W.O.L. and the W.L.F.’s ruthless leader Isaac interrogates her for their location, she doesn’t crack. When Abby is captured and chained to an elevator for desertion, Nora frees her and gives her what she needs to get on her way.
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Nora is central to one of The Last of Us Part II’s darkest moments. During her rampage through Seattle, Ellie finds Nora and forces her to reveal Abby’s whereabouts. When Nora refuses to talk, Ellie tortures her until she caves. It’s a key turning point in Ellie’s arc; it’s the moment that she fully loses her humanity and becomes a monster. The trailer for The Last of Us season 2 teased that we’ll get to this moment before the finale. If it’s anything like the game, it’ll be really hard to watch, but it’ll give Gabrielle a chance to shine.
