The Last of Us Casts 100 Things to Do Before High School’s Isabela Merced as Someone Very Important to Ellie

Kimberly Roots
·2 min read
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Looks like Ellie will have someone new to share No Pun Intended: Volume Too with when The Last of Us returns for Season 2.

Isabela Merced (100 Things to Do Before High School) has joined the cast as Dina, TVLine has learned.

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Dina is “a free-wheeling spirit whose devotion to Ellie will be tested by the brutality of the world they inhabit,” according to the official character description.

“Dina is warm, brilliant, wild, funny, moral, dangerous and instantly lovable,” show bosses Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin said via a joint statement. “You can search forever for an actor who effortlessly embodies all of those things, or you can find Isabela Merced right away. We couldn’t be prouder to have her join our family.”

While Season 2 will mark Merced’s start with the show, there’s a chance we’ve already seen Dina on the HBO series. In the first season’s Episode 6, “Kin,” a girl stared at Ellie soon after she and Joel were brought into Jackson, Wyo. When Ellie noticed the girl and took affront, the girl quickly walked away. Fans familiar with The Last of Us Part II, the video game on which Season 2 will be based, noted on social media that the encounter seemed like one that’s referenced in that game.

Druckmann commented on the moment during an episode of The Last of Us Podcast, saying that in the game, “there is a story about the first time Dina met Ellie that is very similar to what happens here.” Added Mazin: “That doesn’t mean that it’s Dina, but it doesn’t mean it’s not.”

In addition to appearing in Nickelodeon’s 100 Things to Do Before High School, Merced’s TV credits include Growing Up Fisher and voice work on Dora and Friends: Into the City, Maya and the Three and Spirit & Friends. She also played Dora the Explorer in the live-action movie Dora and the Lost City of Gold and will be seen as Hawkgirl in the upcoming Superman: Legacy.

Mazino is the third new Season 2 cast member HBO announced this week. She joins Kaitlyn Dever (Dopesick, Justified), who will play Abby, “a skilled soldier whose black-and-white view of the world is challenged as she seeks vengeance for those she loved;” and Young Mazino (BEEF), who will play Jesse, “a pillar of his community who puts everyone else’s needs before his own, sometimes at terrible cost.”

The Last of Us is tentatively slated to return to HBO in 2025.

What do you think about Merced’s casting? Let us know in the comments!

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