The Last of Us Episode 5 ending explained

The Last of Us Episode 5 is the show’s most punishing chapter yet – we’re going to break down the ending and what it means going forward.

In our review, we said Episode 5 is “is emotional and action-packed, speaking to the bluntness of mankind’s fury and desperation in the face of tragedy – even if you didn’t know what to expect, it’ll shatter you.”

We pick up with Joel and Ellie after we left them staring down the barrels of Henry and Sam’s guns. Thankfully, they saw eye to eye and decided to work together to escape Kansas City, managing to evade Kathleen and her “revolutionaries” underground.

However, the suburbs soon play host to chaos and an unspeakable tragedy – let’s get into it.

Spoilers for The Last of Us Episode 5 to follow…

The Last of Us Episode 5 ending explained

Towards the end of Episode 5, Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam have all made it to the suburbs, where they end up pinned down by a sniper. Joel sneaks to his location and kills him, before Kathleen and her Hunters arrive and barge through the street’s cars in pursuit of Henry.

Joel manages to shoot one of the drivers, causing them to crash into one of the nearby homes. Just as Henry gives himself up, the truck sinks into the ground. Do you remember in the last episode, when Kathleen and Perry found a crater in the basement? There was another one under one of the homes in this neighborhood, and it was home to hundreds of infected – including Clickers and a Bloater.

HBO

For those who haven’t played the games, they’re essentially a breed of super-infected; massive, ridiculously strong, and covered in thick, protective fungus. They can kill you in one punch and twist your head off your shoulders like they’re picking a bramble.

Long story short, Ellie, Henry, and Sam manage to escape despite being surrounded by infected. Perry (Jeffrey Pierce) sacrifices himself to save Kathleen, before she’s ripped to shreds by a Clicker.

Later, the quartet hunkers down in another house for the night. Sam reveals to Ellie that he was bitten by one of the infected, so she tries cutting herself and rubbing her immune blood on the wound.

The next morning, Ellie awakes to find Sam sitting at the side of his bed. She goes to make sure he’s okay, and he tries to attack her. Joel and Henry hear their screams, and they both burst through the door. Joel tries to shoot Henry, but Henry shoots the floor beside Joel’s feet.

Henry eventually shoots Sam in the head. “What did I do?” he asks Joel. “Give me the gun, Henry,” he asks, but Henry can’t take the weight of what he had to do, and he shoots himself.

Joel and Ellie lay them to rest, with Ellie putting Sam’s notepad in his grave with one last message: “I’m sorry.”

In the game, we don’t actually see Joel and Ellie burying them, to the point Joel actually tells her to never talk about the brothers. Here, it seems slightly different – Joel appears taken aback by Ellie’s keenness to move on with their journey after witnessing such a horror, so their dynamic is evolving.

We know this much: we won’t be seeing any more of Kathleen, but Henry and Sam’s story will carry an emotional toll on the rest of the series.

The Last of Us Episode 6 will be available to stream on February 19 in the US and February 20 in the UK. You can check out the rest of our coverage here and check out the trailer for the weeks ahead here.