Spoiler Warning: This article will contain major spoilers for HBO’s The Last of Us and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us video game from 2013.
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The episode opens with the night that the citizens of Kansas City overthrew FEDRA and took apart the QZ. Civilians are running around in celebration, violently killing and hanging FEDRA soldiers, and spreading the word by driving around the city with megaphones. A young man, Henry, and his little brother, Sam, are seen hiding from the chaos. Henry signs to his deaf brother and tells him to just simply focus on him as opposed to the violence around them.
Elsewhere, Kathleen is seen interrogating a bunch of civilians for “betraying their neighbors” to FEDRA for medicine and food. She tells them that she will give them all fair trials and jail sentences, but only on the condition that they tell her where Sam and Henry are. They stay silent and she orders their deaths, but one confesses that they are with Edelstein, the doctor that Kathleen had killed in the last episode. She leaves the room and then Perry asks if they’re really going to have a trial. Kathleen tells him no, of course not, and then has them all executed.
Edelstein, Henry, and Sam meet up in an attic in an abandoned building and unload their supplies. They have no ammo, a limited amount of food, and they ultimately estimate they can last about 11 days. Sam is clearly very scared, so Henry tries to put him at ease by talking him through it and expressing confidence in their situation. He gives Sam some crayons and tells Henry to decorate the attic, which he ultimately covers with drawings of a superhero version of himself named Super Sam. 10 days pass and the two are still stuck in the attic, but food is low and Edelstein is missing. Assuming the worst, the two mourn the loss of Edelstein and agree to leave the attic so they can find more food. Henry paints Sam’s eyes to look like he has a superhero mask and then head out.
An Unlikely Alliance
On their way out, they see Joel’s truck crash into the laundromat and watch him kill all of the attackers from the previous episode. Henry opts to wait things out after seeing the chaos, but the two make their way into an office building later that night. They stumble into the room that Ellie and Joel are sleeping in and point guns at the two of them. Joel has a look in his eyes that can only be described as mildly unhinged, but sits perfectly still. Henry notes he doesn’t want to hurt them and reveals he’s the “most wanted man in Kansas City”, but believes Joel to be right up there with him.
The group relaxes and shares a late night snack, but Joel wants to get them out of his hair as quickly as possible. Henry, however, bets that they came into the office building so they could get a view of the city in the morning and tells Joel he can be of assistance. The next morning, Henry tells Joel that he was a “collaborator”, a group that served as rats/informants for FEDRA. Joel immediately tells Henry he doesn’t work with rats, but the young man knows the city and can get them out. However, he needs Joel to be the muscle. It’s a mutually beneficial agreement, even if Joel isn’t exactly happy about more cargo or the person he has to work with.
They map out a route via maintenance tunnels under the city, but Joel knows it’s way too easy and Henry would’ve done it if it was that simple. Henry reveals that there are no infected on the surface because they got pushed underground, but he doesn’t think there are too many down there. It’s pretty much the only plan they’ve got, so they head down into the tunnels. Joel commands Ellie to draw her gun as they enter the dark passageway. They stumble upon an underground settlement that looks somewhat like a daycare. It’s filled with drawings, toys, and a Savage Starlight comic book, a fictional comic from the games.
Ellie and Sam bond over their love of the comic and he teaches her how to sign some quotes from the series. The group decides to kill time in the room, allowing Ellie and Sam time to play soccer together and connect more. Joel apologizes for judging Henry, realizing he likely did it to protect Sam. Henry reveals that Sam has leukemia and in order to get him medicine, he had to sell out a resistance leader in Kansas City, who is also Kathleen’s brother. Henry believes he’s the bad guy as a result, but can tell Joel’s a father and knows the lengths a father will go to in order to protect their child.
The Ambush
Later that night, Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam make it out of the tunnels with no trouble and begin making their way through an abandoned neighborhood. Ellie reveals that they’re going to Wyoming and extends the invite to the two brothers, against Joel’s wishes. As Ellie jokes about how Joel is easy to wear down, the group gets attacked by a sniper from a house down the street and are forced into cover. Joel makes a plan to flank the sniper by himself and asks Ellie to trust him.
Joel makes a break for it while being shot at and spots a bridge not too far from them. He quietly enters the house through the backdoor and locates the sniper upstairs, discovering that it’s just an old man. He offers the old man the chance to just put the gun down and stay there for an hour, begging him to not make a move. Unfortunately, the old man tries his luck and Joel shoots him. A radio call from Kathleen tells the sniper that they’re almost to his location, prompting Joel to scream out the window at his group to run.
A convoy of multiple armored trucks drive head on at the group, prompting Joel to pick up the sniper and give them covering fire. Ellie fires her gun behind her, but quickly runs out of ammo as the truck is right on her heels. Joel is able to kill the driver of the leading truck, causing it to crash into a nearby house and explode. Dozens of resistance soldiers spread out in the streets, approaching the house. Ellie, Sam, and Henry hide behind a nearby car in front of the house, knowing they are greatly out numbered. Joel knows he’s pretty limited in this situation and ducks down next to the window while Kathleen calls out for Henry.
He responds, telling Kathleen that he will come out so long as she lets the children go free. Kathleen, being the tyrannical Karen that she is, tells him that won’t be possible as the girl is with Joel and they killed a number of resistance fighters. Kathleen notes that she understands why Henry ratted out her brother, but also thinks that maybe Sam was meant to die and the whole world doesn’t revolve around him. She believes that the whole situation is fate catching up with the brothers.
The Night of the Living Dead
Henry instructs Ellie to take Sam and run when they get the opportunity. He surrenders himself to Kathleen, but as she’s about to kill him, the crashed truck sinks into the ground underneath the house. Everyone stops for a moment… and then an unbelievably large horde of infected emerge out of it and swarm all of the resistance fighters. Gunfire breaks loose in the streets, people are being ripped apart, infected are climbing on top of cars… it is all-out carnage. Joel starts shooting the infected around his group, giving them a chance to make a break for it. Ellie spots a car that she can hide in while Henry and Sam split off.
As if it couldn’t get any worse, a massive infected monster that fans may know as a Bloater comes out of the sinkhole. Due to it being super evolved, its fungus body acts as armor and can withstand heavy amounts of gunfire. It locks eyes with Perry who tells Kathleen to run before getting his head violently ripped off. As Ellie watches all of the bloodshed, an infected child climbs into the car with her, prompting her to bail out.
She spots Henry and Sam hiding under a car, trying to fend off infected. Joel provides overwatch support from the house while she runs towards the brothers and helps them escape. As they’re about to run free of the slaughter, Kathleen draws a gun on them. Before anyone can say anything, the infected child from the car tackles Kathleen to the ground and beats her face in like it’s a watermelon. The group manages to escape while the resistance fighters get overwhelmed by the infected.
No Happy Endings
Sometime later, the group finds an abandoned hotel and decompresses. Joel offers an invite to Henry to join them on their trip to Wyoming and Henry accepts, thinking it’ll be good for Sam to have a friend. Ellie reads a Savage Starlight comic to Sam before bed and he asks her if she ever gets scared. Ellie reveals she’s scared all the time, but particularly of being alone. Sam reveals that he is scared of what happens if you turn infected… before revealing he has been bitten to Ellie. She reveals her scar to him and then slices her hand open, spreading her blood over his wound. Ellie tells the boy that her blood is medicine and promises to stay awake with him.
However, she falls asleep in a chair and wakes up the next morning to find Sam staring out a window. She approaches him, but he lunges at her. She flees the room, causing Henry and Joel to wake up. They both rush for Joel’s revolver, but Henry gets to it first. Ellie is pinned to the ground by Sam and without thinking, Joel rushes to help, but Henry shoots at Joel. Ellie’s able to keep Sam from totally mauling her before Henry shoots Sam in the head, immediately killing him. Joel begs Henry to hand him the gun, but he is overwhelmed by the guilt and kills himself.
Ellie and Joel are now on their own again. They bury the two brothers outside of the abandoned hotel, but the intensity of the moment leaves the duo at a loss for words. There’s not much else that can be done, so they grab their gear and start heading west to Wyoming.
Differences Between Game and Show
The Last of Us episode 5 is relatively faithful to the game once again, but as we discussed in the previous recap, the whole characterization for the resistance is totally new. They’re nothing more than just people to challenge you in the game. Here, the newly created characters of Katheleen and Perry are revealed to have been members of a QZ who fought back against an oppressive regime. It also gives more depth to why Henry and Sam are on the run by elaborating on Henry being forced to do whatever it takes to keep his brother safe, even if it means letting someone else die. Sam is also given more depth as a character this time as well. In the show, he’s deaf and has leukemia, two things that are not present in the game.
One of the other major deviations comes from the final set piece of the episode. In the game, the sniper section plays out similarly to the show, resulting in Joel having to perform overwatch when hunters and infected begin to attack them. However, it is at a far smaller level. There’s only one truck and a handful of infected and hunters to kill. In the show, it is an absolutely chaotic event that relishes in absurd levels of violence.
The Last of Us will continue to air every Sunday on HBO at 9PM ET. What did you think of the fourth episode? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder. For more Last of Us content, check out ComicBook and Entertainment Tonight’s new podcast: The Last of Pods. The podcast will include breakdowns of each episode, interviews with special guests from the show, and more. The podcast will release after every episode of the show on Sunday nights.
