Five years after the end of the first season's events, “The Last of Us” picks up in Wyoming, where Joel and Ellie — played by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey — are settled into everyday life alongside an ensemble of returning characters and new faces protecting their fortress from the infected.
Ellie is at the center of Season 2, premiering Sunday on HBO, as she sets out on a quest for vengeance (to tell you more would be a spoiler). But Season 2's new cast members also include some of young Hollywood’s rising stars: Isabela Merced (“Alien: Romulus”), Young Mazino (“Beef”), Danny Ramirez (“Top Gun: Maverick”) and Kaitlyn Dever (“Apple Cider Vinegar”) as the long-awaited Abby, a character introduced in “The Last of Us: Part II” video game who is set on avenging her father's death.
Dever, who played the game with her own father, was originally in talks with series co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin to portray Ellie in the first season. But Abby, she now says, was the role she was meant to play.
