![\"Sam](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/f856d5569ee9af1ca1108dc46748c135.jpg)
<\/div>\n<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/figure>\n Episode five of HBO\u2019s The Last of Us<\/em> marks the midpoint of our nine-episode journey. That\u2019s right, we\u2019re halfway there, and Ellie and Joel are definitely living on a prayer. Look, I\u2019m sorry for the bad Bon Jovi reference but man, this episode is The Last of Us <\/em>at its most relentlessly bleak. I needed to do something to lighten the mood for myself, and unlike Ellie, I don\u2019t have a book of awful jokes handy. At least this episode also features what I consider the most effective subtle nod to the game in the entire season. We\u2019ll get to that in a bit.<\/p>\n At the end of episode four, Joel and Ellie were being held at gunpoint by two characters who players of the game likely immediately recognized as Henry and Sam. (If you need to catch up, you can find my recap of that episode here<\/span>.) As episode five begins, we flash back a little while to meet these new characters and learn about what\u2019s driven them into such desperate circumstances.<\/p>\n At first glance, this episode\u2019s beginning seems like one of pure jubilation. Chants of \u201cfreedom!\u201d are heard rising from a crowd that\u2019s celebrating in the streets. But almost immediately, we\u2019re shown the grim side of this happy occasion, with FEDRA officers being executed at point-blank or publicly hoisted into the air by the neck as they twitch with their final struggles for life. An armored vehicle the people have reclaimed roams the streets blasting the message, \u201cCollaborators, surrender now and you will receive a fair trial.\u201d Hmm, yes, somehow I don\u2019t believe you. Maybe it\u2019s the fact that you\u2019re dragging a body behind you that\u2019s stuffed with so many blades it looks like a pincushion, I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n As the armored vehicle passes, we see Henry and Sam lurking in the shadows. Henry (Lamar Johnson, The Hate U Give<\/em>) uses ASL to communicate with his brother, cluing us in to a significant change from the game: Here, Sam is deaf. (Sam is wonderfully played here by young actor Keivonn Woodard, who is also deaf.) In this brief exchange, you can already sense Henry trying to put on a brave face for his much younger brother. The two sneak away unseen by the patrolling resistance which, as we learned in last week\u2019s episode, is hell-bent on finding them.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/figure>\n G\/O Media may get a commission<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In fact, even as the celebration rages on, Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), the resistance\u2019s leader, is working, interrogating a group of \u201ccollaborators\u201d\u2014civilians who worked with FEDRA before it fell\u2014about Henry\u2019s whereabouts. Lynskey remains chilling in the role, coating her comments in a tone that, on the surface, sounds reasonable and kind, but is so transparently cold and ruthless underneath. \u201cLucky for you, I\u2019m not FEDRA,\u201d she tells them, saying that if they cooperate, they\u2019ll be put on trial, be found guilty of course, and then have to do some time, \u201ceasy.\u201d She\u2019s got her commando assistant Perry (Jeffrey Pierce, who voices Joel\u2019s brother Tommy in the games) by her side, his silent presence lending her words an added threat of danger. Finally someone cracks and tells her that Henry and Sam are with Edelstein, the doctor we saw Kathleen interrogate in last week\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n A moment later, she orders her men to go door-to-door until her prey is found. When Perry shows some hesitation and advises against this plan, we see that she can turn her condescending ruthlessness on him, too. \u201cHe\u2019s not my seventh priority, Perry,\u201d she says. \u201cIs that what he is to you?\u201d I\u2019m starting to feel like the way she prioritizes finding Henry above all other concerns may backfire on her in some way. Remember last week, when Perry showed her the ominous, quivering sinkhole in the building, and rather than dealing with it in any real way, she told him to just seal the building off and remain focused on finding Henry? Yeah, I\u2019ve got a bad feeling about this.<\/p>\n Perry asks if they\u2019re really putting the arrested collaborators on trial. Of course they\u2019re not. \u201cWhen you\u2019re done, burn the bodies. It\u2019s faster,\u201d she says, the way you might ask someone to pick up some milk from the grocery store on the way home.<\/p>\n Henry and Sam meet up with Edelstein, who takes them into the same cramped attic space we saw Kathleen investigate in last week\u2019s episode. Here, it\u2019s not yet covered with Sam\u2019s drawings, as Henry and the doctor discuss their very limited food supply and total lack of ammunition for their guns. Everything that transpires here has an undercurrent of dread for us, since we already know that Edelstein soon gets captured and executed by Kathleen.<\/p>\n Sam, who can\u2019t hear what they\u2019re saying, sits in the corner, drawing on his little magnetic sketch pad. Edelstein seems like a kind and thoughtful man, showing genuine concern for Sam\u2019s well-being. \u201cHe\u2019s scared because you\u2019re scared,\u201d he advises Henry.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/figure>\n Henry goes to comfort his little brother, who has drawn a masked superhero on his pad. \u201cSuper Sam,\u201d Henry signs. Sam is understandably afraid, and Henry tries to reassure him that they\u2019re safe here. \u201cThere is one problem, though,\u201d he says. \u201cThis place? Is ugly.\u201d He then breaks out the big bag of art supplies that Sam uses to decorate the space. It\u2019s an endearing moment, with Henry creating for his younger brother an alternate reality in which the only real problem facing them is the drabness of their surroundings, and not the army hunting them right outside.<\/p>\n We skip ahead ten days, to find the attic filled with images of Super Sam blasting evil FEDRA officers and flying protectively over the city. But now, a real problem is bearing down on them: they\u2019re almost out of food, and Sam is hungry. Edelstein\u2019s been gone a whole day, and their hopes rest on him returning with some. We already know he\u2019s not coming back. And yet right out the window, Henry can see resistance officers scouring the city, making leaving a dangerous proposition. They\u2019re in a tight spot.<\/p>\n Finally, Henry has to face the fact that Edelstein isn\u2019t returning. He tells Sam that he\u2019s studied the patterns of the resistance patrols and can guide them to safety. When Sam asks if they killed Edelstein, Henry is honest and says they probably did. Sam clings to Henry for a long time after that. He\u2019s a child growing up in a world in which nothing is ever safe or assured. He must be terrified. <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/figure>\n As he holds his brother and looks at the art decorating the walls, Henry has a flash of inspiration. He tells Sam to close his eyes, and paints a red mask on his face, just like the one Sam\u2019s alter ego sports in all the drawings. Seeing it reflected in his brother\u2019s knife, Sam nods with satisfaction. He\u2019s ready to face the world.<\/p>\n They don\u2019t get far, though. Just as they\u2019re about to leave the building, a gunfight breaks out outside. It\u2019s Joel and Ellie\u2019s unceremonious arrival in Kansas City, and Henry observes as Joel kills the hunters attacking him. We see the wheels in his head turning. \u201cNew plan,\u201d he tells his brother.<\/p>\n Now we come back to the moment that concluded episode four, when the paths of these two duos intersect. Henry\u2019s obviously been keeping an eye on Joel since earlier in the day, and he\u2019s tracked him and Ellie to the apartment building where they\u2019ve crashed for the night.<\/p>\n Joel isn\u2019t exactly thrilled about waking up to the reality of being held at gunpoint, but soon they agree to a tentative truce, and Henry introduces himself as \u201cthe most wanted man in Kansas City.\u201d <\/p>\n Over a quiet meal, Ellie asks Sam how old he is, and with Henry acting as an interpreter between them, he responds that he\u2019s eight. (In the game, Sam is closer to Ellie\u2019s age of 14, but him being younger here makes me even more sympathetic to how overwhelming and terrifying his experience of the world must be.) Joel, being Joel, says dryly that they successfully ate together and didn\u2019t kill each other, so they should call it a win and move on. But Henry has a card up his sleeve. \u201cI\u2019m betting that y\u2019all came up here to get a view of the city and plan a way out,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd when the sun\u2019s up, I\u2019ll show you one.\u201d<\/p>\n The next morning, Henry provides Joel (and us) with some additional context for what went down in Kansas City. Looking out at the city, Joel is struck by the lack of FEDRA, especially since he\u2019d always heard that KC FEDRA ruled with an iron fist. Henry confirms the rumors. \u201cRaped and tortured and murdered people for 20 years,\u201d he says. So if Henry wasn\u2019t part of this monstrous FEDRA, Joel wonders, what, then, was he? When Henry replies that he was something even worse, \u201ca collaborator,\u201d Joel protests and says he doesn\u2019t work with rats. Henry insists that today, he doesn\u2019t have much choice, \u201c\u2018cause I live here and you don\u2019t.\u201d They need each other, Henry argues. Only he knows where to go, and only Joel has the capacity for violence to get them out alive.<\/p>\n This is all quite different from the game, in which Henry and Sam weren\u2019t native to Pittsburgh (where the game\u2019s version of this storyline takes place), but had just come there from Hartford, Connecticut in search of supplies. They had no connection to the resistance that had risen up in Pittsburgh, but just happened to be people who could help Joel and Ellie get out of the city. In both stories, though, Sam lets us see new sides of Ellie by giving her a fellow kid to geek out with and play with, and having another duo traveling with them for a while illuminates Joel\u2019s growing attachment to Ellie and his sense of himself as her protector, no longer just out of obligation but increasingly out of genuine care and concern.<\/p>\n As the two talk, the sound of kids laughing can be heard nearby. Ellie is showing Sam her tattered book of jokes, and a genuine smile stretches across Henry\u2019s face. \u201cHaven\u2019t heard that in a long time,\u201d he says, mirroring a moment from the game in which Ellie and Sam playfully eat blueberries together and Henry says it\u2019s been a long time since he saw Sam crack a smile.<\/p>\n Perhaps counterintuitively, I find these moments of fleeting happiness among the most devastating in both the game and the show, because I know how things end for Henry and Sam. Their fate is so awful, so bleak, that it makes me think back to Ellie\u2019s question to Joel in episode four: \u201cIf you don\u2019t think there\u2019s hope for the world, why bother going on?\u201d I\u2019m once again glad that the TV series at least offered us the reprieve of Bill and Frank, giving us one vision of lives lived well and with meaning, to temper how relentlessly hopeless it all gets for a while.<\/p>\n Henry sketches a map of the area showing how Kathleen\u2019s forces have the area on lock. Still, there is a way out, he insists. Sam sits nearby sketching, but Henry doesn\u2019t want him left out of the conversation. \u201cHow do we get across?\u201d he signs at his brother. Sam writes intently on his pad for a moment, then holds it up. \u201cTUNNELS.\u201d It\u2019s a great plan, but there\u2019s a huge catch. Kansas City may seem strangely lacking in Infected, but there\u2019s a reason for that. \u201cFEDRA drove them underground 15 years ago,\u201d Henry says. He insists, though, that FEDRA cleaned out the tunnels three years ago. Just what that means or how exactly they did that remains ominously unspoken, almost as if the show\u2019s writers want to plant a seed in our minds about it. Nah, I\u2019m sure it won\u2019t come up again. Henry admits that the plan is \u201cdicey-as-fuck,\u201d but it\u2019s also the only plan they\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/figure>\n As they head down into the tunnels, Joel tells Ellie to get her gun out, and it looks like Ellie has to suppress a smile as he\u2019s finally fully shifted from relentlessly denying her a gun to asking her to be ready to use one. However, the tunnels do indeed appear empty, vastly, surprisingly empty, stretching hollowly before them as far as the eye can see. Joel stays on guard but nothing is stirring in these subterranean passageways, and at last they come to a place that looks quite different, where the walls are decorated with the kinds of colorful drawings you might see at a preschool. Passing through a door, they find an abandoned place where people\u2014adults and children\u2014clearly once lived. Amidst all the details\u2014the toys, the posted signs laying out rules, all the other signs of life\u2014one thing stands out: a child\u2019s drawing of two smiling men in body armor, with rifles, labeled \u201cour protectors,\u201d Danny and Ish. And here\u2019s where we come to the episode\u2019s great little nod to the game.<\/p>\n First, a little background. In the game, Joel and Ellie\u2019s journey with Henry and Sam briefly takes them along a beach where you can enter a battered old boat and find a note. (Considering that this is near Pittsburgh, that probably makes about as much sense as the beginning of episode two being set \u201c10 miles west of Boston<\/span>.\u201d) The note is signed by someone named Ish (perhaps a reference to Moby Dick<\/em>\u2019s sea-faring narrator Ishmael) and details how, after spending some time at sea to hide from the outbreak, he eventually found himself running low on supplies and his boat in disrepair, and returned to shore to take his chances with humanity again.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/figure>\n From there, you head into nearby sewers, where you can find a small area where Ish lived alone for some time after coming ashore. A note of his you can find there mentions that he met some people who had kids with them and who did not want to shoot him on sight. \u201cShocking I know,\u201d he comments. The encounter puts the idea in his head that maybe it\u2019s better for him to try trusting other people than it is to continue living alone. \u201cWhat\u2019s the point of surviving if you don\u2019t have someone to laugh at your corny jokes?\u201d his note reads, a question that cuts to the heart of The Last of Us\u2019 <\/em>themes. \u201cTomorrow, I\u2019m going in search of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Soon, you come to a place that\u2019s very much like the one the party finds in the TV series, where Ish lived with other adults and children. In fact, the very same drawing of Ish and another adult named Danny that we see in the show is seen here in the game. Unfortunately, environmental clues also tell us that at some point, infected did get into the settlement, and the results were tragic, with another adult named Kyle and a few children getting trapped in a room by infected, and Kyle killing the children himself to spare them an even worse fate. Another note that you can find in the suburbs upon leaving the sewers reveals that he and a woman named Susan got out, but it\u2019s excruciating to read. \u201cShe lost her children,\u201d it says, \u201cand I have no clue what to say to her.\u201d<\/p>\n It concludes with Ish writing that every part of his being wants to give up, but he just can\u2019t. \u201cI\u2019ve seen that we\u2019re still capable of good. We can make it. I have to stay strong\u2026 for her.\u201d What happened to him after that remains unknown.<\/p>\n Very often, I feel that Easter eggs are kind of exclusionary. They wink and nod to those people who are in the know, letting those viewers perhaps feel smug about picking up on cool details that fly over the rest of the audience\u2019s heads. This drawing on the wall, though, works either way, I think. If you haven\u2019t played the game, it offers some insight into what life was like here in this underground settlement at one time, and if you do know it from the game, it opens up a whole other narrative to you. A tragedy nested within a tragedy. Right about now, The Last of Us <\/em>just feels like tragedies all the way down.<\/p>\n Sam finds a copy of a Savage Starlight <\/em>comic<\/span>, which in the game serves as a collectible Joel can find throughout and give to Ellie. Ellie is immediately stoked at Sam\u2019s find, and the two of them bond over their shared enthusiasm for the series, trading details about which issues they each have. One particularly sweet moment sees Ellie quoting the hero\u2019s catchphrase of \u201cEndure and survive\u201d and Sam teaching it to her in ASL. God, I want these kids to make it. (Around this same stretch of the game, Ellie will occasionally say \u201cEndure and survive\u201d after Joel has finished taking out a group of enemies and it seems like the two are safe for the time being.)<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/figure>\n Other moments here are direct nods to the game, like one when Ellie and Sam play soccer using a makeshift goal painted on the wall. However, a conversation between Joel and Henry that sheds further light on his connection to Kathleen is totally new. Joel apologizes for having called Henry a rat before, saying that if Henry did what he did for Sam\u2019s sake, he understands. Henry finally tells Joel exactly what it is he did do, and why. He paints a picture of a great man, one who \u201cwas never afraid, never selfish, and he was always forgiving.\u201d He\u2019s clearly talking about Kathleen\u2019s brother, who he wanted to follow, and would have followed, if only.<\/p>\n \u201cBut Sam, he got sick. Leukemia.\u201d And wouldn\u2019t you know it, FEDRA had control of the very limited supply of the only drug that could treat him. So he made a deal, and gave FEDRA what they wanted. He\u2019s still wracked with guilt about it, but the world presented him with an impossible choice that he never should have had to make in the first place. Rather than offer any words of comfort or understanding, though, Joel just says \u201cWe\u2019ve waited long enough.\u201d It\u2019s time to move on.<\/p>\n We find Kathleen standing in her childhood bedroom, in a clearly abandoned house. And as she tells Perry about her brother\u2014who we learn here was named Michael\u2014and how he\u2019d always comfort her during thunderstorms when they were kids, all I could think was, \u201cOh my god, shut up.\u201d She\u2019s the type of person who\u2019s so convinced that her pain and suffering matter so much more than everyone else\u2019s, that hunting down Henry is good and righteous because he took her brother from her, even though he only did it because it was the only way to save his own brother. Of course her pain and grief are real, but the extremes she\u2019s going to in her pursuit of Henry make me lose all sympathy for her. She\u2019s an egomaniac.<\/p>\n In fact, even her own brother\u2019s wishes don\u2019t matter to her, much as she might pretend to be honoring his life or his memory in this act. \u201cHe was so beautiful,\u201d she says about Michael. \u201cI\u2019m not. I never was.\u201d She knows Michael would want her to forgive Henry. He outright told her that when FEDRA had him locked up right before they killed him. But her pain is just too important to her for her to do that. And Perry is happy to validate her worst impulses. \u201cYour brother was a great man. We all loved him,\u201d he says. \u201cBut he didn\u2019t change anything. You did. We\u2019re with you.\u201d Thanks, Perry. Big help. I\u2019m sure that won\u2019t encourage Kathleen to do something even more selfish and reckless than all the things she\u2019s already done.<\/p>\n Joel and the gang emerge outside of Kathleen\u2019s territory in a suburban neighborhood that seems safe at first glance, and the mood is relatively light as Ellie begins does her best Joel impression and encourages Henry and Sam to come with them to Wyoming. (In the game, Henry and Sam are already planning to track down the Fireflies, but here, they just want to get out of Kansas City for starters.) The calm is broken, however, when a sniper bullet strikes the ground near them and they dash behind a wrecked car for cover, plunging us into a sequence that owes a lot to the game.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/figure>\n Sniper bullets continue to rain down on them, and just as in the game, Joel opts to sneak around and try to come at the sniper from behind. In the game, though, what you find in the sniper\u2019s perch is a young man with a knife, prompting a grisly button-mashing sequence in which you ultimately turn the blade on the man and stab him with it repeatedly. Here, Joel finds an older man, one of Kathleen\u2019s faithful, who refuses Joel\u2019s plea to just drop the gun, instead cementing his own death by turning the gun on Joel. Just then, Kathleen\u2019s voice crackles over a radio. \u201cHold them where they are,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re almost there.\u201d<\/p>\n In the game, the one repurposed Humvee the Pittsburgh resistance claimed from FEDRA soon arrives, but here, Kathleen\u2019s forces are much more well-equipped, and a number of vehicles are soon barreling down on Ellie, Henry, and Sam. Just as in the game, Joel provides cover with the sniper rifle, and here he takes out the driver of the truck leading the charge, sending it careening into a nearby house where it promptly explodes.<\/p>\n Read More: <\/strong>HBO\u2019s The Last Of Us <\/em>Just Nailed One Of The Game\u2019s Best Moments<\/span><\/p>\n Still, Kathleen\u2019s forces close in. Perry sends men after Joel, and Kathleen begins to address Henry, revealing that her hypocrisy and self-importance know no bounds. \u201cI know why you did what you did,\u201d she says, \u201cbut did you ever stop to think that maybe [Sam] was supposed to die?\u201d When Henry protests that Sam is just a kid, she replies that kids die \u201call the time.\u201d That may be true, but it doesn\u2019t change the fact that by her moral calculus, Sam\u2019s life should have been totally disregarded, while Michael\u2019s life should have been prioritized above all. In one truly staggering moment of cognitive dissonance, she says \u201cYou think the whole world revolves around him?\u201d as if she isn\u2019t acting like the whole world revolves around her quest for vengeance.<\/p>\n Finally, Henry emerges. \u201cIt ends the way it ends,\u201d Kathleen says as she raises her gun to kill him. This calls for a deus ex machina, baby!<\/p>\n Just then, the truck nearby teeters and falls as the earth beneath it yawns open, and an absolute tidal wave of speedy infected rise up out of it, a kind of cosmic retribution for Kathleen\u2019s hubris. (A mob of infected also bear down on the group during this sequence in the game, but it\u2019s nothing like this.) Huh, I guess FEDRA didn\u2019t really deal with the infected problem after all, they just tried to brush it aside. Showrunner Craig Mazin knows a thing or two about writing stories where institutions do that, I guess, having worked on Chernobyl <\/em>as well.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/figure>\n Suddenly Kathleen\u2019s considerable show of force feels quite impotent, as the assault rifles have little effect in stemming the tide of death. Joel does the best he can to cover his allies amidst the chaos, but Ellie gets separated from Henry and Sam and climbs into an old SUV. Just then, a guttural growl unlike any sound we\u2019ve heard an infected make thus far is heard, and a very different beast emerges from the sinkhole, a formidable, fungus-encrusted chonker of an infected called a bloater, a boss-type enemy from the game. Kathleen\u2019s forces don\u2019t have any of the molotov cocktails or nail bombs I usually use to take these bad boys down, so I think they\u2019re pretty much fucked.<\/p>\n Read More: <\/strong>What Was That Giant Infected In Episode 5 Of The Last Of Us<\/em>?<\/span><\/p>\n Perry peppers the thing with bullets but they clearly have little effect aside from making it mad. As it bears down on him, he urges Kathleen to get to cover, then turns to face his fate, which is having his head ripped clean off in a death consistent with one of the game\u2019s most horrifying death animations.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Ellie has a guest in her little SUV sanctuary: a creepy infected who was also a teenage girl before getting turned. Ellie heads out onto the street where she sees Henry and Sam pinned down by infected under a nearby car. With Joel\u2019s help and a few stabs of her trusty switchblade\u2014her signature weapon in the game\u2014she gets them out and they make a run for it. Kathleen stops them yet again, but her success is short-lived, as a young infected\u2014who I think but I\u2019m not certain is the same one that chased Ellie out of the vehicle a moment before\u2014leaps on her and absolutely shreds her to bits. It ends the way it ends.<\/p>\n As Joel leads them away from the chaos, we see the mob of infected, including the bloater, lurching its way back toward Kansas City. Nice going, Kathleen. Great job.<\/p>\n Joel and the gang have found shelter in an old motel for the night. In the game, there\u2019s a nice moment here where Henry presses Joel for details about the time Joel and his brother Tommy rode Harley-Davidsons on a cross-country trip. That detail\u2019s been omitted from the show, but the general arc of how things play out here is pretty similar.<\/p>\n \u201cYou think they\u2019ll be okay?\u201d Henry asks about the kids as they read Savage Starlight <\/em>together in the next room, and Joel, in his own taciturn way, offers a kind of comfort to Henry, as a fellow protector of a young charge. It\u2019s easier when you\u2019re a kid, he says. \u201cYou don\u2019t have anybody else relying on you. That\u2019s the hard part.\u201d Then comes a bit of playful meta-dialogue as Joel says, \u201cWhat\u2019s that comic book say? \u2018Endure and survive\u2019?\u201d \u201cEndure and survive,\u201d Henry says. Then, after a moment: \u201cThat shit\u2019s redundant.\u201d \u201cYeah, it\u2019s not great,\u201d Joel agrees.<\/p>\n And now, as Ellie jokingly predicted earlier, Joel does indeed invite Henry and Sam to join them on the trip to Wyoming. It\u2019s another one of those seemingly pleasant, hopeful moments that I find all the more painful because we\u2019ll never get to see what might have come to pass if only the world they lived in were a little less dangerous and cruel. \u201cYeah, I think it\u2019d be nice for Sam to have a friend,\u201d Henry says. \u201cNew day, new start.\u201d Okay, writers. Now you\u2019re deliberately twisting the knife, jeeze.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/figure>\n Though Henry urges Sam to get some sleep, he and Ellie stay up for a bit, Ellie doing different voices as she reads Savage Starlight <\/em>aloud. But Sam is preoccupied. \u201cAre you ever scared?\u201d he writes on his pad, a question he effectively asks her aloud in the game. (\u201cHow is it that you\u2019re never scared?\u201d) Just like in the game, Ellie first jokes that she\u2019s afraid of scorpions, before admitting that what really scares her is the possibility of ending up alone.<\/p>\n In the game, when Ellie asks Sam what he\u2019s scared of, he brings up infected. \u201cWhat if the people are still inside?\u201d he asks, and it\u2019s the first time that the game directly engages with a terrifying idea that the show brings up early on: whether the person an infected once was remains somehow present and aware, even as they lose all control over their body. The game\u2019s Ellie dismisses the idea, saying \u201cthat person is not in there anymore.\u201d Her counterpart in the show, however, seems a bit more troubled by the idea.<\/p>\n The game\u2019s Sam keeps his bite a secret, but in the show, after asking Ellie, \u201cIf you turn into a monster, is it still you inside?\u201d he lifts the leg of his jeans to show her the nasty wound. Ellie here does something strange and sweet and hopeless: she cuts her own hand to draw blood and press it into the bite, telling Sam, \u201cMy blood is medicine.\u201d If only it were that simple.<\/p>\n What happens the next morning is so awful, I don\u2019t even want to bring myself to write it. If you\u2019re reading this recap, you probably know, and if you don\u2019t, I think you can guess.<\/p>\nThe Fall of Kansas City FEDRA<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Kathleen](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/8b5db565867b945ac28a7527621c6e27.jpg)
Henry and Sam stay with Edelstein<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Henry](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/82b8d01cf04a39f19e7650107f30f2e8.jpg)
The birth of Super Sam<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/787439fab0611c1b2136697fa889173e.jpg)
Meeting Joel and Ellie<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u201cWelcome to Killa City\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Henry\u2019s plan<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/4b58b7190fbf198686bb3fe8fb776d6b.jpg)
Who is Ish?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/d211b16e79f551a42e257528dcb7ebbd.jpg)
Savage Starlight<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/3c9b28e84182a6cff8d00fab192aa641.jpg)
Kathleen and Michael<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Sniper on the street<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Joel](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/93d22423df8fb2d9e3e3cf7a111d6682.jpg)
\u201cIt ends the way it ends\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Something wicked this way bloats<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/eaa0c4d1433924067ae9383ed8e7b783.jpg)
\u201cI\u2019m scared of ending up alone\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Ellie](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/a225f8c78c61efd1b4942b4d9f00a022.jpg)
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/i.kinja-img.com\/gawker-media\/image\/upload\/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_80,pg_1,q_80,w_80\/d9db545ec4de6aae0dc6c606d0195104.jpg)
<\/div>\n