The second season of HBO’s live-action The Final of Us present is premiering in April and follows the story from the online game sequel, The Final of Us Half II. The primary season was a principally devoted recreation of the unique 2013 sport, and what we’ve seen of season two appears to be like fairly near the sequel. One notably completely different side, nonetheless, is Abby, the co-protagonist of the sport, now performed by Kaitlyn Dever within the present. One in all Abby’s most outstanding options was her hulking physique. Followers, together with us, had been hoping this a part of Abby’s character would survive the transition to live-action and puzzled if Dever could be bulking up. However after seeing her just a few instances within the trailers, that doesn’t appear to be the case, and a part of the reason for why is sort of foolish.
In an interview with Leisure Weekly, showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin gave two causes for why Dever wasn’t hitting the fitness center to match Abby’s muscular body within the sport. The primary is fairly affordable: They needed somebody who might play the half extra than simply look the half.
“We worth efficiency over the rest,” Druckmann mentioned. “We’d like somebody to actually seize the essence of these characters… We don’t worth as a lot, ‘Do they appear precisely just like the character with their eyebrows or their nostril or their physique?’ No matter it’s. It’s not nowhere on the precedence listing, but it surely’s under a bunch of different issues that we contemplate.”
However the second cause is the place I increase an eyebrow. Druckmann goes on to clarify that as a result of the present isn’t recreating the mechanics of taking part in The Final of Us Half II, they didn’t see the necessity to differentiate Abby’s physicality from Bella Ramsey’s Ellie.
“We’d’ve struggled to seek out somebody pretty much as good as Kaitlyn to play this position,” Druckmann explains. “Within the sport, you need to play each characters [Ellie and Abby] and we want them to play otherwise. We wanted Ellie to really feel smaller and sort of maneuver round, and Abby was meant to play extra like Joel in that she’s nearly like a brute in the way in which she will be able to bodily manhandle sure issues. That doesn’t play as huge of a job on this model of the story as a result of there’s not as a lot violent motion second to second. It’s extra concerning the drama. I’m not saying there’s no motion right here. It’s simply, once more, completely different priorities and the way you method it.”
Yeah, Abby having a unique equipment performed into her brute power, however I believe boiling down her muscular construct to one thing totally mechanical is a bit reductive. We see Abby via just a few completely different factors in her life in The Final of Us Half II, and her bodily transformation echoes her emotional one. She begins understanding as a response to her father’s homicide, and by the point she is able to avenge him, she’s bodily unrecognizable from the small youngster she was when he handed. It’s as a lot an indication of her emotional arc as it’s a mechanical software for Naughty Canine’s builders to implement. She’s obsessive, and train is as a lot an outlet to channel her anger as it’s a technique of survival. I’m curious to see how the present finds another technique to talk that a part of her if Dever isn’t going to bulk up.
The Final of Us’ second season premieres in April and can embrace at the very least just a few new characters, along with those from the sport. Schitt’s Creek actor Catherine O’Hara performs one new position, apparently bringing some levity to an in any other case darkish story.
