The Last Of Us Season 3 Replaced Ellie & Now Has A Main Character Problem

Published Oct 14, 2026, 9:36 AM EDT

Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock.

When The Last of Us debuted its second season, we heard ambitious plans for four seasons total. After season 2 chronicled Ellie’s quest for revenge across Seattle, season 3 would apparently follow the same timeframe from Abby’s perspective, and then season 4 would be free to explore the aftermath in depth: Ellie’s attempt to move on, temptations from Tommy, lingering traumas, and her last-ditch effort to finally exact vengeance. Those final levels are a little scant to support a whole season, but there’s plenty of room to further develop that stage in the characters’ lives.

But after The Last of Us season 2 polarized audiences, Neil Druckmann jumped ship, and Craig Mazin lined up a Baldur’s Gate series as his next project, it was clear that everyone was looking for the door. A four-season plan became a three-season plan, and HBO boss Casey Bloys has confirmed (via Deadline) that The Last of Us’ third season is likely to be its last. But the series might’ve left itself too much story to wrap up in just one season.

The Last of Us’ season 2 finale followed the boldest structural trick in the video game when it suddenly switched from Ellie’s perspective to Abby’s. After following Ellie’s merciless hunt for Abby for three days, now we’ll see what Abby was up to during those same days (and it was a very different journey). While Ellie is ruthlessly pursuing her dad’s killer, Abby is reckoning with the fact that avenging her own dad’s death didn’t solve anything — it didn’t make everything better like Ellie was hoping it would; it just made her feel a lot worse — so Abby’s three-day adventure is all about redemption.

Abby’s story is just as compelling as Ellie’s, but it might not have enough room to shine. The Last of Us season 3 isn’t just telling Abby’s story; it has to wrap up Ellie’s story, too.

The Last Of Us May Have Just One Season To Conclude Both Ellie & Abby's Stories

Liane Hentscher / ©HBO / Courtesy Everett Collection

Abby’s storyline sees her reconsidering all her life choices as she meets two young Seraphite runaways and realizes these cult members she’s been massacring in the name of a warlord’s conquest are actually sympathetic human beings. Abby’s story has a lot in common with Joel’s: much like Joel, Abby finds her way back to the light by taking an innocent little kid under her wing and doing everything in her power to keep him safe.

Whereas Joel and Ellie are a surrogate father and daughter, Abby and Lev have more of a big sister/little brother dynamic. In order to really do that story justice, and capture the beauty of that relationship, Abby would have to become The Last of Us’ main character for a full season of her own. Her video game campaign is just as long as Ellie’s, so it was just as rich and complex and emotionally riveting, but if her TV storyline is truncated to be even shorter than Ellie’s (which already felt rushed in season 2), those emotions might not have time to land.

According to the initial plan, Abby would’ve gotten a season of her own, and Ellie’s epilogue on the farm, and her journey to Santa Barbara, would be saved for a presumably much shorter fourth season to wrap things up. But now, Mazin is racing to the end in just one season, so The Last of Us season 3 will have to conclude both Abby and Ellie’s stories. It would be possible if HBO would order more than 10 episodes, but season 1 had nine episodes, and season 3 had just seven.

By that trajectory, The Last of Us season 3 will have to get through Abby and Lev’s story, the battle on the island, and the epilogue in Santa Barbara all within the space of five episodes. The Last of Us has already skipped a lot of important stuff in its first two seasons (that fateful photo of Sarah was nowhere to be seen), but the third season is poised to feel even more aggressively abbreviated.

Source: Deadline

The Last of Us