Laura Bailey will be grateful to sit this one out. Here’s why casting Abby in The Last of Us season 2 will only lead to controversy.

We’re expecting The Last of Us Season 2 to enter the early stages of production in 2024, but as the hunt for the perfect Abby Anderson continues, fans are becoming restless as to whom Laura Bailey will pass the baton. As anyone who’s played the game or hasn’t been living under a rock for the last few years would know, Abby hasn’t exactly won the popularity contest among fans. As a character who started as the vengeful counterpart of Ellie Williams, Abby built a reputation as not only Ellie’s mortal enemy but also a textbook villain for the community.

Here we are, almost four years after The Last of Us: Part II released on the PlayStation 4, waiting with bated breath to see who might fill Laura Bailey’s huge shoes and bring Abby to the small screen opposite Bella Ramsey’s Ellie and Pedro Pascal’s Joel. But there’s one small issue surrounding Abby’s ongoing casting call, which would be the inevitable controversy in the wake of the imminent announcement.

Due to Abby’s atrocious rapport with The Last of Us fans, plus the backlash that Bailey faced several years ago, we can only brace ourselves for what’s to come, but why exactly is Abby’s casting so controversial? Many of you are well aware already, but let’s recap as we wait out the calm before the storm.

WARNING: Spoilers for The Last of Us: Part II and HBO’s The Last of Us to follow.

The Last of Us Fans Generally Despise Abby

As mentioned numerous times, the ratio of The Last of Us fans who love Abby is detrimentally low compared to those who downright despise her. Why is this? Well, anyone who’s played through Part II will be familiar with the reasoning behind the fan’s abhorrence. Fairly soon into the sequel, we learn that Abby Anderson is on a relentless mission to track down and punish Joel Miller, although we aren’t privy as to why that is until much later. After a close encounter with a hoard of Infected, Joel saves Abby’s skin, but she isn’t so hasty to shower him in gratitude when he introduces himself.

It isn’t long before Abby gathers her squad of goons to take Joel and his brother, Tommy, hostage. This prompts Ellie to investigate his disappearance and eventually track him down to the hideout of Abby’s crew. There, she is ambushed and restrained, forced to watch helplessly as Abby mercilessly beats Joel to death with a golf club.

It should be mentioned that The Last of Us fans adore Joel, so Abby essentially commits the ultimate sin by murdering him. We soon come to learn that Joel killed Abby’s father when removing Ellie from the hospital in the first game, thereby giving Abby a motive. But do you think that crucial detail made a difference to the fans’ hatred of Abby? Absolutely not.

Abby’s Voice Actress Received Death Threats

In the summer of 2020, as more gamers got their hands on a copy of The Last of Us: Part II, Naughty Dog was basking in the profit while Laura Bailey, the voice actress for Abby, took the brunt of the vicious cyberbullying. Although Bailey had absolutely no input on Abby’s story or the ultimate decision to kill off Joel, The Last of Us fans were so enraged and driven by their love for Joel’s character that they took things to the extreme. On a daily basis, Laura Bailey reported receiving death threats in concurrence with the shocking departure of Troy Baker’s Joel Miller. And she wasn’t the only one, either. Neil Druckmann, the game’s creator, received his fair share of hateful messages as well.

“I’m going to find where you live and slaughter you for what you did to Joel,” one Twitter (X) user said. Threatening an actress for the actions of a fictional character is unacceptable, but even glass houses didn’t stop the community from throwing stones. Many of the messages sent to Bailey insinuated that she was Abby, not just an actress playing a role. Since Abby was a fictional character and the community couldn’t harass her, they turned to the next best thing in Bailey.