Riley Abel

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Riley Abel was Ellie's best friend at a military boarding school run by the Federal Disaster Response Agency (FEDRA) in Boston, Massachusetts. Several months before the events of the main story, Riley had joined the Fireflies—a rebel group opposing FEDRA—and left Ellie alone at the school for weeks. Riley took Ellie to an abandoned mall, where Ellie was overjoyed to experience an escalator, carousel, photo booth, and arcade. When Ellie found Riley's bed and homemade bombs, she confronted Riley about the Fireflies' violent philosophies. Riley revealed the Fireflies were moving her to the Atlanta Quarantine Zone, and she brought Ellie to the mall to say goodbye. Ellie initially stormed out but returned, and the two danced together. Ellie desperately pleaded with Riley not to leave, and Riley agreed. They kissed. An infected, drawn to the noise, attacked the pair. Ellie eventually killed it, but both she and Riley had been bitten. Riley suggested they let themselves turn together, arguing that no matter how little time together they had left, it was worth fighting for.

In Their Own Story

The cold wind bit through their jackets as they huddled behind the ruined storefront. Riley checked her watch, eyes scanning the street for patrol lights. She handed Ellie the stolen radio, her smile dim but determined. 'We're getting out,' she whispered, ignoring the tremble in her hands. Ellie nodded, clutching the device like a lifeline. They didn't know then that the world outside the walls was just as hungry as what waited behind them.

Reader's Guide

The episode "Left Behind" is an adaptation of The Last of Us: Left Behind (2014), an expansion pack to the video game on which the series is based. The episode was written by series co-creator Neil Druckmann and directed by Liza Johnson. Johnson played the game after being assigned to direct. Druckmann and series co-creator Craig Mazin encouraged Johnson and cinematographer Ksenia Sereda to take liberties with the episode and not feel constrained to replicating the source material. For Riley's first appearance in the comic book The Last of Us: American Dreams, artist Faith Erin Hicks and developers at Naughty Dog created an original fictional arcade game, The Turning, to circumvent issues with licensing; for the television series, Druckmann and Mazin were able to use Mortal Kombat II (1993), the game on which The Turning was based. The episode was filmed in January and February 2022 in Calgary, Alberta.

Did You Know?

• Storm Reid was unfamiliar with the game prior to her casting; she watched snippets of gameplay to understand the emotion but otherwise avoided the game to ensure an original take on the role.
• Reid worked on the series for about a month.
• The scene at the arcade was improvised; Ramsey and Reid were playing a working version of Mortal Kombat II.
• Reid found the final scene emotional to perform as it was one of the last filmed.
• Ramsey and Reid had little time to bond prior to production but became close over the course of production; Reid called Ramsey 'Mom' in one take.