HBO's The Last of Us series finale has come and gone and fans were treated to a few easter eggs, such as the original Ellie voice actor, Ashley Johnson, making an appearance as Ellie's mother and Abby's voice actor hiding behind a surgical mask in the climatic end sequence. But was there another nod to the games?
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the final episode yet or played either of the games, you will encounter spoilers down below. Read on at your own risk. In The Last of Us series finale, we see Pedro Pascal's Joel Miller stomp through the Firefly's hospital, taking out anybody who stands between him and Ellie. He's a man on a mission, and it's a truly shocking turn for the character as he kills armed and unarmed enemies with no sign of remorse.
Before Joel makes it to the operating theater where Ellie has been sedated to undergo surgery to remove the cordyceps from her brain, Joel engages with a dozen or so Fireflies. In one sequence, we see Joel taking cover around a corner while a Firefly takes shots from behind a nurse's station. Joel pops out from cover and slots the Firefly while another character makes off down the hallway and escapes Joel's wrath.
This character is not seen clearly during the run of the show, though there is the possibility this character may be none other than Abby from The Last of Us Part 2. Check out the gif below.
We can see a shadowed character running away from Joel, but how do we know this is Abby? We don't, really, but the big clue is in the braided ponytail clearly flowing behind the character as they run away.
While Abby didn't appear in the first The Last of Us game, it would make sense for her to be here at the conclusion of the TV show as her story in The Last of Us Part 2 is directly connected to the ending of The Last of Us.
When Joel finally makes it to the operating room where he finds Ellie unconscious but still alive, he enters into a standoff with the surgeon who wields a scalpel. Joel shoots this man dead in the head, though in an act of mercy, he leaves the assistants alive while he scoops up Ellie and makes his way down to the hospital basement where he comes to his last obstacle: Marlene.
The surgeon Joel shot? We find out in The Last of Us Part 2 that this was Abby's father. It stands to reason that Abby would be nearby her father in the original The Last of Us, so the writers of the show may have taken the opportunity to fill in some blank spaces and set up the confirmed The Last of Us season 2 by having a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance that can be called back to in a future episode.