We see her aim the shotgun in the video, though, it wasn't already aimed there and she was probably holding it the whole time, they're all armed.
You think I’m pulling this stuff out of my ass?
Abby enters the room
without a shotgun. Everyone enters the room with no weapons in their hands. They may have a pistol on their person, but that’s just a guess and what would make sense for this world.
Joel and Tommy enter a room with complete strangers, with a 2:8 ratio. Tommy does the smart thing unintentionally and puts his back to the wall next to the door. From this perspective Tommy can see everything in the room, including his periphery. Joel walks into the center of the room so that he’s now surrounded and can’t get to the door or Tommy easily. Tommy then volunteers personal information, their location, and offers the group to restock before they head out again. Then Joel has to say, for any morons watching since they think you need an extra hint “Y’all act like you heard of us or something.” Even though we can see 2 characters centered who react to Joel saying his name. Then the camera pans to show Abby with a shotgun
already pointed at Joel’s knee in plain fucking sight of Tommy the whole time. Tommy doesn’t react until after she’s
already shot Joel and he’s laying on the ground. Shotguns shoot pellets and don’t need to be aimed quite as precisely as a pistol that shoots individual bullets.
Tommy could easily see from where he was standing: Abby walk in, grab a shotgun while Joel has his back turned, and point it at Joel‘s knee. Tommy should have said something, had his hand on his pistol, called out to Joel, asked Abby “What the hell’s that for?” or something. No, he stands by and watches his brother get killed so the writers can have their big moment.
A group of strangers. Passing through Jackson’s guarded territory. On Tommy and Joel’s route. They’ve only been there for less than a day. That sounds like a group of people I should cast away all caution around. Makes sense.
It’s poor writing. They wanted the shock and awe scene of the shotgun to the knee to be unexpected, so they worked their way backwards to get it, without considering the characters they were writing for and what would make sense. They wanted the shotgun for ”impact”. I swear, so many parts of this game appear as though they thought of the
big moment, and then tried to papier-mâché the rest of the story and gameplay around it.
Clearly whatever happens prior to that scene earns the trust of Tommy and Joel. It's not bad writing, enough said, we need to get past people like you deciding a character ever making a mistake is bad writing, they're humans, not robots.
What happens prior to that scene is Joel saves Abby from an infected about to kill her by shooting it point blank, he then gives her his hand and he and Tommy help her escape. Once they’re safe she invites them back to her cabin since it’s walled off and guarded. They have been with her for 5 mins at most. If anything, it should incline Abby to trust Joel and Tommy, not the other way around.
I wanted to like this. I’m a big fan of the first game. They botched it and should have never made a sequel.
