Last week, Joel and Ellie made it to Kansas City, MO where a group of raiders are hunting down a man named Henry, which they’re unfortunately now caught up in the middle of.
Henry and Sam
We’re jumping back in time 11 days to the raiders’ takeover of Kansas City from FEDRA control, Henry and Sam are fleeing. Kathleen is still after them, interrogating a room of prisoners who had sided with FEDRA in whatever revolution had occurred. One man finally caves, saying they’re with someone named Edelstein holed up somewhere in the open city outside of the QZ.
Kathleen and Perry argue about how they’re going to pursue him, with Kathleen insisting that right now, in the middle of the night, is the time to hunt. Meanwhile, Henry and Sam meet up with Edelstein, the doctor Kathleen shot in the previous episode, in the attic she’d found they had been hiding. They’ve got enough food for 11 days for the three of them, after that, they’ll need a new solution.
With Edelstein missing (because Kathleen killed him), Henry and Sam are forced to flee their hiding spot in search of food. Henry monitored their patterns and found the best time to escape. After painting a superhero mask on Sam, the brothers take off, and they just so happen to be right across the street from where Joel and Ellie crashed their truck.
A New Ally
After the standoff, the last episode ended with Joel and Ellie sharing their remaining food with Sam and Henry and making a deal to help each other get out of the city. It’s revealed that Henry is a former FEDRA collaborator, which Joel immediately recognizes as a rat. He also confesses he’s never killed a man before, so their partnership is as such: Henry leads the way out, and Joel clears the way. Then they’re all free.
There’s a way out through the tunnels beneath an old building, one catch, FEDRA hoarded all the infected in Kansas City up underground, and they’re most likely under there. The plus, however, is Kathleen’s men won’t be. Henry assures them that the tunnels are actually cleaned, the FEDRA guy he worked with told him they cleared it out three years ago, so it should be an easy route.
The Tunnels
The four make their way through the tunnels unbothered, hitting a location game players will recognize, the abandoned survivor settlement preschool where Sam finds another Easter Egg: a Savage Starlight comic. Endure and survive.
While Ellie and Sam play in a moment of reprieve, Henry admits to Joel he wasn’t entirely honest. He has killed a man before. In exchange for meds for Sam’s leukemia, he killed the former leader of the resistance for FEDRA, Kathleen’s brother. Joel gives him nothing in response and tells everyone it’s time to go.
They make it to the other side unscathed, the neighborhood abandoned as they set off on the final stretch. But that’s right, folks, there’s a sniper at the end of the street! Joel makes his way up easily (why wasn’t it that easy for me?) and spots the bridge that will get them out of the city. He begs the elderly man manning the rifle to just let them through, but the man clearly didn’t agree. But more bad news, the sniper had alerted Kathleen to the intruders on the street.
Escape
Joel fires on the approaching tank from the sniper’s nest as Ellie, Henry, and Sam run. He takes out the driver of the tank just in time, but Kathleen and her army have arrived. Henry offers to surrender himself if they let Ellie and Sam go, but of course, she refuses. Henry makes Ellie promise to take Sam and run before facing Kathleen, but as she readies to finally get her revenge, the horde of infected living beneath the ground resurfaces.
Mayhem ensues as Kathleen’s men fire on the horde, and Joel fires from the third-story window, Henry and Sam run while Ellie takes cover in a car. And then, the most deadly foe pulls itself up essentially from hell itself, the bloater. (Bloaters are infected who have somehow survived for many years, some since Outbreak Day, just growing and growing and growing until they’re … that.) Perry meets his end as Kathleen runs (I bet he wishes he had a Molotov cocktail), and a child clicker makes its way into the car where Ellie is hiding, forcing her back out into the chaos.
Joel clears her a path to Henry and Sam hiding beneath a truck, and when he sees the trio begin to run, he takes off after them. Kathleen tries to stop them, but the little girl clicker from Ellie’s car takes her out, Joel simply allowing her to get bitten before they successfully escape.
The Luck Runs Out
As they rest up after their ordeal, Joel invites Henry and Sam to join them on their journey to Jackson. Ellie confesses to Sam that she’s afraid of ending up alone before they turn in for the night, and he asks her if you turn into a monster, are you still inside before revealing a bite mark on his leg. Ellie shows him her bite and tells him her blood is medicine. She slices her palm and presses it to the wound, and promises Sam she’ll stay awake with him.
Of course, that doesn’t work, and he’s turned by morning. He attacks Ellie as they fall into the room where Henry and Joel are, Henry snatching the gun between them and pointing it at Joel. He shoots Sam before turning it on Joel, traumatized by what he’s just had to do. Joel begs him to give him the gun, but he doesn’t, instead turning it on himself.
Joel buries them both outside before Ellie urges him forward west.
Episode 6 of The Last of Us premieres next Sunday, February 19 on HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. EST.
