Short answer: After Abby kills Joel, Ellie travels to Seattle for revenge. The story then switches to Abby’s perspective and reveals that she is avenging her father, the surgeon Joel killed while rescuing Ellie. Ellie eventually finds Abby in Santa Barbara, chooses not to kill her, and returns to an empty farmhouse after losing the life she built with Dina and JJ.
Note: This is a full-spoiler explanation of The Last of Us Part II, including major spoilers for the first The Last of Us and the entire sequel. It discusses the game, not the HBO adaptation.
In short: The Last of Us Part II begins as Ellie’s revenge story after Abby kills Joel. It then retells much of the same period from Abby’s perspective, revealing that Abby is avenging her own father, the Firefly surgeon Joel killed. By the end, Ellie has lost almost everything while pursuing revenge, but chooses not to kill Abby when she finally has the chance.
What happened in the first The Last of Us?
The sequel depends on one decision from the first game.
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Joel Miller escorts Ellie Williams across a United States devastated by a fungal pandemic. Ellie is immune to the infection, and the Fireflies believe that examining her immunity could allow them to pursue a cure. When they reach a Firefly hospital, Joel learns that the operation they plan to perform will kill Ellie. The game does not establish with complete certainty that the procedure would have produced a cure, but Joel understands that Ellie will not survive it.
Joel refuses to let the Fireflies operate. He fights through the hospital, kills the surgeon and other Fireflies, rescues Ellie while she is unconscious, and escapes. He then tells Ellie that the Fireflies had stopped looking for a cure and that her immunity could not help them.
Joel’s lie protects Ellie from the immediate truth, but it also removes her ability to decide whether she would have risked her life. That question of agency matters more to Part II than whether the cure was scientifically guaranteed. Joel believed he was saving the person he loved. Ellie eventually understands that he also made an irreversible choice on her behalf.
1. Jackson: a peaceful life that is already breaking
Several years later, Joel and Ellie live in Jackson, Wyoming, a comparatively safe survivor community. Jackson has electricity, homes, patrols, schools, social gatherings, and enough stability for people to imagine a future. It is not free from infected or hostile outsiders, but it is very different from the ruined cities of the first game.
Joel and Ellie, however, are no longer as close as they once were. Ellie has discovered that Joel lied about the hospital. She is furious that he denied her the chance to make her own decision, and she is troubled by the feeling that her immunity and the sacrifice she thought she had made no longer have the meaning she assigned to them.
The relationship is not simply over. Ellie still loves Joel, and flashbacks show her trying to work out whether forgiveness is possible. One of the most important memories takes place during a birthday trip to a museum, where Joel gives Ellie a rare moment of uncomplicated happiness. These memories establish that Joel’s death will not be the loss of a perfect relationship. It will be the loss of a damaged relationship that might still have been repaired.
2. Joel’s death
During a patrol outside Jackson, Joel and his brother Tommy encounter Abby Anderson. Abby has become separated from her companions and is in danger from infected and the surrounding weather. Joel and Tommy help her reach a nearby lodge, not knowing that she has spent years looking for Joel.
Abby is the daughter of the Firefly surgeon Joel killed in the hospital. After the Fireflies fell apart, she joined the Washington Liberation Front, usually called the WLF or the Wolves, and built her life around finding Joel and making him pay for her father’s death.
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At the lodge, Abby’s friends disarm Joel and Tommy. The group captures Joel, and Abby attacks him with a golf club. Ellie arrives in time to see Joel beaten to death, but not in time to save him. Abby and her group leave her alive. That decision gives Ellie a target, although Abby’s companions are initially only names and faces connected to the killing.
Ellie and Dina later find the aftermath. Ellie is consumed by grief and rage. Tommy also survives, but he leaves Jackson to pursue Abby on his own. Ellie, Dina, and eventually Jesse travel to Seattle, where Abby and her friends have gone.
3. Ellie’s Seattle campaign
Ellie’s Seattle journey is a search for Abby, but she cannot reach Abby directly. She has to move through a city controlled by the WLF, fight infected, evade hostile survivors, and identify the people who were present at the lodge.
Ellie and Dina arrive in Seattle and begin tracking the WLF group. Their route takes them through abandoned streets, checkpoints, stores, offices, tunnels, and other dangerous locations. The WLF soldiers are not faceless obstacles in the story’s larger design: they have names, friends, dogs, routines, and loyalties. Ellie is still capable of seeing them primarily as threats, but the game repeatedly shows that every person she kills belongs to somebody else’s life.
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Dina’s pregnancy and Jesse’s arrival
Dina becomes Ellie’s closest companion during the early part of the Seattle mission. Their relationship grows more intimate as they move through the city, but Dina eventually reveals that she is pregnant with Jesse’s child. Jesse, who had followed them from Jackson, arrives in Seattle to help them.
The pregnancy gives Ellie a possible alternative to revenge: a relationship, a family, and a future that is not built around Joel’s death. It also raises the cost of the danger she is choosing. Dina is not merely an ally who accompanies Ellie through the plot; she represents the life Ellie might have protected by turning back.
Nora at the hospital
Ellie learns that Abby has been connected to the Seattle hospital. She finds Nora, one of Abby’s companions, and chases her into an area filled with infected. Nora refuses to reveal Abby’s location. Ellie captures her and takes her to the hospital’s lower levels.
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There, Ellie tortures Nora for information. Nora eventually gives her enough to identify Abby’s location, but Ellie kills her afterward. The scene is a turning point because Ellie is no longer only fighting people who attack her. She is deliberately inflicting suffering to obtain information, and the violence leaves her visibly shaken.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchOwen and Mel at the aquarium
Ellie follows the trail to an aquarium, where she encounters Owen and Mel. Owen is Abby’s former partner and Mel is also close to Abby. The confrontation becomes violent, and Ellie kills them both. During the encounter, Ellie discovers that Mel is pregnant.
Ellie did not set out knowing every detail about Owen and Mel, but the revelation makes the consequences of her actions impossible for her to avoid. Jesse later helps Ellie and Dina reach a theater, which becomes the group’s temporary base. Tommy also returns from his own pursuit of Abby, badly injured but alive.
By the end of Ellie’s Seattle chapters, she has killed Nora, Owen, and Mel, along with numerous WLF soldiers and other enemies. She is closer to Abby, but she has also become increasingly isolated from the people trying to protect her.
4. Abby’s story: the enemy gets a history
At this point, the game rewinds and retells the Seattle section from Abby’s perspective. This is not a detached bonus campaign. It supplies the information that Ellie and the player did not have when Ellie was making her way through the city.
Abby is the woman who killed Joel, but her motivation is rooted in the hospital. Her father was the surgeon who would have performed the operation on Ellie. Joel’s rescue of Ellie killed him and destroyed the Fireflies’ immediate attempt to study Ellie’s immunity. Abby spent years turning that loss into a mission of revenge.
Her Seattle life is also more complicated than the opening chapters allow the player to see. Abby has close relationships with Owen, Mel, Nora, Manny, and other members of the WLF. She is loyal to some of them, resentful of others, and capable of participating in the same brutal violence that has damaged Ellie’s life.
Yara and Lev
Abby’s direction changes when she encounters two siblings from the Seraphites, a religious faction at war with the WLF. Yara and Lev have been rejected by their own community. Lev, who identifies as a boy, is treated by the Seraphites as a religious and social traitor. The siblings are hunted by both their former community and the wider violence consuming Seattle.
Yara is badly injured, and Abby initially helps the siblings partly because of her own sense of obligation and partly because Lev reminds her of a person she has lost. What begins as a rescue becomes a continuing responsibility. Abby obtains medical help for Yara, searches for supplies, and repeatedly returns to protect the two siblings despite the danger.
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The fall of the WLF
The conflict between the WLF and the Seraphites escalates into an all-out battle. Abby’s old world collapses as the WLF attacks the Seraphite island. Yara sacrifices herself so Abby and Lev can escape, and Lev is forced to confront the destruction of his former community.
After returning to the aquarium, Abby finds Owen and Mel dead. She understands that Ellie has reached Seattle and that the revenge she began by killing Joel has now moved through both groups. Abby finds a clue leading to the theater and goes there to confront Ellie.
5. The theater confrontation
The theater is where the two revenge stories collide.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsAbby attacks Ellie, Dina, Jesse, and Tommy. She kills Jesse almost immediately and shoots Tommy, leaving him severely injured. She then fights Ellie and defeats her. Abby is stronger and more experienced, and she appears to have won the confrontation.
Abby is about to kill Dina after learning that Dina is pregnant. Lev stops her. His presence reminds Abby of the responsibility she has chosen in the present, and she decides not to continue the killing. Abby spares Ellie and Dina, although she warns them not to come after her again.
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The theater seems to be the end of Ellie’s revenge quest. She has failed to kill Abby, lost Jesse, seen Tommy badly wounded, and watched Dina nearly die. But the story has one more flashback that changes what Ellie was actually trying to accomplish.
6. The final Joel flashback
Shortly before Joel’s death, Ellie confronted him about the hospital. She had returned to the site of the Firefly operation and forced him to acknowledge that his account had been false. Joel admitted what he had done.
Ellie told him that she did not know whether she could forgive him. She also told him that she wanted to try. They did not receive the years of reconciliation that either of them might have needed. Joel died soon afterward.
This memory changes the meaning of Ellie’s mission. She is certainly angry that Abby killed Joel, but her grief is also tied to the unfinished conversation between herself and Joel. She had only just begun to imagine forgiveness when the possibility was taken away.
Ellie’s journey is therefore not only an attempt to punish Joel’s killer. It is an attempt to regain control over a relationship that ended before she could decide what it would become. Killing Abby cannot restore Joel or finish the conversation. The game does not make Ellie’s revenge harmless, but it explains why stopping becomes possible only after Ellie remembers what she really wanted from Joel.
7. The farm
After Seattle, Ellie and Dina live on a remote farm with their baby, JJ. For a time, they have the peaceful home that Jackson and Seattle could not provide. Dina cares for JJ, Ellie tries to care for the family, and the two women have a life that exists outside the immediate conflict.
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Tommy eventually visits. He has been consumed by his own pursuit of Abby and brings Ellie information suggesting that Abby may be in Santa Barbara. Tommy is bitter that Ellie stopped at the theater and that Abby remains alive. Ellie decides to follow the lead.
Dina objects. She understands that leaving the farm may destroy the family they have built, and she refuses to treat revenge as more important than their child and their future. Ellie leaves anyway, this time traveling alone.
8. Santa Barbara and the beach fight
Abby and Lev have also reached Santa Barbara. They are searching for the remaining Fireflies after receiving information that a group may be regrouping there. Before they can reach them, they are captured by the Rattlers, a violent slaver faction that controls part of the area.
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The Rattlers imprison Abby and Lev, force them to work, and leave them physically broken by starvation, abuse, and exposure. When Ellie reaches Santa Barbara, she finds evidence of the prisoners and follows Abby’s trail.
Ellie eventually finds Abby and Lev tied to posts on a beach. Abby is barely recognizable after months of captivity. Ellie cuts them down, but she does not simply let them escape. She forces Abby into one final fight.
The fight is brutal and unequal in a different way. Both women are starving and exhausted, but Ellie gains the advantage. She holds Abby underwater and begins to drown her.
At the last moment, Ellie remembers Joel. The memory is not another image of his death. It is the porch conversation in which she told him that she wanted to try to forgive him. Ellie releases Abby.
Abby carries the weakened Lev to a boat, and the two leave Santa Barbara. Ellie does not join them. The game never definitively shows a reunion with the Fireflies. A post-game menu image is commonly interpreted as suggesting that Abby and Lev may have reached Catalina Island, but that outcome is implied rather than directly confirmed in the story.
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9. The farmhouse ending
Ellie returns to the farm and finds it empty. Dina and JJ have left. Their belongings and the remains of the domestic life are still there, but the family itself is gone.
Ellie picks up Joel’s guitar and tries to play the song associated with him. Abby bit off two of Ellie’s fingers during the beach fight, so Ellie can no longer play it as she once did. She sets the guitar down and walks away from the farmhouse.
The ending is deliberately unresolved. Ellie does not recover Joel, Dina, JJ, Jesse, or the life she abandoned. The game does not state where she goes next, and it does not promise that Dina will take her back.
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The strongest supported interpretation is that Ellie has finally broken the immediate cycle of revenge. She has not achieved emotional recovery, and sparing Abby does not make her previous killings disappear. But she has separated Joel’s memory from the demand to continue killing in his name. That is a possible beginning, not a neatly completed redemption story.
What the ending means
Ellie: revenge gives way to choice
Ellie begins the story convinced that Abby must die. Her anger comes from grief, but it is also tangled with guilt, Joel’s lie, and the knowledge that she and Joel had only just started moving toward forgiveness.
By the beach, revenge has cost Ellie nearly every source of stability she had: Jesse is dead, Tommy is permanently injured, Dina has left, and Ellie has lost two fingers. She still has the physical ability to kill Abby, but she no longer accepts that killing is the only way to honor Joel or control her grief.
Her decision is not complete recovery. The empty farmhouse makes that clear. It is a decision to stop adding another death to a chain that has already taken too much.
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Abby: a new responsibility interrupts an old one
Abby spends years defining herself through her father’s death. Joel is the center of her identity even though she hates him. After killing him, she does not become free; the violence continues through Ellie and eventually consumes her friends.
Yara and Lev give Abby a different responsibility. Protecting Lev does not absolve her, and the game does not ask the audience to forget what Abby has done. It does show her choosing care over the demands of her faction and over the revenge logic that once controlled her life.
Joel: absent, but present in every conflict
Joel is physically absent for most of the game, yet his decision determines almost every major event. He saved Ellie, lied to her, killed Abby’s father, and left both Ellie and Abby to live with the consequences.
The game avoids reducing his action to a simple verdict. Joel’s love for Ellie was real, but so was the fact that he denied her agency. Part II asks whether a person can love someone deeply and still cause profound harm in the name of that love.
Dina and Lev: possible futures
Dina and Lev serve as more than supporting characters. Dina represents the family and future Ellie can build if she stops living inside Joel’s death. Lev represents a similar possibility for Abby: a relationship based on protecting someone now rather than punishing someone for the past.
Both protagonists repeatedly approach that future and then turn away from it. Ellie leaves Dina and JJ to pursue Abby. Abby returns to danger to save Lev. The parallel is not perfect, but it is central to the game’s structure.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why the game tells the story out of order
A straightforward chronological retelling can make the plot easier to follow, but it removes part of the game’s intended experience. The first half puts the audience inside Ellie’s grief. Abby is introduced as the person who took Joel away, and her motives are withheld.
After Ellie has killed several members of Abby’s group, the game makes the player become Abby. It revisits the same city, the same factions, and some of the same people from another point of view. Owen, Mel, Nora, Manny, Yara, and Lev stop being background figures in Ellie’s pursuit and become part of Abby’s world.
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That reversal does not require the audience to decide that Ellie and Abby are identical or that every action is morally equal. Its purpose is to show how easily each side can describe itself as the protagonist. Ellie sees Abby as the person who murdered Joel. Abby sees Joel as the person who murdered her father. Both women inherit violence committed before they chose their own paths, and both continue it through choices they make themselves.
The later Joel flashback performs a similar reversal inside Ellie’s story. It reveals that Ellie’s goal was never only to make Abby suffer. She was also struggling with love, anger, guilt, and an unfinished attempt at forgiveness. The order of revelation is therefore part of the game’s argument: perspective changes what earlier events mean.
Major themes
- Revenge as inheritance: Violence passes through families, communities, and chosen loyalties. Ellie inherits the consequences of Joel’s hospital decision, while Abby inherits the consequences of her father’s death.
- Agency and consent: Ellie’s deepest anger is not only that Joel lied. It is that he made the decision for her and removed her ability to choose what happened to her own life.
- Grief and unfinished forgiveness: Ellie and Joel begin moving toward an honest relationship only shortly before Joel dies. The loss is painful partly because reconciliation has started but cannot be completed.
- Perspective: By making the player inhabit Abby after Ellie’s campaign, the game turns an enemy into a person with history, relationships, fear, and responsibility.
- Redemption without erasure: Abby’s care for Lev does not cancel her violence. Ellie’s decision to release Abby does not restore the people she lost. Neither woman receives simple moral absolution.
Does Ellie kill Abby?
No. Ellie defeats Abby on the Santa Barbara beach and begins drowning her, but she lets her go after remembering Joel. Abby and Lev escape by boat.
What happens to Dina and JJ?
When Ellie returns to the farm, Dina and JJ are gone. The game strongly indicates that Dina has left after Ellie abandoned the family to pursue Abby, but it does not show where they go or whether Ellie and Dina reunite.
Is Abby’s reunion with the Fireflies confirmed?
No. Abby and Lev leave Santa Barbara looking for the Fireflies. The game does not show a confirmed reunion. The post-game menu image is often read as a hint that they may have reached Catalina Island, but that is an implication rather than an explicitly shown event.
Is the cure in the first game certain?
No. The important established facts are that Ellie is immune, the Fireflies believed her condition might help them pursue a cure, and the planned procedure would kill her as Joel understood it. Part II focuses on Ellie’s lost ability to choose rather than proving that the cure would definitely have worked.
Is this the same story as the HBO series?
No. This article covers Naughty Dog’s video game sequel. The HBO adaptation can change pacing, character details, and future events, so its version should not be treated as a scene-for-scene confirmation of the game’s plot.
If you decide to play it instead
The current version to look for is The Last of Us Part II Remastered, which contains the main campaign and adds No Return, Lost Levels with developer commentary, Guitar Free Play, Speedrun Mode, enhanced visuals, additional accessibility features, and Photo Mode additions.
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The official Remastered product line identifies PS5 and PC versions. The PC edition was announced for Steam and the Epic Games Store with an April 3, 2025 release date. On PS5, the edition also supports DualSense haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, although a DualSense controller is an accessory rather than a requirement of the story.
If you play on PC and encounter problems, begin with ordinary troubleshooting: install the latest game patch, check the official system requirements, update graphics drivers from the GPU manufacturer, review graphics settings, verify available storage, and check temperatures. Third-party Windows utilities are not official Naughty Dog or PlayStation recommendations and are not guaranteed fixes for this game.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Ellie kill Abby in The Last of Us Part II?
No. Ellie defeats Abby on the Santa Barbara beach but releases her after remembering Joel. Abby leaves with Lev.
What happens to Dina and JJ?
Dina and JJ are gone when Ellie returns to the farm. The game implies Dina left after Ellie abandoned their family to pursue Abby, but it does not confirm whether they reunite.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesDoes Abby find the Fireflies?
No. Abby and Lev leave Santa Barbara searching for the Fireflies, but the game does not show their reunion. A menu image is commonly interpreted as suggesting Catalina Island, but that is not confirmed.
Would the Fireflies definitely have created a cure?
The game establishes that the operation would kill Ellie as Joel understood it, but it does not prove that the Fireflies would certainly have created a cure. Part II is primarily concerned with Ellie’s lost agency.
Is this the HBO version of The Last of Us Part II?
No. This recap covers the video game. The HBO adaptation can differ in pacing, characterization, and future plot details.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: The Last of Us Part II is not a story in which Ellie defeats Abby and gets her old life back. It is a story about two people trapped in inherited violence, and about Ellie finally refusing to make one more killing the condition for moving forward.
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