What Is The Washington Liberation Front?

This post contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” season 2, episode 3, and some information from “The Last of Us Part II” video game.

Season 1 of “The Last of Us” was all about finding a new place in a world that was clutching to an older time. Wrecked by the Cordyceps virus, we got a ground-level view of just what civilization looked like, with small pockets of wanderers trying to make it through this mushroom-grown nightmare. Now, in season 2, the mission of vengeance that Ellie (Bella Ramsey) finds herself on has opened the gates of Jackson and sent her back into the wild to find Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who was last seen practicing her golf swing on Joel (Pedro Pascal) in a scene that delivered pure pit-of-your-stomach horror.

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Thankfully, courtesy of a keen-eyed Dina (Isabela Merced), Ellie knows that the top name of her kill list belongs to the WLF, a mysterious group that could spell danger for our hero and stop her from accomplishing her mission. But just what is the WLF? How many members are there? Is Ellie the only looming threat for this mysterious group, and who leads the pack of the unknown organization? To break it all down, here’s everything you need to know about one of the biggest threats in “The Last of Us” season 2 and the cold-blooded leader of them all who has a vendetta against another warring coalition.

While Joel and Ellie’s relationship was gradually falling apart, so too was an organization that they were making a desperate effort to avoid the last time we saw them. The WLF, also known as The Washington Liberation Front or Wolves, was a group formed out of rebellion against FEDRA (Federal Disaster Response Agency), which was operating as the last remaining entity applying law and order across the country. Their militaristic methods eventually met friction in Seattle when a rebel group that would become the WLF protested against their oppressor’s limited distribution of food and supplies, as well as the public executions FEDRA was performing.

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As the conflict continued, peaceful protests led to WLF supporters being shot and the founding wolves being labeled as terrorists. FEDRA applied fierce methods to quash the uprising, killing some of the founding WLF members and leaving one person alive who would eventually guide the growing opposing force (more on him later). With this shift in power, the Wolves became a greater threat to FEDRA, resulting in an all-out war. The ultimate victory went to WLF, courtesy of a new head who brokered new alliances and turned the Washington Liberation Front into the successor. However, regardless of the initial aims to battle back against a tyrannical organization, the WLF ended up being not that much different in the end.

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In “The Last of Us Part II,” one of the game’s main villains is Jeffrey Wright’s Isaac Dixon, who reprises his role for the show’s second season. In the 2020 game, Dixon’s backstory isn’t deeply explored, but it is known that he was a former FEDRA member before defecting to the WLF. After the deaths of key members in the latter group, Dixon took over as leader and, in doing so, enforced drastic measures to ensure the safety of those who FEDRA previously oppressed.

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Rounding up nearby Seattle-based survivors, Dixon transformed the city’s football stadium into a safe haven — a habitable fortress to farm and cultivate, keeping any threat, Infected or not, on the outside. However, in doing so, Dixon began to rule with an iron fist, gradually becoming as authoritarian as the former entity he fought to overthrow. Rounding up and executing remaining FEDRA members and sympathizers, Dixon became just another dictator in a world that was coming to an end. Even so, with a military background (set to be explored in the show), former members from other broken factions found a home with the head wolf, including Ellie’s biggest enemy.

Before Abby proceeded with her plans in episode 2 of this season, she revealed to Joel not just who she was and where she came from, but where she’d been until now. Following Joel’s assault on the Firefly base and the rescue of Ellie, the survivors found themselves with no place to go, leading them to align with Dixon’s newly formed WLF. Together with her former Firefly comrades, Abby and her group earned the nickname the “Salt Lake crew” after their previous home in Salt Lake City. The group consisted of Jordan, Leah, Manny, Nick, Mel, Nora, and Owen, all of whom played a role in avenging their former group by tracking down Joel and abetting his brutal execution by Abby’s hands.

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Prior to this pivotal moment in both Abby and Ellie’s lives, Abby gained Isaac’s attention when he saw how much potential the former Firefly had. To discuss just how important Abby will become would spoil the future plot threads for “The Last of Us” fans who never picked up the games, but just be aware that Abby’s story is far from over and will somehow end up caught in the middle of the WLF and another faction that is only just beginning to appear in the show so far.

Part of what makes Dixon such a force to be reckoned with is his unshakeable determination to destroy the neighboring group to the WLF, the Seraphites. A cult-like order that wears robes and has abandoned what’s left of technology, the group uses basic weapons and communicates in whistles, which at times can be more terrifying than any nearby click from an Infected. Nicknamed “Scars” among the WLF because of the facial scars they apply to themselves, the Seraphites found a new home on an island that was once the Lower Queen Anne suburb of Seattle but was cut off due to flooding. Keeping their distance from the WLF, they were able to live on their own with pockets of Seraphites dotted around the newly formed island.

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But even with the Seraphites’ effort to live in peace, Dixon was determined to take out the Scars. Weary of anyone but their own and driven to take over all of Seattle, the WLF went to war, with both sides committing unspeakable acts against the other. In the game, Dixon is seen throwing Seraphites in cages as well as torturing them for information. While the Seraphites may be a peaceful group on the surface, their members resorted to ceremonial executions of enemies that involved disembowelment for the sake of their Prophet. It’s because of these archaic rituals and tactics that Dixon applied extreme measures to take out the enemy he became obsessed with destroying, becoming such a hardliner that it makes even his best soldiers queasy.

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When you’ve overthrown a government force that was cracking down on those they were supposed to protect, one thing that needs to be taken into consideration is making sure you don’t do the same. Unfortunately, that’s a lesson Isaac Dixon fails to learn (or just straight-up ignores), becoming even more cold-hearted and intolerant to anything that isn’t willing to follow the WLF law of the land. What’s interesting is just how that will play out in the show compared to the game … specifically for Abby, who is a major part of this plotline.

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The question now is how much of this information will be revealed (and when) in the HBO show, given that the game makes the brilliant choice of splitting the playing time between Ellie and Abby. We’ll have to see if the show takes a similar approach, and we’re curious to see if the WLF or the Seraphites come out on top as “The Last of Us” season 2 continues on HBO and Max.