‘The Last of Us’ Season 2: What is the Washington Liberation Front?

We’re back with The Last of Us Season 2, with mysterious new characters and geared-up new factions to avoid like the plague or join, depending on your priorities in the apocalypse. 

In Season 1 of Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann’s Naughty Dog game adaptation, it was all about FEDRA and the Fireflies. But now, with the majority of Fireflies sent into oblivion by Joel (Pedro Pascal) in the Season 1 finale, the faction has evolved elsewhere.

In Season 2, episode 1, we meet Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and her crew of Fireflies. But in subsequent episodes they’ve become members of a group with a wolf logo on their gear. But who is this new faction? Are they good or bad?

Now, it’ll be unfeasible for me to tell you everything about this group — if you’ve played the games, you’ll know what happens with this group in The Last of Us Part II. But here’s what I can tell viewers of the HBO series about the WLF as it happens in Season 2 (with no spoilers beyond what happens in the latest episode on Max).

Wait, who are the Fireflies again?

One of the last conversations between Marlene (Merle Dandridge) and Joel (Pedro Pascal).
Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBO

They were a highly skilled, revolutionary militia group whose aim was to liberate quarantine zones (QZs) from the U.S. government’s military arm, FEDRA, who in turn branded them terrorists. You might remember Joel and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) found their graffiti on walls all through Season 1 — their motto was “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.” You might also remember Ellie was a FEDRA cadet with her best friend and first love, Riley (Storm Reid), whose plans to join the Fireflies were fatally derailed.

The Fireflies’ leader, Marlene (Merle Dandridge), was the one who sent Tess (Anna Torv) and Joel on the mission to retrieve Ellie in the first place, taking her from the Fireflies’ Boston QZ hideout to a Salt Lake City base camp where doctors were working on a cure for the Cordyceps pandemic (remember, Ellie’s immune to Infected bites). Marlene would also be the last Firefly killed by Joel at the hospital, after he learned Ellie would be sacrificed for such research — it’s the big point of contention between them.

The Fireflies said they needed to kill Ellie for a cure. Joel said nah.
Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBO

And it’s at this very medical facility we meet Abby’s group of soon-to-be WLF members for the first time in Season 2, episode 1, reeling from what they’ve found.

What is the Washington Liberation Front in The Last of Us?

Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) is a member of the WLF.
Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBO

A militia group hailing from Seattle, the Washington Liberation Front (WLF) are identifiable by their logo featuring a snarling wolf on a yellow triangle — the first time we see this is in episode 2 on one of their backpacks, and Ellie and Dina continue to find their logo in subsequent episodes. Made up of former Fireflies and new members, the WLF are still a bit of a mystery at this point, but members of the group have already done major damage.

In Season 2, episode 1, we meet former Firefly and future WLF member Abby and her friends, Manny (Danny Ramirez), Nora (Tati Gabrielle), Mel (Ariela Barer), and Owen (Spencer Lord), who have discovered the remnants of Joel’s massacre of the Fireflies in Salt Lake City. To say they look pissed is an understatement, but Abby is the one who decides they should prioritise tracking down the killer.

We find Abby and her friends again hiding out in a mountain cabin in the second episode (The Terrible One We Won’t Get Over Anytime Soon), where Abby lures Joel and Dina (Isabela Merced) into a fatal trap. Before murdering Joel, she reveals to him that her father was one of the Fireflies he killed in the season finale, the surgeon who was about to operate on Ellie. (Nora tells Ellie this in episode 5, to which Ellie says, “I know.” What!?)

But what’s Abby’s actual involvement with the WLF? Before bludgeoning him to death, Abby tells Joel she’s been a militia member for five years and that she’s been taught to only attack those who can fight back. “Our commander trained us to follow a code. We don’t kill those that can’t defend themselves,” she says. “And right now, that’s you. But I am going to kill you. Because it doesn’t matter if you have a code, like me, or you’re a lawless piece of shit, like you. There are just some things everyone agrees are just fucking wrong.”

We’re not sure what Abby’s commander will have to say about how she’s gone about her vengeance — more on him below.

Where is the WLF base?

Manny (Danny Ramirez) keeps watch from the Space Needle.
Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBO

As we learn over the first few episodes of The Last of Us Season 2, the WLF is based in Seattle. But it’s not until episodes 3 and 4 we actually get to see the scale of the group, with episode 5 really dropping a reality check on our protagonists.

While Ellie and Dina assume the Wolves are a small faction, in the final moments of episode 3 we see Manny back in Seattle in the crumbling Space Needle overseeing multiple city checkpoints. Then, we see giant tanks rolling through the streets, the type FEDRA used in the first season. They’re accompanied by at least 50 foot soldiers, armed to the teeth. We meet plenty more of these armed soldiers in episodes 4 and 5, with Ellie and Dina’s path through Seattle riddled with them, with well-organised patrols covering every inch of the city.

They’ve also got access to Seattle’s Lakehill Hospital, a major resource — and where Ellie locates Nora for their showdown. Also in episode 5, influential WLF member Hanrahan (Alanna Ubach) interrogates commanding officer Elise Park (Hettienne Park) about a mission that went terribly wrong in the hospital basement.

Infiltrating the WLF to kill Abby won’t be a walk in the park after all.

Who is the WLF leader, Isaac?

Meet Isaac (Jeffrey Wright).
Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBO

In episode 1, Owen mentions the group’s leader, Isaac Dixon (Jeffrey Wright). But we don’t meet him until episode 4, with the opening scene showing Isaac as a former FEDRA captain who defects and kills an entire unit of soldiers. Later in the episode, Isaac tortures a Seraphite man in a well-equipped kitchen, presumably in the WLF base, demanding to know where the group will attack next.

Mashable’s Sam Haysom has a whole explainer on who Isaac is.

What’s the deal between the WLF and the Seraphites?

This looks…bad.
Credit: Liane Hentscher / HBO

In episode 3, we meet another new group called the Seraphites or “Scars” on a forest trail near Seattle. Their leader calls for everyone to take cover when it appears “Wolves” are on their path. They look terrified. Judging by the Seraphite leader’s reaction to “Wolves” over what his daughter calls “Demons” as a threat, we think they’re more scared of the WLF than they are of Infected. And they should be, as as Ellie and Dina discover the entire Seraphite party slain at the end of the episode.

The relationship between the WLF and the Seraphites is direct opposition. In episode 4’s interrogation scene, both Isaac and his captive accuse the WLF and the Seraphites of “breaking the truce” — the closest we’ve come to figuring this out is the presence of apparent territorial boundaries within Seattle. In episode 5, the WLF soldiers chasing Ellie, Dina, and Jesse into the park will not enter it, as it’s revealed to be Seraphite territory.

From the looks of the WLF’s tanks, guns, and foot soldiers in episodes 3 and 4, the odds seem somewhat against the Seraphites. In episode 4, Isaac looks amused when his captive says his side will lose. “We have automatic weapons and hospitals, you lunatics have bolt action rifles, bows and arrows, and superstition,” he says. “So tell me how are we going to lose?” With the Seraphites rejecting modern technology, the WLF also openly talk about their locations and identities on their radios, as Dina points out in episode 5, “These MFs talk on the radio like they know no one’s listening.”

But it gets bloody. In episode 4, Ellie and Dina find a WLF man riddled with arrows in a Seattle building and later find a whole group of Wolves hanged and disembowelled, lit from beneath, with a Seraphite symbol and message written in their blood on the wall reading “Feel her love.” It’s meant to be found as a message, referring to the Seraphites’ spiritual leader, the Prophet. Then, in episode 5, Ellie and Dina find a group of Seraphites murdered beneath a mural of the Prophet, and must stay hidden as a WLF soldier is hanged and disembowelled even after offering to defect and reveal Isaac’s location.

As Dina says, “What the fuck is wrong with Seattle?”

The Last of Us Season 2 is now streaming on Max. New episodes air weekly on Sundays 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

Watching The Last of Us and want to play the games? Here’s how.