Why Abby From The Last Of Us Season 2 Looks So Familiar

This article contains discussions of addiction, sexual assault, and suicide.

Fans of "The Last of Us" — the video games, that is — know that Abby is an enormous character in the series' second outing, 2020's "The Last of Us Part II." Without getting too far into spoiler territory, the game has you play as Abby before even formally meeting her, which is a huge and surprising leap for players as they switch back and forth between this new character and Ellie, who's played by Bella Ramsey in the television adaptation. It's entirely too easy to get into that aforementioned spoiler territory when talking about Abby, though, so let's turn our attention instead to Kaitlyn Dever, the actress who plays her in Season 2 of HBO's hit series "The Last of Us."

Dever has been acting since around 2009, appearing in TV projects like "Justified" and "Last Man Standing" in promient roles as well as short stints on hits like "Modern Family," "Party Down," and "The Mentalist" and movies like "J. Edgar" and "Bad Teacher." These days, Dever is one of Hollywood's most in-demand young performers ... so where have you seen her before?

Olivia Wilde's 2019 directorial debut "Booksmart" is, without a doubt, one of the best teen movies ever made — which is saying something, since it's a pretty late addition to the genre. Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein star as best friends Amy Antsler and Molly Davidson who are about to graduate from high school and are ready to get away from their classmates and attend Ivy League schools (Molly is heading to Yale, and Amy is supposed to start at Columbia in the fall). Molly's worldview is shattered, however, when she realizes that some of those classmates, including Molly Gordon's Annabelle, are also heading to prestigious schools like Yale; they got good grades too but didn't make overachieving their entire personality like Molly did. Incensed, Molly declares that she and Amy need to have one extremely fun night before they attend graduation the next morning.

Dressed in matching jumpsuits and ready for anything, Amy and Molly try desperately to make it to one specific party — ending up in a bunch of bizarre situations along the way — and link up with their crushes (Molly pretends she's not totally into Mason Gooding's Nick, and Amy is carrying a torch for Diana Silvers' Hope). Even as their friendship is threatened by the revelation that Amy is taking a gap year to volunteer in Botswana — screwing up Molly's ideal timeline for the two of them — Amy and Molly are two of the coolest best friends we've seen on recent years, and Dever and Feldstein are both excellent. (Also, Billie Lourd has a running gag where she pops up at every single event, and it's awesome.)

Based on the Tony-winning Broadway musical of the same name, the 2021 film "Dear Evan Hansen" is ... a wildly misguided attempt at adaptation, largely because Ben Platt reprises his role as Evan Hansen (or, as RuPaul calls him, "Dear"). On the surface, this isn't a bad thing; Platt is very talented, has a beautiful voice, and won a Tony for originating the role of Evan Hansen — a troubled teen who finds himself in a situation that spirals out of control — on Broadway. Platt was also, frankly, too old to be playing a high schooler in the movie, and ... to put it lightly, it shows.

That aside, "Dear Evan Hansen" is a musical that takes on some very difficult subject matter, and whether or not it succeeds with its message is up to your interpretation. Platt's Evan is an unpopular and anxious teen boy who, at the advice of his therapist, starts writing letters to himself as a source of encouragement, but after a misunderstanding, he pretends the letters were written by a boy named Connor Murphy (played mostly in flashbacks by Colton Ryan), a student who recently died by suicide. Because of this, Evan ends up ingratiating himself with Connor's parents Larry and Cynthia (Danny Pino and Amy Adams) and his sister Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), and as it happens, Evan's always had a crush on Zoe. Predictably, this lie does blow up in Evan's face eventually, but he does quite a bit of bonding with the Murphys first and even ends up romantically involved with Zoe. "Dear Evan Hansen" doesn't give Dever a whole lot to do, but she acquits herself well in this poorly regarded adaptation.

The 2022 romantic comedy "Ticket to Paradise" is notable for one big thing: it brings megawatt movie stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts, who previously played a couple in Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's" movies, back together again. This time, they're playing David and Georgia Cotton, a divorced couple who do not like to share a room if at all possible but who both attend the college graduation of their daughter Lily, played by Kaitlyn Dever. (There's a lot of chatter in the film about how Dever's Lily is about to embark on her legal career with a specific job but also specify that she graduated from college, meaning she hasn't been to law school yet ... but whatever.) When Lily heads to Bali for a post-graduation vacation with her best friend Wren (Billie Lourd), she ends up falling in love with a local guy named Gede (Maxime Bouttier), who works as a seaweed farmer off the coast. Georgia and David ultimately learn that Lily is going to marry Gede and move to Bali and decide they need to put a stop to the wedding by any means necessary.

Obviously, this is a recipe for disaster and a rift eventually opens up between David and Georgia and their daughter ... plus, they share a moment or two, since this is a romantic comedy. Dever is a delight, even though the movie belongs to Clooney and Roberts — and it's nice to see her in a big-budget studio comedy with two of Hollywood's hugest stars.

The 2019 Netflix miniseries "Unbelievable" is an incredibly sobering watch, but a necessary one — and it's one of Kaitlyn Dever's best roles to date. Based on the article "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" written by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong, which reported on a series of brutal sexual assaults in Washington and Colorado (as well as Miller and Armstrong's book "A False Report"). Dever plays Marie Adler, a young woman living in Washington who's assaulted by an unknown assailant and not shown any respect by the police who interrogate her; in fact, they make her relive the experience so many times that she ends up traumatized by that experience too. Thankfully, Colorado detectives Grace Rasmussen (Toni Collette) and Karen Duvall (Merritt Wever) notice that Marie's attack is similar to ones reported in their state, and they travel to Washington to help Marie.

Again, we cannot stress enough that "Unbelievable" is very difficult to watch, so do proceed with caution. With that said, Dever, Collette, and Wever are spectacularly good, and the show itself shines a light on the justice system's disregard of female victims and apparent unwillingness to pursue cases involving sexual assault, so if you feel comfortable watching "Unbelievable," you absolutely should.

Like "Unbelievable" before it, "Dopesick" isn't an easy watch — because, for the uninitiated, it focuses on the opioid epidemic in the United States and how it was largely engineered by corporate greed in the pharmaceutical industry. Based on Beth Macy's nonfiction book "Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America," "Dopesick" features a star-studded cast that includes Michael Keaton, Rosario Dawson, Peter Sarsgard, Michael Stuhlbarg, Will Poulter, and Kaitlyn Dever. So who does Dever play in the eight-episode miniseries, which takes place across two timelines (the 1990s and early 2000s)?

Dever plays Betsy Mallum, a coal miner with a serious back injury who ends up addicted to OxyContin thanks to Dr. Samuel Finnix (Keaton), who prescribes her the highly addictive medication on the advisement of pharmaceutical magnate Richard Sackler (Stuhlbarg). Throughout the series, we watch as Betsy grapples with her dehabilitating addiction to the drug and her increasingly dire state. Dever is phenomenal in this very difficult role, and watching her spend years under the dangerous influence of OxyContin (and other drugs) is devastating but gripping all the same.

Shows about scammers — like "The Dropout," which focuses on Elizabeth Holmes, or "Inventing Anna," which chronicles the misadventures of Anna Delvey — have been huge in recent years, and Netflix's 2025 series "Apple Cider Vinegar" is yet another entry into this somewhat new genre. Based on the book "The Woman Who Fooled the World" by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, "Apple Cider Vinegar" tells the story of real-life figure Belle Gibson — played by Kaitlyn Dever — who creates a massive career as a wellness guru despite spreading misinformation at best and dangerous lies at worst. As the Australian-born Belle, Dever turns in an admirable performance as a woman who pretends to be a cancer survivor in order to promote extremely dubious wellness regimes and "miracle" cures, and she's joined by Alycia Debnam-Carey as another fake influencer, Milla Blake.

"Apple Cider Vinegar" does, to be fair, tell the same story as a lot of other shows, including the ones listed above, but Dever is very good in this, so it's worth watching if you're looking for a deep dive on her career up until this point. As for "The Last of Us," season 2 premieres on Sunday, April 13 at 9 P.M. EST on Max and HBO.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org