Whereas HBO’s The Final of Us has already barely deviated from the online game plot-wise, the post-apocalyptic collection goes a step additional by introducing Kathleen, a completely new character performed by Melanie Lynskey in Episode 4. The sneak preview offers solely a glimpse of Kathleen, who’s described because the “ruthless chief of a revolutionary motion” in Kansas Metropolis, however in that single clip, she nonetheless seems to be a badass, pointing a gun at somebody’s head asking, “The place is he?” As a result of Kathleen didn’t seem within the Naughty Canine video games, the “he” she is referring to stays about as a lot a thriller because the function itself, however there are nonetheless loads of hints about what Lynskey’s character is likely to be as much as in HBO’s adaptation.
Throughout a The Final of Us panel at Brazil’s CCXP 2022 in December, collection co-creator Craig Mazin revealed that “Melanie performs a frontrunner of a gaggle that within the recreation had been referred to as the Hunters,” although noting that “within the present, they’re a bit completely different.” In The Final of Us online game, the violent survivor group efficiently revolted towards FEDRA’s navy occupation of their native quarantine zone, and afterward turned recognized for brutally murdering any “vacationer” who enters their territory earlier than stealing all of their belongings and provides.
“Melanie is a really difficult character,” Mazin continued. “She’s a superb actor, and we wanted someone who might painting someone that was doing horrible issues, however then if you bought to know her, you understood why and truly felt for her. One of many issues that [Neil Druckmann] created with the sport was this philosophy that nobody’s ever purely good, nobody is ever purely evil; we’ve got the capability to do each. And Melanie Lynskey performs someone that I feel you’re gonna hate and then you definitely’re gonna love.”
In Druckmann’s recreation, Joel and Ellie encounter the Hunters in Pittsburgh, not Kansas Metropolis, however the episode’s trailer appears to point the plot will mirror the occasions that happen in Pennsylvania, the place the duo meets brothers Henry and Sam. When HBO introduced in August that they’d forged Lamar Johnson and Keivonn Woodard to play Henry and Sam, who seem in Episode 5, the community additionally confirmed that the brothers could be “hiding from a revolutionary motion looking for vengeance” in Kansas Metropolis. Based on The New Yorker, Lynskey’s Kathleen was written as a “insurgent chief fixated on revenge” so as to function a cautionary story for Joel, hinting that “grief reworked them each into stronger, sharper, and, in some ways, baser variations of themselves.”
After Lynskey’s “shock” function was revealed when the Final of Us trailer dropped in September, the Yellowjackets actor has shared some extra small particulars on social media, too. After Lynskey admitted to Mindy Kaling on Twitter that she could be useless in a single second within the present’s Cordyceps-ravaged dystopian world, she added that she was nonetheless honored to affix the collection. “I’m thrilled/excited/honoured and tremendous pleased with the episodes I’m in!” Lynskey tweeted on Jan. 31, including that she was additionally painfully conscious that she needed to comply with the poignant Invoice and Frank episode, starring Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett. “This present is so, so good the entire manner by means of. But in addition I shall be following the masterpiece to finish all masterpieces so *gulp*”
Earlier the identical day, Lynskey additionally posted that if she ever wins an Emmy, she desires to present it to Mazin for writing The Final of Us Episode 3. “He can simply hold it with all the opposite Emmys he’ll get for this present,” she wrote, including, “If he appears like he has too many Emmys, he can provide it to Murray Bartlett or Nick Offerman or actually anybody concerned.”