The Last of Us Season 2: Mel's Baby Father Identity Addressed by Showrunner

The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 7 introduced several new mysteries waiting to be solved when the series returns for Season 3. One of these is the identity of the father of Mel's (Ariela Barer) baby, which follows the surprising reveal in the finale that she is pregnant. 

Warning - This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2 finale.

Mel was introduced in Season 2 as a member of Abby's (Kaitlyn Dever) group of WLF soldiers who arrive in Jackson with the sole purpose of killing Joel (Pedro Pascal) for what he did to the Fireflies at the Salt Lake City hospital. Unlike her friends Manny (Danny Ramirez) and Nora (Tati Gabrielle), Mel is shown to be uncomfortable with Abby's drawn-out enacting of her revenge on Joel. Mel disappears for most of Season 2, only to reappear in the season finale.

What Happens to Mel in The Last of Us Season 2 Finale?

After a season's worth of hunting Abby down, Ellie finally pieces together the location of her nemesis in S2 Episode 7 and arrives at the Seattle aquarium to achieve what she came for. However, it's not Abby she finds at the aquarium, it's Mel and Owen (Spencer Lord). 

Ellie holds the two at gunpoint and demands to know Abby's whereabouts, promising that she will let them live, only for Owen to retaliate, which forces Ellie to shoot him. Ellie's bullet kills Owen, but unfortunately, it also pierces Mel in the neck and leads to her bleeding out. It's here that Ellie learns Mel is heavily pregnant, as she asks Ellie to remove the baby from her womb before she dies. Mel instructs Ellie on how to remove the infant, but ultimately, Ellie can't follow through with it.

This is a change from The Last of Us Part 2, in which the confrontation at the aquarium sees Mel attack Ellie, and the player is forced to kill both her and Owen, with no room for extra conversation afterward. Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, showrunners on The Last of Us, said during a press conference for the Season 2 finale that this was by design, to "make it darker:" 

Mazin: "In the game, there's a different confrontation. The nature of the confrontation is different. Mel actually attacks Ellie, and Ellie kills in self-defence. And here in the show... this is a true collateral damage moment. And then I decided to make it dark.

Druckmann: "I remember when [Mazin] described it before I read it, he's like, 'oh yeah, I made it darker.' And I'm like, 'how could it be darker?' ... and then I read it... But, you know, sometimes we have to go there. And it was important for this moment to… if you're rooting for Ellie, make you feel dirty, because that's what collateral damage does."

Mazin added that they included this moment to reflect Mel's status as a doctor, and examining how this would influence her motivations in her final moments, to try and use her knowledge to save her baby. It was also an addition that was designed to show Ellie has "a profound level of regret and failure," and that this event "breaks her:"

Mazin: "This moment also called for Bella to have and display such a profound level of regret and failure. In this moment where you do feel like, 'oh my god, how am I still on this journey with you?' I think it's important for people to see that it's not like Ellie is going, 'I'm cool. Whatever. It happened, let's keep going for Abby.' This breaks her."

Once the trauma of this moment has passed, audiences are still left with questions, the most prevailing of which is the backstory of Mel's pregnancy and who the father of her unborn child is.

Is Owen the Father of Mel's Baby?

In The Last of Us Part 2, the identity of Mel's baby's dad is not a mystery. Owen reveals in one of the opening conversations with Abby that he is the father of Mel's child, which also establishes that the two are in a relationship. However, none of this was included in the TV show adaptation, which means that when viewers pick up with Owen and Mel in the aquarium, the audience has no idea of what or if anything is going on between them.

While it's expected that Owen would be the father of Mel's baby, as this is how it plays out in the game, comments from the producers during the press conference may suggest otherwise. Mazin said that "in the game, Owen is the father," but that in the show, "we went a different way:"

"Well, that circumstance is from the game. Now, it's a bit different in the show, in that we're not quite sure who the father is. In the game, Owen is the father—we went a different way in the show."

It's important to note that the context of Mazin's quote could be taken in different ways. It could be that the difference in the show that Mazin is alluding to is the fact that viewers don't know who the father of Mel's baby is at this point in the series, whereas they do know that it is Owen at this point in the game. Alternatively, Mazin's mention of a "different way" could also be referring to the change they made to Mel and Owen's confrontation with Ellie, which he went on to explain. 

It's also possible that Mazin is hinting that the identity of the father of Mel's baby will be altered in the series. It's unclear at this point who this could be instead of Owen. Potentially, it could be a different member of Abby's group, another of the WLF, or an entirely new character who will be invented for the series. HBO's The Last of Us has not been afraid to make changes to its source material during the adaptation process, so Mel and Owen's story is something that could go in a different direction in the show.

Regardless, it's not something that will be confirmed until The Last of Us Season 3 returns to explore Abby's side of the story.