We’re back with The Last of Us Season 2, with mysterious new characters and geared-up new factions to avoid like the plague or join, depending on your priorities in the apocalypse.
In Season 1 of Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann’s Naughty Dog game adaptation, it was all about FEDRA and the Fireflies. But now, with the majority of Fireflies sent into oblivion by Joel (Pedro Pascal) in the Season 1 finale, the faction has evolved elsewhere.
‘The Last of Us’: What you can expect from Season 2
In Season 2, episode 1, we meet Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and her crew, who are members of a group with a wolf logo on their gear. But who is this new faction? Are they good or bad? And what’s their vendetta against Joel?
Now, it’ll be unfeasible for me to tell you everything about this group — if you’ve played the games, you’ll know what happens with this group in The Last of Us Part II. But here’s what I can tell viewers of the HBO series about the WLF as it happens in Season 2 (with no spoilers beyond what happens in the latest episode on Max).
Wait, who are the Fireflies again?
One of the last conversations between Marlene (Merle Dandridge) and Joel (Pedro Pascal).
Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBO
They were a highly skilled, revolutionary militia group whose aim was to liberate quarantine zones (QZs) from the U.S. government’s military arm, FEDRA, who in turn branded them terrorists. You might remember Joel and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) found their graffiti on walls all through Season 1 — their motto was “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.” You might also remember Ellie was a FEDRA cadet with her best friend and first love, Riley (Storm Reid), whose plans to join the Fireflies were fatally derailed.
The Fireflies’ leader, Marlene (Merle Dandridge), was the one who sent Tess (Anna Torv) and Joel on the mission to retrieve Ellie in the first place, taking her from the Fireflies’ Boston QZ hideout to a Salt Lake City base camp where doctors were working on a cure for the Cordyceps pandemic (remember, Ellie’s immune to Infected bites). Marlene would also be the last Firefly killed by Joel at the hospital, after he learned Ellie would be sacrificed for such research — it’s the big point of contention between them.
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The Fireflies said they needed to kill Ellie for a cure. Joel said nah.
Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBO
And it’s at this very medical facility we meet the WLF for the first time in Season 2, episode 1, reeling from what they’ve found.
Who are the Washington Liberation Front in The Last of Us?
Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) is a member of the WLF.
Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBO
A militia group hailing from Seattle, the Washington Liberation Front (WLF) are identifiable by their logo featuring a wolf. Dina (Isabela Merced) spots one of these logos, an upside-down yellow triangle with a snarling wolf in the centre, in Season 2, episode 2 in the group’s mountain base. Made up of former Fireflies and new members, the WLF are a bit of a mystery at this point of the show, but the group will play a major part this season.
In Season 2, episode 1, we meet a few of them, including Abby and her friends, Manny (Danny Ramirez), Nora (Tati Gabrielle), Mel (Ariela Barer), and Owen (Spencer Lord), who have discovered the remnants of Joel’s massacre of the Fireflies in Salt Lake City. To say they look pissed is an understatement, but Abby is the one who decides they should not report back to base but instead find the killer themselves.
In the second episode (The Terrible One We Won’t Get Over Anytime Soon), Abby returns with Joel and Dina to the mountain cabin where the rest of her WLF members are based. We know that they’re WLF from Mel’s backpack, which boasts the logo. When Dina notices it, things become tense, and Joel asks if the group are Fireflies (a group he knows well from, you know, massacring them).
Declaring the Fireflies “all gone,” Abby then begins her revenge on Joel, telling him she’s been a militia member for five years and that she’s been taught to only attack those who can fight back. “Our commander trained us to follow a code. We don’t kill that can’t defend themselves,” she says. “And right now, that’s you. But I am going to kill you. Because it doesn’t matter if you have a code, like me, or you’re a lawless piece of shit, like you. There are just some things everyone agrees are just fucking wrong.”
We’re not sure what Abby’s commander will have to say about that, but we don’t know them yet at all, really.
Who is the WLF leader?
In episode 1, Owen mentions the group’s leader, Isaac Dixon (Jeffrey Wright), who we’ve yet to meet. He’ll play a major role in the story, but all we know about him for now is that he’s the commander of the faction and the group rely on his approval — and Abby’s gone rogue.
The Last of Us Season 2 is now streaming on Max. New episodes air weekly on Sundays 9 p.m. ET on HBO.