The Last of Us Review - Episode 5 Recap: Endure a lot and survive but then ultimately die

We are half way thru season 1 and this week's episode was pitch perfect.

If you turn into a monster, is it still inside you?

This is the question a young deaf child, Sam, poses to a forlorn looking Ellie at the shocking denouement of episode 5 when they are seemingly safely holed up in a hotel room after surviving a savage sinkhole invasion of ravenous ‘shroom zombies, including a grotesque bloater who does away with Kathleen’s right hand man, Perry, introduced last episode.

This all transpires after the stressful navigating of the underground - potentially zombie-pocked tunnels under the KC QZ- that the newly assembled family of Ellie, Joel, Sam and Henry embark on and share some quality experiences, the stuff of Hallmark commercials.

Magic Slate: Every child born before 1980 knows what this is. The BEST toy after - The wondrous magic slate that could occupy you for hours on end. (https://odditymall.com/nostalgic-magic-slate-paper-savers)

If this episode broaches any of the humanity topics, it’s the theme of innocence and good, which appear to have no home in this world. Ellie bonds with Sam, the kid who last episode, along his brother, Henry (the most wanted man in KC thanks to Kathleen) looked like they were gonna kill Ellie and Joel in their sleep. Well, turns out Henry has never killed anyone, or has he? He says he hasn’t, but he did give someone up - a really good person - to FEDRA, to save his brother, Sam, from dying from leukemia. So he’s deemed “a rat” but he also has the map of the city and knows how they can get out of there and thus an alliance is formed with other most wanted people in KC, Joel and Ellie, who are also trying to high tail it out of Kathleen’s zone pronto.

The flashbacks from 10 days prior when Kathleen takes down FEDRA in her rebellion take us to Sam and Henry on the run and Dr. Edelstein, the guy Kathleen kills when we first meet her, who was hiding them and bringing them food. Sam and Henry are hiding in an attic and with cans of beans for food, which they eventually do run out of, because we know Edelstein’s fate.

There is paint in the attic and Henry advises his deaf brother to paint to distract him. Both of them are despondent but keeping some hope alive. There’s lot of Superman (caped avenger) paintings that Sam paints often with Sam or Henry cast in the role of hero against the goons coming from them. It feels almost poetic and the desperation of their experience (scarcity of food, can’t go out, being hunted) conjures up to the mind readily thoughts of Holocaust stories and images.

Why are Henry and Sam on the run? Kathleen wants Henry dead because he snitched on her brother, who was the former head of the rebellion, before he was killed by FEDRA. Henry’s complicity in this action is a bit more complicated obviously but Kathleen doesn’t care. As Perry tells her, she’s the kinda person who gets stuff done and to Kathleen’s point, she’s “not a good person” in contrast to her brother. The insinuation from Perry, “Your brother was too good to get the cruel sh*t done but not you” or simply stated good perished and bad is left, but not for long.

The most action-filled high stakes sequences in this episode happen in the last 15 minutes and involve the shootout at the haunted house. Our band of heroes is nearly out of the city and home free when one of Kathleen’s goon’s sniper starts gunning for them.

They hide behind cars and Joel runs into the building to take the sniper out. Joel takes out the sniper and then gets a good view of the cavalry coming and hears Kathleen on the walkie talkie saying she’s en route.

All hope appears to be lost. There is no way Ellie, Sam and Henry are getting out of this and pretty sure Joel is a goner too. Henry gives himself up to Kathleen and asks for the kids to be let go. Kathleen makes some “survival of the fittest” or “don’t mess with fate, Henry” and that she should have let Sam die like he was supposed to (implication being then her brother could have lived) comment and it’s payback. And that’s when all hell breaks loose, like the ground sinks and rumbles from a quake and opens up to billions (i’m not exaggerating here either) of shroom zombies coming for the KC Cavalry of Kathleen’s.

Deus ex machina

Henry is given an out and granted a Hail Mary, not unlike the Chiefs win at the Super Bowl, in the final hour, and protects from the wrath of a sister scorned. Diversion in the form of the dude below whose face looks like a gnarly Georgia O’Keefe painting. It’s another 10 minutes of anarchy and in the end, Kathleen gets her comeuppance. She’s killed right as she catches up to Henry and the gang and is prepared to shoot them all, but one of those jumper zombies 🧟‍♀️ savagely consumes her.

Source: HBO / Bloater who disemboweled Perry, who sacrificed himself for Kathleen

3:24 is the scene in which Kathleen pays her penance.

The final chapter of what should make for a “remember that time?” type story 20 years from now, has a different ending as Ellie, Joel, Sam and Henry find a hotel and the adults and kids pair up in separate but adjoining rooms. It’s almost like a normal everyday pre-2003 glimpse of what life should be like for kids. Ellie and Sam are staying up late reading their favorite comic book. Joel and Henry are doing their bro talk, and with emotional vulnerability. And then comes the scene with the magic slate and poor Sam admitting he’s been bitten. Ellie cuts herself with a knife and rubs her bloody hand/arm on the bite thinking it will cure him. It doesn’t.

When Ellie wakes up, she see Sam sitting with his back to her on the edge of his bed. She calls for him but he doesn’t respond and when she walks over, he’s turned and attacks her. Henry saves Ellie by shooting Sam. After realizing what he’s done, he’s in shock and after a tense few moments where Joel tries to talk him off the suicide he’s about to commit, Sam pulls the gun on himself effectively ending his life. Ellie and Joel lose their new friends and any plans of the future made with them.

Immune to the pain by this point, after burying the bodies, Ellie tells Joel to get cracking and move on, leaving behind Sam’s magic slate board with the message, “I’m sorry” on a freshly buried plot where Sam rests six feet under.

For Ellie and Joel and all those who lose their innocence way too early: