Game Star Laura Bailey’s Cameo, Explained

By Emily Lemon On Mar 13, 2023

The following story contains some spoilers for The Last of Us Season 1 finale.

There was a lot going on during The Last of Us‘ dramatic, thrilling, Season 1 finale, including making most viewers dig deep to determine where they stand on a number of serious moral and ethical questions. So we couldn’t blame anyone for missing a cameo from a character whose face was almost entirely obscured by a surgical mask. Still, though, The Last of Us game players may or may not have heard a familiar voice from behind that mask: that of Laura Bailey, who provided the voice for main character Abby in the 2020 sequel, The Last of Us Part II.

And while Laura Bailey’s brief cameo wasn’t even the only Last of Us video game cameo in the Season 1 finale—the episode opened with a scene featuring Ashley Johnson, who plays Ellie in the games, as Ellie’s mother, Anna, somewhat explaining Ellie’s origin and Cordyceps immunity—it’s certainly one that sets the table and the tone for what’s to come in Season 2, which will begin to tell the story (but not all) of The Last of Us Part II.

Bailey’s presence in The Last of Us‘ Season 1 finale is a subtle nod to fans of the games—like Troy Baker, Merle Dandridge, and Jeffrey Pierce’s presences before her—that HBO’s show owes everything to the groundbreaking narrative style of the games, and that the creators are going to be as loyal to the source material as they possibly can be.

And the cosign of the people who made the games what they were goes a very long way.

The Last of Us game star Laura Bailey is in The Last of Us HBO show’s Season 1 finale

HBO

Sony The Last of Us Part II – Standard Edition [Playstation 4] (Uncut)

Sony The Last of Us Part II – Standard Edition [Playstation 4] (Uncut)

Laura Bailey, who plays Abby in The Last of Us Part II, is in The Last of Us Season 1 finale, titled “Look for the Light.”

She appears in the scene during Joel’s violent killing rampage through the hospital, when he bursts into the operating room where Ellie has been sedated and is about to have the Cordyceps cut out of her brain. Bailey is behind Ellie, playing a nurse with a surgical mask covering her face.

Her presence as a key actor from the Last of Us video games coming over to the TV series follows in the footsteps of Troy Baker (who played Troy in the games and played David’s henchman James in the show), Ashley Johnson (who played Ellie in the games and Ellie’s mother, Anna, in the show), Jeffrey Pierce (who played Tommy in the games and Kathleen’s henchman Perry in the show), and Merle Dandridge (who played Marlene in both the games and the show).

Is Laura Bailey playing Abby in The Last of Us?

HBO

Minor spoilers for The Last of Us Part II: Abby is a character who, in the second game, is the daughter of the doctor who was about to operate on Ellie; the doctor who Joel murdered. Abby is a main character in the game, and her primary motivation is getting revenge on Joel for killing her father.

While the doctor in the show’s version of this scene will almost certainly figure into that plot thread when it comes around in Season 2, it’s not likely that Bailey’s nurse character is Abby. Given that Baker, Johnson, and Pierce all were given different roles from their video game character, it’s likely that Bailey’s fits into this same category, and was just that—a cameo.

Still, Bailey’s presence in a scene that featured the moment that served as the catalyst for her character’s motivation in the game—and will serve the same purpose for the storyline surely to come in the series—is a nod to fans of the game (and show fans who feel like looking it up) that this storyline is coming, and that it’s going to be handled with care.

In the coming months, you should keep an eye out for casting around The Last of Us Season 2—which is coming, and will likely feature a new actress as Abby in a major way.

Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.