Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for The Last of Us: Part II video game.
The Big Picture
- Jeffrey Wright has joined
The Last of Us
Season 2, reprising his role as Isaac, the ruthless WLF leader controlling Seattle. - Isaac has a dark past as a Marine Corps soldier, known for public executions and brutal dominion.
- Wright’s role may embrace unused content from
The Last of Us: Part II
, as the series diverges from the game’s structure.
With The Last of UsSeason 2 currently in production, it was recently announced that Jeffrey Wright had been cast as Isaac, marking the second time an actor from the successful game franchise has reprised their role on the HBO television series. Wright has become a household name thanks to projects like Westworld and Casino Royale, but recently received more attention for his role as Jim Gordon in The Batman and starred in the Oscar-nominated American Fiction last year.
The first season of The Last of Us, largely adapted from the Naughty Dog video game, follows Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) journey across zombie-ridden America. In The Last of Us: Part II game, players also inhabit the character of Abby (who will be played by Kaitlyn Dever), a young woman who has unfinished business with Joel in the aftermath of the first game’s (and first season’s) events. Abby also reports directly to Wright’s Isaac, and while the character doesn’t have a lot of screen time overall, his presence looms large over the second half of Part II.
Wright’s casting also poses an important question about how Season 2 will be structured. While The Last of Us co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have already confirmed Part II‘s plot will be split across more than one season, Part II also uses a non-linear narrative to tell opposing sides of the same story, and Isaac doesn’t appear until the second half of the game. This recent casting news suggests that theHBO series may diverge from the game’s structure — but who is Isaac, really, and why is he so important to The Last of Us?
How Does the WLF Connect to Isaac in ‘The Last of Us’?
Isaac is the commander of the Washington Liberation Front, one of the two main factions in The Last of Us:Part II. The WLF (often nicknamed “Wolves”) is an organized military group controlling Seattle, where most of Season 2 takes place. Isaac was one of the founding members of the WLF, which started as a rebel group in protest of FEDRA (the Federal Disaster Response Agency). Similar to Kathleen’s (Melanie Lynskey) resistance group, which overthrew FEDRA in Season 1, the WLF grew tired of FEDRA’s authoritarian control and abuse of power.
After a bloody rebellion, the WLF drove FEDRA out of Seattle, with Isaac one of the few surviving leaders. The Wolves then took on FEDRA’s responsibilities, securing supply lines across the city and protecting the community. As the threat of infection escalated, Isaac elected to resettle his followers in SoundView Sstadium, the in-world equivalent of Seattle’s CenturyLink Stadium. Under Isaac’s leadership, the WLF became a paramilitary organization and formed a civilized society, developing sustainable energy resources, and providing safety from the infected as well as a functioning economy. On the surface, the WLF seemed to restore some semblance of humanity to post-apocalyptic America. However, as time went on, Isaac’s brutal nature began to show.
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Isaac Has a Dark Past in ‘The Last of Us’
While Isaac’s life before the apocalypse remains a mystery, he was a soldier in the U.S. Marine Corps. This explains his aptitude for combat, leadership, discipline, and above all else, torture and interrogation. Once he became a leader of the WLF, Isaac successfully resettled the Wolves in SoundView Stadium, but many citizens refused to migrate. Anyone who disobeyed Isaac’s orders was subjected to public execution, including families and children.
In Part II, players can discover the remnants of Hillcrest, a small community that preferred independence from the WLF regime. In retaliation for their defiance, Isaac led an assault on the small town until the survivors fell into rank. As the WLF expanded its domain, Isaac sought total dominance over Seattle under the guise of forming a safe society for civilians. However, by the time the player meets Isaac in the game, he has turned the WLF into a faction even worse than FEDRA.
‘The Last of Us: Part II’ Introduces the War Between the Wolves and the Seraphites
The Last Of Us: Part II introduces Isaac to the player while torturing a Seraphite prisoner, setting up his main conflict. Isaac fights a losing battle against the Seraphites, which the player must navigate through while exploring Seattle. The Seraphites are also known as “Scars,” earning their nickname from the self-imposed scars on their cheeks, and they are members of a primitive religious extremist cult that vie for control of Seattle. Isaac enforced a brutal regime against the Scars, conducting public executions and repurposing an entire hotel into a WLF station designed for torture and interrogation. Isaac has a history of brokering peace, only to destroy it later and murder his captives.
After capturing the Seraphite leader, the Prophet, he held her prisoner to halt further conflict with the Scars. However, the Prophet gradually convinced more Wolves that their war was fruitless and destructive, undermining Isaac’s authority. He then decided to execute the Prophet, which turned her into a martyr and resulted in a massive battle between the two factions that allowed the Scars to win territory in the area. Isaac’s missteps in leadership speak to the overarching themes of The Last of Us, which provides a commentary on the cycle of violence and revenge. He allows Abby to go on her mission to track down Joel and seek vengeance for her own father’s death, and he represents the broader problem that Part II tackles — that violence and revenge are self-destructive and continue a cycle that will only create more devastation.
How Isaac will feature in The Last of Us Season 2 is still unclear. Given that Part II is split across multiple seasons, and Wright’s character doesn’t appear until the latter half of the story, Isaac may very well feature in new scenes set before the events of Part II. The character originally had a more significant presence in the original story of the second game, but his role was ultimately reduced, meaning we could see some of Part II‘s unused content in HBO’s adaptation. Given that Season 2 may also abandon the non-linear narrative structure of the game and tell events in chronological order, that would explain a bigger appearance from Wright.
It will be interesting to see how Wright’s performance translates to television, and whether there will be any significant changes made to the character’s original depiction in the games. The Last of Us Season 2 is currently in production, scheduled for release later next year. Until then, fans can always return to the games to experience the WLF leader for themselves.
The Last of Us is available to stream on Max in the U.S.
This article was originally published on collider.com