‘The Last of Us’: Laura Bailey, Abby in the second video game, has a cameo in episode 9

SPOILERS WARNING!

*This article contains spoilers for Chapter 9 of “The Last of Us”.

Joel and Ellie’s adventure has come to an end on HBO Max, at least for now. The video game adaptation Naughty Dog has already released the ninth episode of ‘The Last of Us’, the last of the first season, which recreates the traumatic end of the PlayStation bestseller.

In this last chapter we see Joel and Ellie arrive at the Fireflies hospital, but Pedro Pascal’s character refuses to let Ellie be killed to remove her Cordyceps and investigate a cure. Joel kills all of Marlene’s (Merle Dandridge) men and the surgeon who was about to operate on Ellie to save Bella Ramsey’s character.

In that operating room there are not only Ellie and the surgeon. Several nurses assist the doctor and one of them is someone very special to the family from “The Last of Us”. Laura Bailey worked with Neil Druckmann in ‘The Last of Us: Part II’ playing Abby, a very important character to the plot. As happened with Troy Baker, Joel in the game, Ashley Johnson, who played Ellie, Jeffrey Pierce, the voice of Tommy, or Merle Dandridge herself, who played Marlene in both versions, the creators of the series also wanted Laura Bailey to have a small cameo: “Laura kept telling us ‘please let me be on the show!’ We said ‘Sure! We love you!’ It happened quite late. Merle was back to play Marlene, she had already been in the first one and had to come back for the finale, which we shot in Grand Prairie, far north of Alberta. Merle and Laura are very good friends. We offered her to playing a nurse We thought it was fun. We were in a cafe with her and we took her to see the corridors of the hospital, which was basically abandoned, they were demolishing it. She started crying. she exclaimed just looking at him. Something similar happened to Merle the first time he wore Marlene’s wig. Everyone who came from the gaming world felt like they were stepping into the craziest and most incredible VR adaptation of The Last of Us.” says Craig Mazin.

I had played that character before

Craig Mazin reveals that Laura Bailey’s case is actually quite similar to Merle Dandridge’s because the actress also played one of the operating room nurses in the first video game: “People often say that Merle is the only actress who plays the same role in the game and in the series, but that’s not entirely true because Laura Bailey also played one of the operating room nurses in the first video game. and here she is again playing it. We knew we had to find a place for her this season, maybe we’ll do something more with her next season.”.

Precisely, Craig Mazin points out that when you wear a surgical mask in the episode it is very difficult to recognize yourself, therefore they can give him any character in season two. In fact, he refuses to reveal which of the two nurses he is, we will have to press the pause button and analyze the faces well.

‘The Last of Us’ will premiere its second season soon on HBO Max. The first season is now available in its entirety on the streaming platform.