‘The Last of Us’ Episode 5 Recap: Our Protectors (2024)

Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Episode 5 of The Last of Us.After the bonding between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) in The Last of Us' fourth episode, “Please Hold My Hand,” the fifth episode, “Endure and Survive” properly introduces us to another pair trying to make it in this post-outbreak world, brothers Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Montreal Woodard), who are also attempting to escape Kansas City. While an episode like “Long Long Time" showed the beauty of letting someone in during the apocalypse, “Endure and Survive” shows the very real pain of love and loss that comes from this hellish world, and that letting someone close is asking for the eventual heartbreak.

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The Hunt for Henry

“Endure and Survive” begins with a look back at the recent past, when the people of the Kansas City quarantine zone took over the QZ from FEDRA. The people of Kansas City brutalize the FEDRA officers, beating them, hanging them, and shooting them point-blank. As the new rulers of the QZ patrol the streets looking for FEDRA, or collaborators, we see Henry and his deaf brother Sam hiding in the shadows, as the pair attempt to make it two blocks to safety among the war-torn streets.

We see that Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) has captured a cell full of people, a group of informers, who she says she used to be scared of. She asks the group if it felt good betraying their neighbors to FEDRA, watching them get sent to prison or killed in order to get things like medicine, alcohol, and even apples. But now the tables have turned, as Kathleen is in charge, and she states that lucky for them, no one needs to die. They can go on trial, and since they're guilty, they’ll do some time, but first, Kathleen wants to know where Henry is.

When no one replies, she tells her right-hand man Perry (Jeffrey Pierce) to kill the group. At this, one of the people claims Henry is with Edelstein (the doctor Kathleen killed in Episode 4), a reveal which seems to surprise Kathleen. Edelstein said he had a place to meet up with Henry and Sam if things went south, and Kathleen says that things have gone great, now that Kansas City is free. But despite this knowledge, the man doesn't know where Edelstein, Henry, and Sam were going, as Kathleen sends her men out to find them in the city immediately, stating that finding Henry is their priority. When Perry asks if they're really putting the people on trial, Kathleen responds that no, they’re not, and that Perry should burn the bodies when he's done, since it's faster.

Super Sam

We cut back to Henry and Sam, who have made it to the meetup point, and find Edelstein hiding in a crawlspace. Edelstein says a FEDRA officer told him about the place, and that FEDRA has no idea this place exists. This trio doesn’t have any ammunition and didn’t find much food to survive on, so the plan is to sneak out of the QZ, as Henry thinks they can get out via tunnels. Henry thinks that based on their food, they have 11 days to figure out their next move. Edelstein points out that Sam is scared because Henry is scared.

Sam talks to Henry, who is drawing a superhero on his Magic Slate toy he keeps on his neck. Henry tells Sam that they’re 100% safe, and reassures Sam that he's not scared. But Henry says the only problem is the place they’re hiding out is ugly, and he gives Sam a giant bag of crayons to help decorate the place, as the two brothers immediately get to drawing on the brick walls.

We see 10 days later that Sam has drawn superheroes all over the hideout, a character that Henry calls “Super Sam.” The streets are still full of soldiers, and the group is down to one can of food. Sam wants to eat, but Henry says they should wait for Edelstein, who has been gone a whole day. While Henry promises he’ll be back, the next day, he still hasn't returned, and Henry tells Sam he’s not returning, and that they have to leave since they're now out of food. But Henry has been watching the teams on the street and knows their patterns so they can get away. Henry tells Sam that FEDRA probably killed Edelstein, and the two hug, knowing that all they have left is each other. Looking around the hideout, Henry gets an idea. Henry tells Sam to close his eyes, and Henry paints an orange superhero mask around Sam’s eyes, turning his brother into Super Sam.

Meeting Joel and Ellie

As they prepare to leave, they hear Joel and Ellie’s truck crash from Episode 4 and the impending shootout with the Kansas City crew. After seeing Joel take out the team, Henry says that he has a new plan. Later that night, Henry and Sam find the building Joel and Ellie are sleeping in at the end of Episode 4 and sneak up on them. Joel and Ellie wake up to find guns pointed at them from both Henry and Sam. Henry says they don’t want to hurt them, they want to help them, and after a few questionable responses from Joel, Henry decides to trust this pair of fellow survivors. Henry introduces themselves and states that they're the most wanted men in Kansas City, but now that Joel and Ellie are here, it’s a close call. Later, Joel and Ellie share their food with Henry and Sam, and Joel suggests they go their own separate ways. But Henry has a different idea, saying that in the morning, he’ll show Joel and Ellie how to get out of the city.

The next morning, Joel and Henry look out over the city, and Joel says he heard that the Kansas City FEDRA were monsters, which Henry agrees they would rape, torture, and murder people for twenty years, and now, the people have risen up and have done that right back to FEDRA. Henry tells Joel that he's not FEDRA, he was worse: a collaborator. Even though Joel doesn't want to work with a rat, Henry knows the way out, and he needs someone to clear the way—since Henry has never killed anyone and has never been violent—so the pair decide to make an alliance of sorts. While they talk, we see that Ellie and Sam have already struck up a friendship, with Henry saying he hasn't heard Sam laugh in a long time.

Henry explains his plan, saying the city is run by Kathleen, but the way to get across town is through maintenance tunnels that will get them to freedom. When Joel asks what they need him for, Henry explains that FEDRA drove the infected underground 15 years ago and never let them come back up. Henry says that while everyone—including Kathleen—thinks the tunnels are full of infected, he has inside info from a FEDRA guy that the tunnels are actually clean. Even though Henry agrees that the plan is “dicey as f*ck,” Joel and Ellie’s ability to face two clickers in the past and walk away unscathed gives him hope.

Through the Tunnels

The quartet makes their way to a bank that has a path to the tunnels, and as they enter, Joel tells Ellie to get her gun out. As they head through the tunnels, they don’t find any infected, yet they eventually find an area covered in kids' drawings, with a door that looks like the entrance to a cartoon castle. When they enter, they find an entire area for children, complete with more drawings, toys, books, and a makeshift soccer goal. Joel says he’s heard of places like this, where people went underground after Outbreak Day and made settlements.

Joel finds a drawing that says “our protectors,” showing two men named Danny and Ish. In The Last of Us Part 1, we learn that Ish was a man who went underground, and discovered a family in the nearby suburbs when looking for supplies. Ish invited the family and a community was formed. Eventually, Ish met Danny, and the two became protectors of their underground hideout (as seen in the drawing). At some point, however, one of the doors was left unopened, which led a group of infected in. While Ish and Susan—the mother of the first family Ish found—were able to escape the attack and run to the suburbs with a few survivors, their ultimate fate is unknown.

In this underground playroom, Sam finds an issue of the Savage Starlight comic book—which Ellie collects issues of in the first game. Ellie shows her excitement over the issue, and Sam and her bond even more over their love of the series. Ellie recites a quote from the comic: “To the edge of the universe and back, endure and survive,” while Sam teaches Ellie how to say “endure and survive” in sign language. Ellie convinced Joel that they should wait out here for a while, as there are actually things for them to do. Henry says it would be a good idea to maybe wait until it’s darker, while it seems like Ellie and Sam are just excited to have someplace where they can be normal kids for a while.

As Sam and Ellie play, Joel tells Henry he shouldn’t have been mad at Henry for being a rat, as he understands why he would do something like that to protect Sam. Henry tells Joel that what he said earlier, about never hurting someone, wasn’t true. Henry explains that there was a great man who was never selfish and always forgiving, a man that he would follow anywhere. But Sam got sick with leukemia, and while there was medicine that would help Sam, FEDRA had it, and he knew he’d have to give them something big: that great man, the leader of the resistance movement in Kansas City, and Katherine’s brother. Henry says he's the bad guy, because he did a bad guy thing. But Henry says Joel gets it, because even though he isn’t Ellie’s father, Henry can tell he was someone’s father. After this, Joel decides they need to keep moving.

The Perfect Box

Back to Kathleen, we find her in a kid’s bedroom when Perry comes in and says they still haven’t found Henry or “the man who killed Brian.” Perry said Kathleen’s mom told him where she was, and we learn that this is the room that Kathleen grew up in. Kathleen reminisces about when she and her brother Michael were little, and how this room seemed so big. Kathleen says that she was little, she was scared of the thunder, so when there was a storm, Michael would tell her their room was a big wooden box that nothing could get inside. They'd be safe if they were together in their perfect box.

Kathleen says he was so beautiful, but that she isn’t, and that he’d be horrified by the things she's done. She also says that she knows Michael would want her to forgive Henry and not hurt him because Michael told her that the last time she saw him alive in jail. He wanted forgiveness, and Kathleen questions the point of giving forgiveness when it led to his death. Perry counters that Michael was a great man, but he didn't change anything, she did, and they're with her and her decisions.

Through the Suburbs

We then go back to the tunnels, where we find that the group has all made it to the other side without running into any infected. As they walk through the suburbs outside, Henry says they don’t know where they're going once they're safe, and Ellie mentions they're heading to Wyoming. Joel seems to not like the idea, but Ellie jokes that that’s how it always works: he’s against something, then she asks a million more times until he warms up to the idea. As Ellie talks, they narrowly miss a gunshot coming from a nearby house. As they hide behind a car, Joel says they should wait there, and he’ll sneak around to the house and stop the guy. When Ellie worries about the plan, Joel replies, "do you trust me?" Ellie nods, as Joel attempts to make his way to the shooter.

Joel attracts the shooter as he makes his way to the house, barely missing the bullets that come his way. When Joel gets to the house, he finds an old man with a sniper rifle. Joel asks the man to slide over his gun, and when it seems the man won't comply, Joel says "please don't do it, please." The man tries to shoot Joel, but Joel shoots him before he gets the chance. With the man down, Joel hears on a nearby walkie-talkie Kathleen telling the man to “hold them where they are, we're almost there.”

As Ellie, Henry and Sam hide, we hear Joel yelling “RUN!” in the distance, as cars come towards them from down the road. As the trio runs, Joel takes up the sniper rifle and attempts to shoot the cars before they hit Ellie, Sam, and Henry. Before a truck hits Ellie, Joel shoots the driver, knocking the truck into a nearby house, which catches on fire and blows up. With Kathleen’s men out on the road, hunting for Henry, Kathleen calls out that Henry could save them some time by coming on out. Henry replies that he'll come out, just let the kids go, to which Kathleen replies no deal. Henry pleads that Kathleen doesn't understand, and Kathleen states that maybe Sam was supposed to die. Kathleen says kids die all the time and does Henry really think that Sam is worth everything? Henry tells Ellie to take Sam and to get ready to run, as Henry goes out to meet with Kathleen.

Kathleen finally faces Henry, stating “it ends the way it ends,” going for her gun and getting ready to shoot him. But in the background, we see the nearby exploded truck sink into the ground, and we soon hear the cries of infected underground. After being buried for years, a massive stream of infected comes out of the hole, attacking Kathleen’s soldiers, as Joel shoots the infected that get too close to Ellie. Ellie makes her way into a truck, as a bloater (a massive infected that Ellie mentioned in the second episode, which Tess seemed to think didn’t even exist) makes its way out of the hole. The bloater tosses people like ragdolls before coming right for Perry. No matter how much Perry shoots, the bloater comes over and decapitates Perry easily.

Back in the truck, an infected child makes its way inside, flipping and tossing her way toward Ellie. She safely makes her way out of the truck and heads over to Henry and Sam, who are fighting off infected under a truck. Joel protects Ellie with the sniper while she makes her way to them, eventually stabbing the infected and getting Henry and Sam out of the situation. But right before they’re to safety, Kathleen finds them and holds them up at gunpoint. But behind Kathleen, the infected child sneaks up on Kathleen and attacks her as the four reunite and run away from the wreckage of what once was the Kansas City suburb.

It Ends the Way It Ends

The quartet makes it to safety at a hotel, and as Joel and Henry talk, Joel mentions that while they don't know how they're making it to Wyoming, Henry, and Sam are welcome to join them on the journey. Henry agrees, saying he thinks it would be nice for Sam to have a friend, and that he’ll tell Sam in the morning. New day, new start.

Instead of going to bed, Ellie and Sam read comic books together, but using his Magic Slate, Sam asks Ellie if she's ever scared. Sam says she never looks scared, and Ellie replies that she’s scared all the time… of scorpions. But then seriously says she’s scared of ending up alone. When Ellie asks what Sam's scared of, he replies, “If you turn into a monster is it still you inside?” After asking this, Sam shows that he has been bitten on the leg. Ellie, upset by this reveal, shows her own bite and tells Sam that her blood is medicine. She cuts her hand, then rubs her blood into Sam's wound, hoping this might do the trick. Sam asks Ellie to stay awake with him, and she promises her new friend that she will, and they hug.

The next morning, Ellie has dozed off and finds Sam sitting on the edge of the bed, looking out the window. When Ellie goes up to him, she sees that he has turned. Ellie and Sam tumble into where Joel and Henry are sleeping, and Ellie tries to fight off Sam the best she can. Joel goes for his gun, but Henry grabs it first, firing a warning shot at Joel. In the heat of the moment, Henry shoots Sam off of Ellie. Immediately, Henry realizes what he's done, having killed his little brother, the one person he’s been fighting to protect. Crying, Henry aims the gun toward Joel again, as Henry repeatedly asks himself, “what did I do?” Despite Joel’s pleading, Henry takes the gun, puts it to his temple, and pulls the trigger, leaving Joel and Ellie in shock.

Outside the hotel, Joel has dug two graves for the brothers, and Ellie leaves Sam’s Magic Slate on Sam's grave. Ellie asks Joel which way is west, and she starts walking. Joel sees that Ellie has written “I’m sorry” on Sam’s slate, and from a distance, she calls for Joel, saying “let’s go,” as they leave the pain and friends that they met in Kansas City behind.