[Warning: This story contains spoilers for The Last of Us episode 4.] Joel and Ellie, meet Henry and Sam. Sunday’s fourth episode of HBO’s The Last of Us, titled “Please Hold My Hand,” takes a detour from Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) post-apocalyptic road trip to Wyoming in hopes of finding Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and a Fireflies faction. Ambushed by Kathleen’s (Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey) ruthless rebels who seized the Kansas City QZ from FEDRA control, Joel and Ellie suddenly find themselves caught in the middle of a city-wide manhunt for survivor brothers Sam (Keivonn Woodard) and Henry (Lamar Johnson).
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Who Are Henry and Sam in The Last of Us Game?
In the video game, Sam and Henry come from a since-abandoned safe zone in Hartford, Connecticut. When they meet Joel and Ellie, the brothers have been holed up and scavenging for food for days while trapped inside the fallen Pittsburgh QZ. They were traveling with a group that entered the city to search for supplies, only to be ambushed and scattered by the hunters.
Like Kathleen’s Kansas City survivors in the show, the game’s hunters revolted against FEDRA to take over the military-controlled Pittsburgh QZ, becoming territorial hunters preying on “tourists” who stray into the city. Outsiders like Sam and Henry. (Read on here to learn what happens to Henry and Sam in The Last of Us game, but beware of spoilers. There are no game spoilers in the below story.)
Hunted
On HBO’s The Last of Us, the Burrell brothers try to escape Kansas City when they find Joel and Ellie holed up inside the QZ’s tallest building. Elsewhere, it’s learned that Kathleen is seeking vengeance for her rebel leader brother after he was beaten to death inside a FEDRA cell.
“I never told them anything about your brother,” says Dr. Eldelstein (John Getz), imprisoned for ratting out his neighbors to FEDRA in exchange for protection. “But Henry did,” Kathleen says, shooting the doctor dead when he refuses to give up Henry. Then she hands down orders to right-hand man Perry (Jeffrey Pierce) and her rebel army: “Find every collaborator and kill them all.”
Is Kathleen in The Last of Us Game?
Lynskey’s Kathleen and Pierce’s Perry are original characters created for the show. In establishing the show’s version of the hunters, writer and series co-creator Craig Mazin developed Kathleen’s backstory as the de facto leader of the Kansas City rebels after her brother’s death.
“[Kathleen] is a very complicated character,” Mazin explained during a panel at Brazil’s CCXP convention.”She’s a brilliant actor, and we needed somebody who could portraysomebody that was doing terrible things, but then when you got to knowher, you understood why and actually felt for her. One of the things that [The Last of Usgame writer Neil Druckmann] created with the gamewas this philosophy that no one’s ever purely good, no one is everpurely evil; we have the capacity to do both.”
Mazin added: “And Melanie Lynskey plays somebody that I think you’re gonna hate and then you’re gonna love.”
The Last of Us episode 5, “Endure and Survive,” is streaming early February 10th on HBO Max and HBO On Demand. Follow for more The Last of Us on ComicBook.
