**Warning: Major spoilers for The Last of Us episode 5 ahead.**
**Warning: Major spoilers for The Last of Us episode 5 ahead.**
A new week on The Last of Us means a freshly broken heart. Episode 5, what did we ever do to you?
With but four days for us to recover from episode 4 of the HBO show, episode 5 was upon us two days early – but we’re definitely not complaining.
The latest instalment acted as a second part to episode 4, which saw Ellie (Bella Ramsey), and Joel (Pedro Pascal) desperate to escape the hunters of Kansas City, led by the terrifying Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey).
However, things only turned from bad to worse for them as they woke up with guns to their heads and trapped by two fugitives, brothers Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Woodard).
Episode 5 saw our heroes finally escape Kansas City – but at a great cost. Safe to say, the pair of them will never be the same again.
What happened in The Last of Us episode 5?
Kathleen and her right-hand man Perry (Jeffrey Pierce) are holding a bunch of hostages in an attempt to find out where Henry is hiding out. Kathleen orders her entourage to hunt Henry down as he must still be in the city – and then orders them to kill the hostages.
Meanwhile, we finally get to see a bit of where Henry and his brother Sam (who’s Deaf in the show) came from. Dr Eddlestein (John Getz), who was killed off in episode 4, helps the brothers to hide out, with Henry unpacking cans of food and attempting to raise his younger brother’s spirits.
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Soon, though, the pair’s food runs out and Dr Eddlestein is nowhere to be seen, so they have to make a break for it, witnessing Joel and Ellie’s shootout when they arrived in town.
They sneak into the same high-rise as Joel and Ellie and stumble across the pair, waking them up with their guns pointed at them. Henry assures the pair of them that he doesn’t want to hurt them, and lowers his gun, introducing himself as “the most wanted man in Kansas City”.
The four of them form an uneasy alliance, with Joel and Ellie sharing their food. In return, Henry promises to show them a way out of the city in the hopes that Joel will protect him and Sam. Meanwhile, Ellie and Sam are becoming firm friends and at this point we’re all naively hoping that can last forever. Note to self – never be optimistic with this show.
They plan to travel through the tunnels to leave the city, and Henry warns them that the infected of the city were driven underground years ago – but he believes the tunnels are clear. Joel, being Joel, is not convinced but it seems to be their only option.
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Making their way into the tunnels, they find an abandoned daycare where Ellie and Henry convince Joel to rest a while. In a rare heartwarming moment, Ellie and Sam play games and read comic books together, while Joel reluctantly apologises to Henry for branding him a “rat”. Of course, in Joel’s world, that’s a big deal.
Elsewhere, the ruthless Kathleen is mourning her brother Michael and returns to her childhood bedroom. She admits she knows that Michael wouldn’t want her to go after Henry – but insists there would be “no point” in forgiving him. So, basically, she’s still insistent on hunting down a teenager.
Joel, Ellie, Henry and Sam make their way up to the surface to continue their journey out of Kansas City. Henry assures them that no one is coming for them – a comment that ages very badly very quickly.
Suddenly, bullets rain down on them and they realise a sniper in a watch tower has spotted them. With Ellie, Henry and Sam sheltering behind a car, Joel plans to sneak round the back and take out the sniper.
Joel makes it and reluctantly shoots the old man holding the gun, but the danger is only just getting started. He hears on the man’s walkie-talkie that Kathleen and her minions are almost there and screams at the three of them to run.
As Ellie, Henry and Sam run for their lives, Kathleen and co follow in quick pursuit in trucks, with Joel shooting at them. He takes out the first truck, which flips over and explodes. No need to worry about that, right? Right?
Kathleen still manages to catch up with Ellie, Henry and Sam, who are hiding behind a car, with Henry pleading with her to let the others go. He surrenders but, before Kathleen can hurt him, it turns out we did in fact need to worry about that exploded truck, which has disturbed a whole bunch of infected beneath the ground.
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In what’s potentially the most horrifying shot of the series so far, swarms of the creatures emerge from the ground. Ellie, Henry and Sam make a break for it, with Joel covering them from the tower, but it’s all they can do to survive.
Perry, meanwhile, faces up to the series’ first Bloater, an infected covered in plates of fungus armour, and urges Kathleen to run and not look back. The creature decapitates him, before a child infected comes for Ellie. She manages to escape it, and sees Sam and Henry trapped under a car and surrounded. Joel covers her as she runs to them, and the three of them finally make it out – until Kathleen catches up to them.
She’s prepared to finally kill them, but a well-timed attack from an infected gives them the chance to run and meet Joel at the bottom of the tower. Thankfully, they make it out alive and, oh, if only the episode had ended here.
Heartbreak time. Joel, Ellie, Henry and Sam find some rooms to stay the night in. Bonded by comic books and a narrow escape from death, Sam and Ellie decide to share a room. Meanwhile, Joel and Henry have their own bonding moment and agree to continue their journey together – a huge deal in Joel’s world.
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Sam tells Ellie he’s scared and asks her: “If you turn into a monster, is it still you inside?” before showing her that he’s been bitten.
In a desperate bid to keep him alive, Ellie shows him that she was bitten and is immune from the infection. She cuts herself and drips some of her blood on his bite, hoping that it will stop him from turning into one of the infected.
Sam asks Ellie to stay awake with him, which she does. After falling asleep in a chair next to his bed, Ellie wakes up to find Sam looking away from her out of the window. As she goes up to him, she realises he’s turned into an infected and he attempts to bite her.
Joel lunges for the gun but Henry gets there first, pointing it at Joel and then shooting his brother in the head. Guilt-wracked, Henry turns the gun on himself before Joel can stop him.
Actor Johnson told RadioTimes.com of that shocking scene: “That was a tough day. We shot that scene for most of the day, so it was just very emotionally draining as well.”
He added: “Keivonn and I, we built such a great relationship building up to that point so to see him like that was really tough. Jeremy [Webb, director] and I, we were at the monitor watching the Sam and Ellie scene together and we both had tears in our eyes. Ultimately, what Henry was going through – if I was going to say one word, I would just say shock.”
The episode ends with a gut-wrenching scene showing Joel and Ellie digging Sam and Henry’s graves. Ellie places something on Sam’s grave before asking which way is west and making a move. Joel sees that Ellie has written: “I’m sorry,” on Sam’s grave before following her, as the pair continue on their journey.
Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com about the heartbreaking final scene and what it means for Joel and Ellie’s relationship, director Webb explained: “By the end of episode 5, you know that Joel is in trouble.
“Craig Mazin always talked about something called ’emotional quicksand’. At the end, when [Ellie] walks away from him and he’s looking at the graves of the boys, he’s sinking in emotional quicksand and he’s terrified of what it might do to him.
“It was charting that arc between the relationship changing from her being cargo to something that is akin to his Sarah being back and alive, and that terrifies him.”
Episode 6, which fans will have a slightly longer wait for after the early release of episode 5, is set to see Joel and Ellie continue their journey west on their search for Tommy.
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