The Last of Us recap: A bad guy thing
"Freedom! Freedom!" bray the liberated Hunters as they torture, hang, and headshot the FEDRA officers who ruled them with an iron fist for the last two decades. It's the near past in Kansas City, roughly 10 days before Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) barrel their way into a trap set by the renegade survivors, and the streets are painted red in fascist blood. As Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) and Perry (Jeffrey Pierce) step into their new roles as the zone's ruthless leaders, Henry (Lamar Johnson) and young Sam (Keivonn Woodard), who we learn is deaf, retreat into the depths of the city in search of shelter.
Kathleen's in pursuit. As we learned in last week's episode, Henry is the one who led FEDRA to her brother, who led this rebel faction before he was tortured and killed. She grills a handful of jailed snitches about Henry's whereabouts, promising their lives in exchange for information: "You're informers," she says. "Inform." One of the prisoners gives up Eldelstein (John Getz), the doctor we watched her kill last week. He's apparently providing refuge for Henry and Sam. She orders a reluctant Perry to gather his men and go door-to-door in search of Eldelstein's hideout. Before that, though, she'd like him to execute all of the informers. "No trial," she says. "Burn the bodies." No mercy for snitches.
Across the city, Eldelstein leads Henry and Sam to the attic space from last week, which was littered with empty cans and a child's drawings of superheroes. Now, we see Henry give Sam a bag of crayons and the order to decorate the place. In Sam's drawings, the superheroes are battling FEDRA officers.
Liane Hentscher/HBO Keivonn Woodard as Sam in 'The Last of Us'
Fast forward 10 days, and Henry and Sam are out of food. Eldelstein's missing and Henry (correctly) fears him dead. Hunters continue to patrol the streets outside. Any movement is risky, but they have no choice. Thankfully, an opportunity presents itself in Joel and Ellie's noisy arrival, which we see play out from Henry's vantage.
That brings us to the end of last week's episode, with Henry and Sam waking up Joel and Ellie inside downtown's tallest building. Though guns are drawn, the quartet quickly realize they share a common enemy. An uneasy alliance is formed over dinner. Joel's hesitant to team with Henry after learning he was a FEDRA "collaborator" — "I don't work with rats" — but Henry's plan to escape the city via its underground tunnels is more than Joel and Ellie have. In exchange, Henry wants Joel to serve as his muscle, whether it be against Hunters or Infected. "I show the way, you clear the way," he says.
The good news, Henry says, is that it's unlikely they'll cross paths with either of them. FEDRA drove the Infected underground, he explains, and a FEDRA contact told him they cleared out any lingering monsters years back. Kathleen, however, doesn't know this. She still believes the tunnels are crawling with Infected, meaning she won't have any Hunters stationed there. Fingers crossed, that means a clear path for them. (Now's perhaps a good time to recall the subterranean threat teased in last week's episode.)
Liane Hentscher/HBO Jeffrey Pierce as Perry and Melanie Lynskey as Kathleen in 'The Last of Us'
The coast is clear when they make their way below ground, but Joel is on guard. "Be ready to run," he warns. They encounter a surprise before long, but not one they expected. There are murals painted on the dank walls of the tunnel: rainbows, castles, flowers, all clearly painted by children. Through a door they find what looks like a classroom. There's tables, chairs, toys, comics, and drawings galore. Ellie and Sam, who've become fast friends, ask if they can play for a bit. Joel, knowing they'd be wise to let darkness fall before climbing topside, crashes into one of the chairs, happy to get some rest.
Henry opens up about why he snitched on Kathleen's brother. Sam had leukemia, he reveals, and the one medicine that made a difference belonged to FEDRA. Being so rare, Henry had to give up "something big" to get his hands on it, so he did what he had to do to save Sam. He would do it again, but he's under no delusion that he's righteous in this situation. "I am the bad guy because I did a bad guy thing," he says, drowning in self-hatred.
Liane Hentscher/HBO Keivonn Woodard and Lamar Johnson as Sam and Henry in 'The Last of Us'
Kathleen, meanwhile, has retreated to her childhood bedroom, which she once shared with her late brother Michael. She tells Perry the story of how Michael used to comfort her during storms by telling her the room wasn't just a room, but a "big wooden box that nothing could get inside of." Near tears, she calls him "beautiful" and admits he would be "horrified by the things I've done." The last time she saw him, he told her to forgive the people who ratted on him and his allies. "What did he get for that?" she asks. "Where is the justice in that?" Perry reminds her that, as good a man as he was, it wasn't her brother who led the overthrow of FEDRA, it was her.
She and Henry have something in common: ruthlessness. As Joel knows all too well, it's the only way to stay alive in a world so ugly.
Now that darkness has fallen, Joel, Henry, Ellie, and Sam emerge from underground into a residential area that will lead them to the bridge across the Missouri River and out of Kansas City. Unfortunately, their good luck runs out. In a sequence ripped straight from the game the show is based on, a sniper begins taking shots at them from the top floor of a nearby house. Joel tells his companions to stay put, maneuvering his way through the ancient cars littering the road to the back of the house where the sniper is perched. He sneaks up behind him only to see it's an old man. "Please," Joel says. He doesn't want to kill him. But when the old-timer squeezes off a shot, Joel's forced to shoot him dead.
Suddenly, the sniper's radio chirps. It's Kathleen's voice. "Anthony, hold them where they are," she says. She and her Hunters are on their way, led by a truck that's been refashioned into a bulldozer. Joel picks up the sniper rifle and fires at the dozer as it gains on Henry, Ellie, and Sam. Just as it's about to crush them, Joel's bullet finds the driver's forehead. The truck runs off road and through the front of a neighboring house, where it explodes in a flower of flame.
HBO The Infected explode from the ground in 'The Last of Us' episode 5.
Still, there's too many Hunters and Henry, Ellie, and Sam are quickly surrounded. Henry gives himself up, asking her to let the kids go. Kathleen refuses. She believes Henry should have let Sam die — saving his life wasn't worth risking the death of their rebellion. "This is what happens when you f--- with fate," she says, gun aimed at his head. "It ends the way it ends."
Before she can pull the trigger, though, the sound of collapse and falling earth. A sinkhole has opened beneath the dozer, swallowing it. The sound of clicking and gibbering fills the air and, seconds later, a drove of ravenous, fungi-headed Infected spring from the hole and rush the Hunters. As the Hunters unload their assault rifles into the shrieking hordes, Joel uses the rifle to clear a path for Henry, Ellie, and Sam.
A roar from the hole as a new visitor arrives: a hulking, intimidatingly thick Infected that fans of the game will recognize as a Bloater. The Bloater enters the fray like a professional wrestler, manhandling Hunters as Perry's bullets fruitlessly pepper into its thick, fungi-laden flesh. Perry tells Kathleen to run when it begins marching in their direction. Seconds later, the Bloater rips his head in two, yanking the top of his jaw like it was the pull tab on a soda can.
HBO The Bloater arrives in 'The Last of Us' season 1, episode 5.
Henry and Sam, meanwhile, are trapped under a car, kicking at the Infected clawing at their shoes. Ellie, taking a cue from the games, shivs the necks of the creatures terrorizing them, and they run before being confronted by Kathleen, still bent on revenge amid the chaos. But, for the second time tonight, she's interrupted by the Infected, this time fatally. R.I.P Kathleen. Hope you and your bro reunite in the afterlife.
Joel reunites with Henry, Ellie, and Sam and they flee the carnage, taking refuge together in a house. Joel invites Henry and Sam to Wyoming with them, and Henry accepts. Ellie and Sam, after all, have become inseparable. Sam, in notes to Ellie, reveals that he's scared. Finally, he asks her: "If you turn into a monster, is it still you inside?" He shows her a fresh bite on his leg.
Concerned, Ellie shows him her wound, telling him she's immune. "My blood is medicine," she says. Using a knife, she draws her blood and confidently rubs it into his wound. Unsure if this will work, Sam asks if she'll stay awake with him. She does, giving him a long hug.
In the morning, she wakes to find Sam sitting on the edge of his bed. She calls his name and he turns around with wild eyes and a tortured shriek. He's infected. Their struggle wakes Joel and Henry. Joel, without thinking, turns his gun on Sam. Henry stops him, then shoots the boy himself. "What did I do?" he asks, staring at the spreading pool of blood. All that sacrifice to save the boy, first from leukemia, then from the Hunters, then from the Infected, only for one little bite to end it all. He shoots himself in the head.
It happens right before Ellie's eyes, sending another chunk of whatever innocence remains inside her evaporating into the ether.
Outside, they dig graves for Henry and Sam. Ellie leaves a note on Sam's grave: "I'm sorry."
It ends how it ends.
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