Hello and welcome to this recap of The Last of Us, season one, episode five, Endure and Survive. Neither of which I feel like I succeeded on because I nearly cried myself to death by the end of it. This recap is, as always, a tag team between me, Valerie Anne, and Nic, just two queer nerds who love the snarky lesbian teen protagonist of this show, and also apparently are emotional masochists. There’s no other way forward but through, so let’s do this.

Nic: Previously on the The Last of Us, Ellie and Joel ran into a group of hunters (led by Melanie Lynskey) on their way out west, Ellie shot a guy real bad, Joel attempted to feel some feelings, Ellie made Joel laugh, and they were both woken up at gunpoint by two strangers.

THE REVOLUTION

“In this timeline, I’M the Antler Queen, and you will obey me!”

Valerie: We open during a celebration, fireworks exploding, chants of “Fuck you FEDRA” filling the air. The people we have come to call the hunters have revolted. They’re beating on, shooting, and hanging FEDRA agents in the streets, taking over the QZ. The city belongs to the people now.

A man and a child hide. Henry and Sam, respectively. Henry speaks to Sam in sign language, telling him not to look at the carnage, explaining where they’re about to go next to hide. And I’m reminded yet again that ASL should be taught in all American schools, for obvious reasons like being able to communicate with the deaf and hard of hearing (and other people who might have trouble communicating verbally), but, less importantly, in case of a zombie apocalypse. Being able to communicate silently without the help of technology is a clutch skill Henry and Sam have.

Nic: I was ready to love Henry and Sam, but I sure was not ready to protect and die for them the moment we met them.

Valerie: In the overrun FEDRA base, Kathleen sits in a chair, looking down at a huddled group of collaborators. People who snitched on their peers to FEDRA agents for food or medicine or other such amenities. Kathleen puts on her sweetest voice she can muster and tells them that they’ll just have to do time for their crimes, but no one speaks up. It’s not until she orders Perry to kill them all that a man confesses to knowing where Henry is. He says Henry is with Edelstein, and Kathleen seems genuinely surprised to learn that Edelstein is a collaborator. Almost impressed, saying he was much more subtle than the rest of them.

Kathleen then hilariously insults this man for doing exactly what she asked him to do. Just, chef’s kiss, perfection. This whole scene, expertly written, expertly executed.

Nic: MELANIE FUCKING LYNSKEY killed this scene. The faux sweetness dripping off of every line, catching you off-guard until you realize the implications of what she’s actually saying?? A masterclass.

Valerie: When she leaves the room, Perry says a manhunt for Henry will take a lot of manpower, and with the revolution turning tides less than 24 hours ago, there’s other things to do. But Kathleen looks Perry in the eye and says Henry is her priority, and so it should be his as well.

As she starts to head out, Perry asks if they’re really going to put all the hostages on trial, and she says no, and suggests he burns their bodies when he’s done.

Meanwhile, Henry and Sam are indeed with Edelstein, the doctor from the last episode, who is hiding them in a sort of crawlspace in the apartment building. They don’t have enough ammo and they only have enough food for the three of them for 11 days, and then they can sneak out of the tunnels.

Edelstein asks if Sam is scared, and says if he is, he can see Henry is scared, too. So Henry goes to Sam and tells him he’s not scared, hoping his little Super Sam can find bravery in that. He gives him crayons and they start decorating their new temporary home.

Ten days later, the walls are full of superheroes and their stash is empty of food. There are still rebels everywhere, and Edelstein hasn’t returned for a whole day. Sam, being 8 and hungry, sasses his brother about being hungry in a way only a little brother could. Henry, frustrated and too young to be in this position, snaps back at him, saying they have to wait. And as an older sister who, from when I was about 8 to 18, used to have nightmares about how to keep my brother safe in an emergency and/or apocalypse, I felt this so hard. Almost immediately after snapping at Sam, Henry softens, and explains the situation to him, that Edelstein isn’t going to come back and that they need to go, but that he thinks he knows a safe way out because he’s been watching the hunters and their patterns.

Sam asks if they killed Edelstein, and when Henry confirms, Sam gives his big brother a hug. In return, Henry paints a superhero mask on his face.

Nic: Something that stood out to me about the way Henry talks to Sam is that he doesn’t shield him from the realities of the world they’re living in. He doesn’t make up a story about Edelstein getting lost or leaving them just to make Sam feel better; but it’s not in a callous or careless way. Sam understands the danger, but he can also see that his brother is doing his best to keep him safe from it.

Valerie: Yeah it was kind of refreshing of him to be honest! And one other thing I did want to note is that I feel like they do a good job of keeping both Henry and Sam’s hands in frame while they are signing. A lot of shows will cut away to favor the reaction of the non-signing person or unfathomably just zoom in too tightly onto the person’s face, which always feels rude to me. But I felt like it happened rarely if at all in this episode, which I appreciated.

WORLDS COLLIDE

A rare sight at the end of the world: smiles.

Nic: Henry and Sam don’t make it very far from their hideout when Henry hears the sounds of gunfire and conflict, and we’re taken back to last week, but we get to see what Joel and Ellie’s confrontation with the Hunters looks like from another perspective. Henry and Joel appear to make eye contact before Henry ducks back out of sight to reassure his brother that they’re okay.

We’re just about caught up to the final scene of last episode as the brothers make their way through the “crunch crunch crunch” trap and into the room where Joel and Ellie are sleeping. It becomes clear very quickly though, that Henry is not as comfortable being the aggressor as the gun in his hand might make it seem. Ellie tries to diffuse the situation by hilariously insisting that Joel is gucci, it’s just that he has an asshole voice, and Joel does absolutely nothing to dispel that notion.

Valerie: This whole exchange was hilarious. Both Henry calling out that Joel had a weird tone and Ellie trying to defend him while also mocking him.

Nic: Eventually Henry tells Sam that he trusts these strangers, so the kids and Not!Dads settle in for an evening of snacks and introductions.

I love the shades of duality we get to see between Joel and Ellie and Henry and Sam. Both duos include a child and a caretaker, both have their own unique ways of communicating and coping in an impossible situation, and both are just doing their absolute best to protect each other. Once Sam sees that Henry lets his guard down, he does the same, and Ellie asks questions to get to know them. Surprising no one though, Joel is a bit slower to trust and is ready to send them on their way until Henry correctly guesses that they’re waiting until it’s light out to scope a way out of the city. And lucky for them, Henry knows one.

The next morning, they get an honestly gorgeous view of Killer City, and we learn that KC FEDRA was some of the worst out there. After 20 years of being taken advantage of in every way imaginable, the city rose up against them. And while Henry wasn’t FEDRA, he was a collaborator, which in Joel’s mind is ten times worse. But for today, this snitch’s stitches will have to wait because he holds the key to their escape. Despite being the most wanted man in KC, Henry reiterates that he’s not violent and needs Joel’s help to clear the way out of the city. Their strategy session is soon interrupted by the almost unrecognizable sounds of laughter; Ellie and Sam are doing their own bonding over their shared love of a comic.

Henry lays out their plan with a roughly drawn map that really made me miss Valerie’s D&D sketches when we were in a campaign together.

Valerie: I miss making those maps. I’m a big fan of cartography, turns out.

Nic: Because they’re boxed in by highways, they figure they can get out of dodge using maintenance tunnels since they’re never guarded because Kathleen thinks the tunnels are still overrun by infected. Henry knows this plan will work though, because his source told him the tunnels were cleared out 3 years ago and they’re totally clean. But just in case there are any stragglers, Henry knows Joel and Ellie can handle it, especially since they fought 2 clickers and lived to tell the tale. It might be a dicey plan, but it’s the only one they’ve got.

THE TUNNELS

This conversation about the comics sort of gave me Station Eleven vibes in a heart ache-y kind of way.

Valerie: The new fabulous foursome heads to the building that has the tunnel entrance, and as they descend I can’t help but remember the breathing floor Kathleen swept under the metaphorical rug last week, rendering me STRESSED AS HELL.

Joel tells Ellie to get her gun out, and Ellie looks so proud but Joel looks annoyed that it was in her pocket. And also unamused that she was so excited, probably.

Nic: That interaction is one of many reasons I cannot multitask while watching this show. The looks on their faces change so quickly and show the kind of shorthand they’ve already developed.

Valerie: Henry is probably equal parts excited and relieved when the tunnels seem empty, but Joel tells him not to count his chickens before they hatch. Henry says “Your dad is kind of a pessimist,” and Ellie and Joel are QUICK to inform him that Joel is NOT Ellie’s father.

Nic: Sorry to interrupt again, but I read that as “clickers” before they hatch and LOLOL not incorrect!

Valerie: First of all, stop apologizing. You “interrupting” is the whole point of the JOINT recap!! Second of all, that’s way funnier, I should have said, “don’t count his clickers before they hatch.” Thanks for punching me up!

They find a door with children’s drawings around it, and Sam excitedly goes to open it, but Joel dad-arms him back and opens it carefully. They don’t find any infected inside, just an abandoned classroom. A leftover relic from the early days of the outbreak, when some communities moved underground. Ellie wants to rest here for a little while, and Henry convinces Joel by explaining that it would be better to leave as the sun goes down anyway.

Sam finds the comics Ellie has been collecting and they bond, it’s so cute. Sam teaches Ellie how to say the comic’s tagline in sign language. Endure and survive.

Ellie and Sam play soccer in the makeshift goal while Joel and Henry watch over them. At one point while Ellie is playing, Joel looks down at his watch. His watch that hasn’t worked in 20 years, his watch that he knows full well doesn’t tell time. His watch that reminds him of his daughter.

Nic: Rude.

Valerie: Henry and Joel are sitting in silence, but Joel is uncharacteristically the one to break the silence. He says that if Sam is why Henry was a collaborator, he takes back what he said before, that he gets it. Henry explains that Sam had leukemia and he had to give up something big to get the medicine he needed, so he gave up the leader of the resistance, a good man…and Kathleen’s brother.

Henry asks Joel if he’s a bad guy, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. He’s sure he knows it. He did a “bad guy thing” so he must be a bad guy. It’s this that reminds me that Henry is barely older than a kid himself.

Henry can tell Joel was a father, even if he isn’t Ellie’s, but Joel isn’t quite ready to talk about that yet, so he says it’s time to go.

NEXT PAGE: Heartbreak, obviously! 

KATHLEEN’S CHILDHOOD BEDROOM

“I don’t dress for women. I don’t dress for men. Lately I’ve been dressing for revenge.” – Melanie Lynskey, probably.

Nic: Meanwhile, Kathleen is in her childhood bedroom, reminiscing over a time when her toughest decision was probably what game she and her brother Michael would play together. Perry comes in to see how she’s doing, and I gotta say, the juxtaposition of a fully armored soldier standing in a child’s bedroom really got to me. It happens often in this game and show, but the reminder that Outbreak Day affected literally every person, young and old, is devastating.

Valerie: This is neither here nor there but at one point it hit me that the stuff in this room almost definitely isn’t actually from her childhood, because I don’t know how old Kathleen is but she was probably an adult on Outbreak Day. So was this still her house, were these her children’s things? Or a stranger’s? Because as someone whose adult brother now lives in her childhood bedroom like it’s a very small studio apartment, I can tell you your childhood bedroom isn’t quite as nostalgic with someone else’s things in it. I feel like they never officially confirmed if the mother Brian was talking about being nearby was actually Kathleen or not, but if it was, the way she was detached from his death and still focused on her brother makes me think maybe she lost one of her kids early on and just shut down about it? Like think of how cold it would be if she was standing in her dead children’s bedroom but only talking about her brother? Am I overthinking this subplot?? OKAY CARRY ON.

Nic: Kathleen tells Perry that Michael was the most beautiful person in a way that she never was. And she doesn’t mean physically. Michael was the kind of person who helped his sister get through her fear of thunderstorms by pretending her room was an impenetrable box; the kind of person who begged Kathleen to forgive the man who turned him in; the kind of person who Kathleen thinks would be horrified by the things she’s done. Where Michael was soft and beautiful, Kathleen saw herself as becoming hard and ugly. Because all Michael’s beauty got him in the end was death. So fuck her brother’s last wishes I guess, because Kathleen is hell bent on revenge. Or “justice” if she were to tell it.

On the official Last of Us podcast, they described Kathleen as “if a kindergarten teacher were put in charge of the French Revolution.” Melanie Lynskey has brought this quiet power to the role of Kathleen in a way that makes you actually stop and consider things from her perspective… before realizing she has very few morals. But that’s what makes a perfect antagonist in my mind! Someone who gets you to think, “I mean..points were made…” It’s such a fine line, and Melanie toes it beautifully.

Valerie: MELANIE. LYNSKEY.

Nic: We’ve seen Perry’s cautiousness over some of Kathleen’s decisions previously, but here, he doesn’t waver. He tells Kathleen that sure, Michael was a good man, but he’s not the one who changed things; she is. And the city is with her.

THE SNIPER

😈🎶 “Now it’s time for so long. 🎶😈

Valerie: Ellie, Joel, Sam, and Henry get outside, and Henry is bragging about his plan working. Ellie invites them to come to Wyoming with them, and Joel gives her a look. Ellie assures Henry and Sam that Joel is always like this but she can wear him down. She is doing a hilarious Joel impression when suddenly they hear gunfire. They duck behind a car and peek out to realize that it’s a sniper from the window of a house at the end of the street. When I tell you I recognized this street as if I’d been there in real life, that’s how game-accurate this set was.

Joel wants to run to the house to get the sniper from inside, but before he leaves he asks Ellie if she trusts him, and she almost sounds surprised to hear her answer the truth, that she does.

As Joel takes off I get stressed because this part of the game was hard, but Joel must have played this scene on easy mode because he speed runs to the house. (In my defense, the game sniper was a better shot, and there were human obstacles between me and him!)

Joel sneaks up and finds the man who was sniping at them and begs him to just put down the gun. Joel sounds so tired, maybe especially tired of killing people, but of course the man doesn’t listen so Joel shoots him.

Joel hears Kathleen over the walkie saying they’re almost there, and Joel yells at the window for his three kids to run, but it’s too late. A truck with a plow leads a fleet of other cars down the street, and Joel tries to snipe them. (I was actually much better at this part of the game than the running to the house part.) He gets the driver of the lead truck, which veers off the road and crashes into a house. Kathleen gets out and calls out to Henry, and he answers from behind the car, saying he’ll turn himself in if she leaves the kids alone.

To her credit, she doesn’t lie to him. She just tells him no. She says the kids are associated with adults who did things that displeased her, so the kids have to die, too. Kathleen asks why Henry thinks his brother was more important than hers, and Henry tries to explain that Sam was dying. And Kathleen says that kids die all the time. And maybe he was supposed to die. Which sure is one way to look at things.

Nic: One of the scariest things about Kathleen as an antagonist is that she truly believes the validity of what she tells Henry. I’m sure in her mind, they’re not so different; both making tough choices in the name of love.

Valerie: This sort of supports my erratic, irrational theory about Kathleen being Brian’s mom, and maybe having had another kid that died earlier in the outbreak. Henry tells Ellie to watch over Sam and then gives himself up. Kathleen holds a gun up and apathetically says, “It ends the way it ends,” and for a heartbeat I think they’re about to make a wild change from the game, but then the truck that crashed into the house sinks into the basement. There’s a moment of quiet. And then CHAOS. A horde of infected RUSHES out of the basement, swarming like bees, moving simply way too fast. It. is. HORRIFYING. And now we know what happened to that underground community.

After a lot (A LOT) of runners and clickers emerge, slowly a new type of infected emerges. It’s what we call a bloater, and it’s too big and it’s too strong, and it’s covered in so much fungus the mushrooms act as armor. No bullets slow it down, and Perry apparently has not learned how to make a molotov cocktail yet, because before he knows it, the bloater has picked him and torn his head clean off.

Joel does his best to keep Ellie safe from the sniper’s nest, but when she gets into a truck there’s one clicker that escapes Joel’s gun. One tiny clicker. It’s the worst clicker I’ve ever seen. It’s a small child wearing Blue’s Clues pajamas and she is twisting and bending and flipping like a zombie gymnast and is profoundly upsetting on so many levels.

Nic: I haven’t stopped thinking about Gymboree Gemma™ in DAYS. Too flippy! Too bendy!

Valerie: I haven’t seen something so upsetting in a long time. Like on an emotional level thinking that she probably once read the same comics and played soccer in the same fake net as Ellie did just a few hours ago, and also viscerally upsetting to look at.

Ellie shivs two clickers that have Henry and Sam cornered under a car, and the three of them make a break for it. Kathleen stops them, but before she can shoot Henry, the terrible tiny terror attacks. I didn’t have “Melanie Lynskey gets eaten by a tiny gymnast” on my 2023 bingo card, but life comes at you fast.

Joel, Ellie, Sam and Henry run away from the chaos. Kansas City isn’t the people’s city anymore. It belongs to the fungus now.

HENRY & SAM

🎶“We can face this thing together. We can change this thing together. And everything will be alright!”🎶

Nic: After the chaos of the previous scene, it’s almost jarring when we’re met with the sounds of silence and the image of an abandoned motel. Inside, the surrogate dads are bonding over being caretakers of kids who are lucky enough not to worry about the wellbeing of another person, and those very kids are in the bedroom reading their favorite comic. Though, I’d argue that Ellie and Sam have a level of emotional intelligence beyond their years, and they know exactly what it’s like to worry about the only other person they can count on.

Joel quips about “endure and survive” before inviting Henry and Sam to travel to Wyoming with them. Henry agrees because it would be nice for Sam to have a friend on the road. What he doesn’t say is that it would probably be nice for him, too.

Henry signs to Sam that it’s time for bed, but as soon as Henry closes the door to the room, Ellie gets right back to reading to him. But Sam’s got a lot on his mind; namely the question of why, against all odds, Ellie doesn’t seem scared. Using Sam’s notepad, the two have a conversation during which Ellie admits that she’s scared all the time. At first, she takes a page out of my book and makes jokes about what she’s afraid of, but she eventually gets vulnerable with her new friend and admits that she’s scared to end up alone.

Valerie: The fact that she had been kind of quietly reading her answers out loud to herself as she wrote them until she actually got vulnerable and couldn’t say that part out loud was RELATABLE TO ME.

Nic: She asks Sam the same question, and he replies wanting to know if the person is still there under the monster when they turn. Ellie’s face is slightly confused and wary, so Sam quickly confirms her fear by showing her a bite on his leg.

Now, I played the game. I knew that Sam got bit. The way these scenes play out in the game is devastating enough, but the addition of this interaction between Sam and Ellie?? HEARTBREAKING. Ellie immediately shows him where she was bitten and explains that her blood is medicine. Before he can stop her, she cuts her hand and tries to rub her blood into his wound. Since Tess grabbed Ellie, everyone has told her that she is the key to this whole thing. If she’s supposed to be a hero, then dammit she’s going to try to be one right now, the only way she can think of. (PS… Gustavo?? Sir? We need to talk about your score because the music during this whole scene is RUDE.)

Valerie: It’s one of those rare moments where you remember that even though she’s precocious and smart and that she’s had to be stronger than anyone her age should have to be, she’s still just a kid. Of course she thought that’s how this would work.

Nic: The last thing that Sam writes for Ellie is “stay awake with me”, and she promises that she will. This kid, y’all. He’s been THROUGH it. He knows what’s coming for him, yet his innocence allows him to believe that maybe, just maybe, he won’t completely lose himself.

But the next morning, Ellie wakes up and Sam is sitting at the edge of the bed. She approaches him, but the Sam she so briefly knew is gone.

Valerie: I saw a TikTok that said probably once Ellie fell asleep, Sam faced the window because he knew if he turned he wouldn’t be able to hear her so keeping her out of his sightline was the best way to keep her safe until she woke up. If you need me, I’ll be crying forever.

Nic: Sam lunges at Ellie and they tumble through the door, waking up the adults. Ellie screams for Joel’s help, but Henry gets to the gun before Joel can. He freezes, not knowing whether to shoot Joel or stop his brother from killing Ellie. Because in Henry’s mind, that’s still his brother; you can see it all over his face. Before he can think any longer, he shoots Sam and immediately goes into shock, asking out loud, “what did I do? What did I do?” We see Henry bring the gun to his head, and the camera pans over to Ellie’s face as we hear the shot.

Valerie: I can still hear Ellie’s sob-yells ringing through my ears. She was scared, yes, but she was also so SAD.

Nic: Knowing what was coming did little to assuage my fears of how the show would handle it. Because yes, in the game, Henry and Sam are also Black brothers. But in real life, we are regularly inundated with depictions of violence against Black bodies and I hoped the inevitable devastation wouldn’t be egregious. I really appreciated that 1) we did not watch Henry pull the trigger at the end and 2) the camera lingered on the pool of blood next to Sam, and never on his little body. Considering the incredibly painful nature of their deaths, it was the best I could have hoped for.

The next morning, Joel buries Henry and Sam while Ellie packs up and gets ready to continue their journey. She sits at the grave and leaves one last message for her friend before walking away: “I’m Sorry.”

Valerie: The fact that Joel “We Have to Go” Miller took the time to bury Henry and Sam really did a number on me. Also the fact that Ellie was the one to hurry them along this time. She finally got to laugh and play again just to be reminded that this world is fast to rob her of joy. She’s younger than this pandemic; she’s been losing people her whole life, no wonder she’s afraid of ending up alone.

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