HBO’s The Last Of Us Season One, Episode Five Review – We’re at pretty much the halfway point with episode five of HBO’s The Last Of Us, and while each episode has delivered a high quality bar, its surprising and not at the same time to see each episode go above the last.
Spoilers for episode five and the rest of the show to follow, if you needed a warning.
Episode five, is in my opinion the best episode in the series yet, as has mainly been the trend, even if episode four did falter thanks to Kathleen and company being downright boring.
The Henry and Sam focused episode did not disappoint thankfully, in every respect. Lamar Johnson and Kevionn Woodard deliver heart-wrenching performances as Henry and Sam, making their tragedy hold its place as arguably the most traumatic event Ellie and Joel encounter.
And on the other hand, while Kathleen and company did not get more interesting this episode, they did get more dead, which was a not-at-all surprising turn of events.
HBO’s The Last Of Us Season One, Episode Five Review – Endure And Survive
Henry, Sam, And The Collaborators
In my review for episode four I distinctively asked what the hell is Kathleen and company’s problem with Henry and Sam? What kind of beef could they have with two brothers, and one of them is a deaf kid.
Well, now we know, as Henry part-way through the episode admits to Joel that he “collaborated” with FEDRA in order to get some medicine for his brother, to save him of dying from leukemia.
As a ‘collaborator,’ Henry gave FEDRA information on Kathleen’s brother, which resulted in his death. That information bought him the medicine Sam needed to get better, and an expected target on his back once the people of Kansas City usurped FEDRA.
A gruesome scene followed as Kansas City became ‘free,’ where we see FEDRA soldiers dragged through the streets by being tied on one end of a rope connected to a truck.
Another is hoisted up and burned alive above what I think can be best described as a ‘riot fire.’ Others are simply beaten, mercilessly, until the people decide they’re done with that soldier, shoot him, and move on to the next.
Its not gruesome in the sense that FEDRA didn’t necessarily deserve to be removed from power, just more so in that this violence comes after years of being treated violently. Its understandable, but that doesn’t make it pleasant.
It also does nothing to really make Kathleen and company more interesting, or really even all that more terrifying.
Especially once its made clear that Kathleen is leading the rest of the people she worked to ‘free’ on a personal vendetta to kill Henry, one that even her late brother asked her not to go on.
The events that follow at the end of the episode then feel well-earned in a sense, but that’s getting a bit ahead of things.
Into The Tunnels
Moving away from Kathleen and the hunters, arguably the best parts of episode five are the times we get to spend with Henry and Sam. In HBO’s depiction of the characters, Sam is deaf, a change that really only seems to signify just how dependable Sam is on Henry, as if being a young child in the apocalypse wasn’t enough.
Henry does everything for his brother. He puts himself directly at risk as a ‘collaborator’ to get his brother what he needs, keeps his brother a kid in the little ways he can, through drawing and art. And when things seem at their lowest, he finds a way to make Sam feel brave.
Seeing how Sam is able to escape reality by trying to draw a better one around him makes it all the more heartbreaking when Joel, Ellie, Henry and Sam enter the tunnels under Kansas City, and see the remnants of a settlement that once held plenty of families and children.
It was also a bit surprising, at least until later, to see that they don’t run into any infected while underground. It’s a nice reprise from the tension that usually fills the air, but I breathed my own sigh of relief alongside the characters when they made it to the other side without issue. Just nice to see something go easy for once.
Especially because it felt like it gave Ellie and Sam time to be children again. Even if just for a little bit. Drawing, playing sports, having fun, and grabbing a few more moments of what their childhood really ought to be like.
The feeling is fleeting, but everyone, the characters and the audience are all better for having experienced it. Scenes like the one in the tunnel, Joel and Ellie’s bedtime laughter in episode four, Bill and Frank’s gorgeous afternoon lunch with Joel and Tess, Joel and Sarah on the couch when Joel gets home late from work.
All are great examples of how well HBO’s The Last Of Us executes on the idea that no matter how bad things seem, you can still find something good, something happy, and something worth living for.
It’s as if for the audience, these scenes are like “looking towards the light,” to quote the Fireflies.
It’s Bloatin’ Time
Enough with the sappy-stuff, this is a zombie show, right? Where have all the zombies been? Well, thanks to Kathleen leading what looks like most of the her newly founded community’s armed forces to one spot, we finally get more zombies, or infected, as we can handle.
Out of the tunnel and into a sniper’s path, after Joel is able to dispatch of the old man in the tower, things get far more complicated. Kathleen and the rest had already been alerted, on their way with a truck ready to clear a path just to kill Henry, which also means killing Sam.
Something she has to understand, though her vengeance-filled rage and the contempt she’d already shown for other collaborators at this point don’t suggest she’d lose much sleep over it.
But when the truck that Joel takes out opens up a hole in the ground, and a whole lot of infected just keep pouring out, including a giant Bloater, it’s clear how her desire to be the one to ‘pull the trigger’ has backfired on herself, and everyone she was meant to lead and protect.
It’s made all the more poignant that in knowingly trying to kill a child, Kathleen is killed by an infected child, who for me is by far the most disturbing infected we’ve seen in the show yet.
Perry’s death by Bloater was also a nice Easter egg for fans of the game, dying in a similar manner to how Bloaters kill Joel in the game. Someone should’ve told Perry to try a shotgun and some Molotov cocktails instead.
The whole scene however, from Kathleen and the hunters tense entrance, to the infected outburst, Ellie escaping to the car and then having to get out of the car as fast as possible. It’s the most intense the show has been since episode one, and it was all absolutely thrilling, edge-of-your-seat level action in the best way.
It’s really the closest the show has gotten to the feeling a player gets while going through some of the game’s more chaotic action sequences, and it felt great.
The Problem With Kathleen And Co.
This almost feels pointless to harp on because by the end of this episode, the audience is assured that Kathleen and friends won’t be bothering Joel and Ellie anymore.
But I think its worth doing so because its a good example of changes from the game that were necessary for the means of adapting the story, but don’t land as well as they could.
In the game, it wasn’t worth Naughty Dog’s time or resources making the player aware of who the hunters you’re fighting in Pittsburgh are. You know enough in just that they took down FEDRA, and don’t take kindly to outsiders.
That’s all you need to make them feel menacing in the game, this unknowable force of people who come at Joel and Ellie for no other reason than to kill them, and take their stuff to serve their own survival.
People who’ve been made un-hinged over years of oppression, now free without any boundaries, especially when it comes to violence. It’s far easier for the ‘unknown’ to cast a stronger shadow of fear.
Those kinds of single-serving characters or entities don’t work as well in something like a tv show, because the audience often needs to know more about them to have some kind of investment.
So it makes sense that we learn more about who these people are, that we meet some of them, and even learn some potentially sympathetic facts about them.
But Kathleen and company still serve the same purpose the hunters do in the game, without the added benefit of feeling like you’re surviving in spite of them as you play through the Pittsburgh section.
Instead we watch a series of events play out that make all the time spent with Kathleen, Perry, and any other Kansas City hunters feel like a cow’s opinion, a moo-t point.
For me it made every scene with this new group of characters I knew would be dead soon feel boring, and even Melanie Lynskey’s well-executed performance across episodes four and five can’t make me care about them at all.
Endure And Survive
Finally, after everything with Kathleen and the rest of Kansas City seems dealt with, things aren’t finished just yet. We’ve arrived at the most traumatic part of the episode, and the series so far, in my opinion.
Before we get to the tragic morning, almost more heartbreaking is the night before. Ellie and Sam are told to get some sleep, though how often do kids, even ones not in the apocalypse, go to sleep when they’re told?
Sam and Ellie are talking through Sam’s notepad, and Sam’s tells Ellie about his bite with the question, “If you turn into a monster, is it still you inside?” before showing her.
This scene is another place where the show deviates from the game. In the game, Ellie and Sam have a conversation similar to the one they have in the show, in that they talk about whether or not the infected are still somehow the person they once were, just with no control over their bodies.
However this time Sam shows Ellie his bite, where as he hides it in the game. Ellie in turn, does what she doesn’t do in the game, which is let Sam in on her secret, in a sense. She tells him that her blood can help him, and that he’ll be okay.
Ellie believes that if she’s meant to be the cure, then something in her blood should be able to save Sam. She promptly cuts her hand and smears her blood into Sam’s. The next morning however, Sam still turns, and attacks Ellie.
What follows plays out pretty much exactly how it plays in the game. Henry knows his brother is gone, and won’t let Joel kill him. Instead Henry kills him, and then turns the gun on himself.
Even writing about it now I’m getting emotional. This has always been the hardest part of the game for me to play, and it was so far the most difficult thing to watch in the show.
Joel and Ellie prepare graves for Henry and Sam, bury them, and Ellie leaves a note on Sam’s pad, “I’m sorry.” on top of Sam’s grave. When they’re done, she doesn’t want to spend anymore time there – she just wants to keep moving; endure, and survive.
Here again we see Bella Ramsey display just how incredible she can be. Ellie’s already had to grow up quickly, living in the world she does. But it’s here where it seems any ounce of childhood in her that was left is now gone.
It’s almost like the tragic cherry on top of an already sad and traumatic episode, and it ends having once again amazingly adapted the game while at the same time expanding on it to deliver an emotionally charged and entertaining experience.
You can check out the first five episodes of HBO’s The Last Of Us wherever it is streaming in your region, right now.