With its fifth episode, The Final of Us as soon as once more items us a pair of latest, superbly realized characters, solely to take away them from the board in harrowing style. Mercifully, these emotional deaths come after the present’s greatest monster sequence but, due to the arrival of the dreaded Bloater—among the many most iconic villains from the Final of Us online game on which the Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann present is predicated. Extra on that piece of labor in a bit. First, let’s rewind the clock to the highest of this tragic story.
Written by Mazin and directed by Jeremy Webb, “Endure and Survive” begins practically a fortnight earlier than the occasions of final week’s episode. We see what, up till now, we had solely heard about: Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen and her allies taking again their house from the merciless Kansas Metropolis chapter of FEDRA. Energy abhors a cruelty vacuum, and Kathleen’s right here to fill it, presiding over a brand new group of individuals greater than prepared to execute their enemies on the streets with public hangings and shootings aplenty.
“Did it really feel good, betraying your neighbors to FEDRA, watching us get thrown in jail, watching us dangle, so you may get medication, alcohol… fucking apples?” Kathleen asks a actually captive viewers minutes earlier than ordering their deaths. “Did it make you are feeling higher? Did it make you are feeling protected? How does it make you are feeling now?”
Because the episode wears on, we study extra concerning the vengeful tune buzzing beneath all of Kathleen’s actions: a laser-focused quest to search out and kill the aforementioned Henry, a younger man who collaborated with FEDRA to get medication for his sick brother Sam. The price of that medication: promoting out Kathleen’s brother, Michael, chief of the Kansas Metropolis resistance. Pushed on the topic by her second-in-command Perry (performed by The Final of Us online game alum Jeffrey Pierce), Kathleen relents that Michael would have advocated for mercy towards Henry. However Michael’s not right here anymore, is he? And Kathleen doesn’t care about what he would have wished, solely what she needs. Provided that she liberated them from FEDRA, the entire of Kansas Metropolis is backing her play. That’s the type of commanding presence even Twitter trolls can’t deny.
Within the different nook of this battle: Henry, probably the most wished man in Kansas Metropolis, and his youthful brother, the eight-year-old superhero named Sam. A few years his senior, Henry needs nothing greater than to get his brother safely out of the town. However after practically two weeks in hiding and no discernible plan of motion in sight, Henry and Sam’s choices are beginning to look moderately grim — till Joel and Ellie roll into city, weapons blazing.
Figuring out the Final of Us leads as potential allies, Henry and Sam comply with Joel and Ellie by way of the town and into the night time, making their acquaintance by the use of sticking unloaded weapons of their faces. Maybe one can forgive Joel for responding to this introduction along with his “asshole voice” as he warily research Henry and Sam. Finally, he hears them out at Ellie’s behest, and in time, all of them agree on a plan: escape Kansas Metropolis by the use of a tunnel system, as soon as loaded with contaminated, now presumably empty.
The journey leads the 4 vacationers to an deserted underground group. An hours-long break quickens the bonds inside the group, significantly between the youngest members of the celebration. Sam, who’s deaf, instantly clicks with Ellie over a shared love of corny jokes and comedian books. Joel and Henry, in the meantime, tacitly join over a shared intuition to guard their family members in any respect prices. As Henry recounts the story of betraying the Kansas Metropolis resistance to avoid wasting his brother’s life, he brazenly wonders whether or not or not he’s crossed some extent of no return.
“I’m a foul man, as a result of I did a foul man factor,” says Henry. “You get it, although. You is probably not her father, however you have been somebody’s. I can inform.”
Joel isn’t one to look again at his previous. He actually isn’t about to debate his useless daughter with a gaggle of strangers, even ones as nice as these. On the opposite facet of their relaxation cease, with Kansas Metropolis falling behind them, Ellie makes a pitch: these strangers ought to be part of them on their journey to Wyoming. There’s no time to debate it, nonetheless, because the group comes below assault — first by a lone sniper, whom Joel sneaks upon and kills, after which by Kathleen’s total military, with Henry lastly of their sights.
The group faces overwhelming odds, even with Joel now standing in sniper place. He shoots a single truck driver, plowing the exploding car into an deserted home. However quickly, everybody’s outnumbered. Left with few choices, Henry surrenders, providing to commerce his life for his brother’s security. Kathleen refuses. “I do know why you probably did what you probably did,” she tells her goal, “however did you ever cease to assume he was alleged to die?”
