Kaitlyn Dever will be playing the role of Abby in the upcoming second season of HBO’s The Last of Us, based on the hit video game series. But because some gamers belong to a weird flock of freaks who take gaming far too seriously, Dever has been assigned a security detail to make sure none of them do anything dangerous.
Actress Isabel Merced spoke about Dever’s security detail in an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, hosted by Josh Horowitz. Merced plays the character Dina on The Last of Us; according to the show’s creators, there could possibly be two seasons after this one, and Abby and Dina will feature prominently. Which is to say that anyone who doesn’t like Abby better strap in—you’re about to get a lot of her.
If you’re wondering why Kaitlyn Dever needs a security detail, well, there are a few reasons.
Abby’s character is despised by some, to the point of self-induced insanity, largely relating to gender roles. As in the video game, Abby is portrayed as a muscular woman, which some gamers didn’t like. Abby also befriends a trans character throughout the game’s narrative. There’s been some (mostly negative) speculation that Abby is herself a trans woman, even though she is not. And then, of course, there is the major narrative spoiler that I’m going to gently tiptoe around by simply saying that Abby does a thing in the video game that some gamers reacted to as if it happened to them in real life.
Now, if you think a security detail for an actress playing a disliked video game character is a bit much, there is precedent. Laura Bailey is the wildly accomplished voice actress who portrayed Abby in 2020’s The Last Of Us Part Two. Unhinged weirdos also sent her death threats and even threatened the life of her child, who was an infant at the time. Neil Druckmann, one of the show’s executive producers and the creative director of the video game series, also received an enormous amount of completely unwarranted hatred and death threats.
Devery isn’t a bodybuilder. She isn’t trans. But she’ll probably befriend a trans person in the show, and she still might do the thing she does in the game that caused a lot of weirdo brains to spray sparks and smoke. That’s more than enough to make some unhinged folk flip their shit like it was 2020 all over again.
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