Kaitlyn Dever in “The Last of Us” Season 2 Episode 2.
The Last of Us creator Craig Mazin applauds Abby actor Kaitlyn Dever for filming her crucial Season 2 scene despite suffering a deep personal loss not long before.
The acclaimed HBO/Max video game adaptation returned for Season 2 on April 13, two years after the post-apocalyptic thriller’s debut. The series stars Pedro Pascal as Joel, whom in Season 1 smuggles Ellie (Bella Ramsey) — a teen immune to the Cordyceps virus that turns the “infected” into zombie-like creatures — out of the quarantine zone and across the U.S.
The Last of Us Season 2’s logline reads, “Five years after the events of the first season, Joel and Ellie are drawn into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind.”
Note: Spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2 are revealed throughout the rest of the story.
In the Season 1 finale of The Last of Us, Joel wipes out a group called the Fireflies as they begin a deadly experimental procedure on Ellie to find a cure. However, Abby — who is one of the surviving members of the Fireflies — vows revenge on Joel after he killed her doctor father in the massacre.
And revenge is exactly what Abby got in The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2, when she brutally beat Joel before stabbling him to death through the neck.
However, the timing of the shooting of the production of the scene happened not long after Dever lost her mother to breast cancer in February 2024, and Mazin and director Mark Mylod knew the actor’s scene with Pascal was going to be emotionally difficult to shoot.
“The tragedy was that Kaitlyn lost her mom very shortly before the start of shooting. And it was very upsetting,” Mazin, who is the show’s co-creator with video game developer Neil Druckman, told The Hollywood Reporter after Episode 2 aired on Sunday. “And Mark and I were just like, ‘How are we going to do this to her?’
“Because when she came back, that was the next sequence and the nature of our schedule was such that we couldn’t really move pieces around, Mazin added. ”Pedro had other obligations. Isabella was working on [James Gunn’s upcoming]
Superman. So we were stuck. I spoke with Kaitlyn and she was like, “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ll be fine, I won’t be fine, but …”
Pedro Pascal and Kaitlyn Dever in “The Last of Us” Season 2 Episode 2.
Craig Mazin Admires Kaitlyn Dever’s Professionalism Amid The Tragedy
The Last of Us co-creator Craig Mazin admitted to THR that he honestly doesn’t know how Kaitlyn Dever mustered the amount of “professionalism and dedication” she displayed during the filming of her crucial scene with Pedro Pascal in The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2.
“She showed up and went right into it and did it,” Mazin told THR. “There’s this moment — and I don’t know how this happens — when Kaitlyn is looking at Joel. She turns her head, sees the golf clubs across the room, turns back to him, and a tear just drips out of her eye. ‘How did you time this?’ [Mazin thought about Dever] But they’re in the moment, they’re feeling something, and that’s a choice in that moment.”
The irony of Joel’s death in Episode 2 is that he saved Abby from certain death at the hands of the Cordyceps in an earlier scene.
Also during the THR interview, Mazin dispelled reports that Dever received death threats from over-zealous Pascal fans since they knew Joel’s death was a real possibility because she kills him in The Last of Us 2 video game.
“That was bulls—. Thankfully,” Mazin told THR of the alleged death threats. “Everyone’s been awesome. Well, most everybody’s been awesome.”
The Last of Us Season 2 also stars Isabela Merced as Dina, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Rutina Wesley as Maria and Jeffrey Wright as Isaac. New episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere every Sunday through May 25.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timlammers/2025/04/21/the-last-of-us-creator-lauds-abby-actor-for-filming-shocking-scene-after-real-life-loss/