The Last of Us Episode 5

Developed by the game's creator and Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann, alongside Chernobyl maestro Craig Mazin, it's one of the most anticipated TV events ...

How long is the runtime for The Last of Us Episode 5? There’s also going to be a [Bloater](https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/the-last-of-us-all-types-of-infected-in-the-hbo-show-2022124/) somewhere in the mix. We’ve listed all of their runtimes below:

The hit HBO series arrives on Friday instead of Sunday this week because of the Super Bowl.

[HBO’s “The Last of Us”](https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2023/02/hbo-max-is-releasing-the-last-of-us-episode-5-early-ahead-of-super-bowl-sunday.html) is headed our way [early](https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2023/02/hbo-max-is-releasing-the-last-of-us-episode-5-early-ahead-of-super-bowl-sunday.html) this week. sharing fears, even a bit of backstory with each other, while keeping just enough hidden (like who it was that Ellie hurt/killed in the past). And all while establishing Ellie can actually handle a gun, which comes in handy. She’d rather seal off a problem area and deal with it later, but the ground is literally quaking. (The At episode’s end last week, they managed to corner our dynamic duo by taking Ellie hostage. [Because of the Super Bowl](https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2023/02/hbo-max-is-releasing-the-last-of-us-episode-5-early-ahead-of-super-bowl-sunday.html) on Sunday, Feb. 10 on [HBO Max](https://go.skimresources.com/?id=126006X1587338&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hbomax.com%2Fseries%2Furn%3Ahbo%3Aseries%3AGYyofRQHeuJ6fiQEAAAEy) and HBO on demand. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) and followed at [@AmyKup](http://www.twitter.com/amykup) on Twitter. [NJ.com](http://nj.com/) with a subscription. How long will the first season of “The Last of Us” be? [first episode of “The Last of Us” is streaming for free](https://go.skimresources.com/?id=126006X1587338&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hbomax.com%2Fcollections%2Fwatch-free%2Fthe-last-of-us-s1-e1%3Futm_id%3D1011l5873%26utm_source%3Dfuturepublishing%26utm_medium%3Daffiliate%26clickref%3D1100lwvrUtn6&xcust=xid:fr1676057768814hdc) on HBO Max.) And there will be much more to come, since HBO already announced a second season.

The latest episode of the HBO Max series will air early. We wonder why ...

Episode 5 of The Last of Us will air on Friday night rather than on Sunday night as a result of Super Bowl 57. [Super Bowl](https://www.sbnation.com/super-bowl) 57 week and the [Kansas City Chiefs](https://www.arrowheadpride.com) will take on the [Philadelphia Eagles](https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/) on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Joel and Ellie are ambushed and crash their truck. As a result, The Last of Us has been moved to an earlier date for the latest episode. Normally, the show would air on Sunday night starting at 9 p.m. ET on HBO Max.

The Last of Us episode 5 kicks off early ahead of Super Bowl LVII. While HBO's live-action adaptation of the Naughty Dog and PlayStation video game ...

Episode 5 of The Last of Us will air in its regular time slot on Sunday, February 12th, at 9:00 p.m. That's the same length as episode 4, which was Back-to-back-to-back HBO encores will air at 10:01 p.m., 11:02 p.m., and 12:05 a.m., with new episodes continuing to release on Sundays at 9:00 p.m. Since its [record-breaking series premiere](https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/the-last-of-us-insanely-successful-debut-on-hbo-max/) on January 15th, The Last of Us has seen three consecutive weeks of audience growth: the most recent fourth episode, titled "Please Hold My Hand," scored [another series high](https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-last-of-us-episode-4-ratings-series-high-hbo-please-hold-my-hand/) with 7.5 million viewers across [HBO Max](/category/hbo-max/) and linear telecasts on HBO. PT on HBO Max and HBO On Demand. While HBO's live-action adaptation of the Naughty Dog and PlayStation video game typically airs new episodes weekly on Sundays, the next episode will be [available to stream early](https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/the-last-of-us-episode-5-releasing-early/) on Friday to avoid a ratings competition with the big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.

We got to meet Melanie Lynksey's character Kathleen, along with a brief introduction to brothers Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Woodard). We'll ...

[Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels](https://www.amazon.com/b/?rh=i:instant-video,n:2858778011&ie=UTF8&filterId=OFFER_FILTER=SUBSCRIPTIONS&node=2858778011&ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1465430649312&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pf4&tag=fs-livedrops1-20&linkId=90b2815fb79ba0e403137c68e139db16%E2%80%9D) That means fans can tune in for Episode 5 tonight on HBO Max and HBO On Demand! PST using HBO Max or HBO On Demand. It’s become unmistakably clear four weeks into the first season that this show doesn’t miss, and we can expect each episode to be at least solid, if not outright awesome. Because Super Bowl LVII takes place this Sunday evening, HBO opted to release the next episode of The Last of Us on Friday to avoid the competition. We got to meet Melanie Lynksey’s character Kathleen, along with a

The group is led by a new character, Kathleen, played by Melanie Lynskey, who is on a revenge drive and is looking for Henry and Sam. To tease the upcoming ...

The group is led by a new character, Kathleen, played by Melanie Lynskey, who is on a revenge drive and is looking for Henry and Sam. The series makes a point that Henry is responsible for the death of Kathleen’s brother, whom she now wants to avenge. The Last of Us is turning out to be the most extraordinary video game adaptation by far.

Joel and Ellie have been dealing more with humanity recently, but this week the undead reclaimed center stage.

(Quoting the comic, Ellie says, “To the edge of the universe, endure and survive!”) Right before the end, they share what frightens them both, with Ellie admitting, “I’m scared of ending up alone.” Then Sam — poor, doomed Sam — asks the question that everyone should have probably been asking while they were trying to kill each other. Sam and Henry hide out for 10 days in Edelstein’s hidden loft, with a small supply of canned food and a big bag of crayons. As always, the great dream in nearly all post-apocalyptic stories — and heck, maybe in life itself — is to find a secure space with some food and something to do, and then to stay put for as long as possible. The point of these two scenes is to show that Kathleen had defensible reasons to destroy FEDRA and everyone who helped them — but she knows she took things further than Michael would have. As she pulls out her gun, she adds, “It ends the way it ends.” Henry and Sam are, as suspected, the people who sneaked up on Joel and Ellie in their high-rise office building hideaway at the end of last week’s episode. What distinguishes “The Last of Us” from its predecessors is that the series isn’t about the downfall of human society per se. On the way though, Henry chooses to come clean to Joel, to let him know that Kathleen has reason to be furious. On that night, she begins her tireless search for Henry, a former FEDRA informant who she blames for the death of her sainted brother, Michael. The result was some of the most straight-up thrilling sequences in this show since Episode 2. Though the fortresses on that show kept getting bigger — and the people inside them better organized — year after year, some catastrophic disaster would befall the living and the undead would capitalize. Romero’s human characters set up barricades against the teeming masses of mindless monsters; but then over and over they would get distracted by their own bickering, let their guards down and then either get shot by outsiders or eaten by ghouls.

“Endure and Survive” takes its title from the catchphrase of a comic book that Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and her new friend Sam (Keivonn Woodard) find while ...

(Plenty of other dramas — whether about zombies or about, say, running a funeral home — have been known to decide that suffering is interesting in and of itself.) While it’s a brutal ending to a brutal hour, though, it does not feel unfair or manipulative. And yet, the worst in the episode is still to come. He has survived, but he cannot endure what he has seen and done, and so he shoots himself to avoid having to live with it all. She couldn’t let go of her hatred of Henry, and it kills her, Perry, and everyone who trusted her, while returning the city to a condition somehow even worse than when it was under FEDRA’s totalitarian rule. It’s also a nice touch that we get subtitles whenever the brothers are talking in a scene from their point of view, but when the perspective shifts back to Joel and Ellie, the captions go away, because they don’t know sign language. It’s so potent in its human conflicts, in fact, that it’s easy to forget about the infected at all(*), until Kathleen’s revenge mission inadvertently releases all of them from the underground places they’d been trapped by FEDRA for the last 15 years. Sam is sweet and curious and creative, even as he is keenly aware of all the danger that surrounds him and Henry. Remember when Rust Cohle on [True Detective](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/the-dark-thrills-of-true-detective-231598/) explained that time is a flat circle? [the Bill and Frank spotlight](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-recaps/the-last-of-us-season-1-episode-3-recap-hbo-nick-offerman-murray-bartlett-gay-love-1234667212/), but a great example of how strong an on-format Last of Us can be. [Bella Ramsey](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/bella-ramsey/)) and her new friend Sam (Keivonn Woodard) find while traveling out of Kansas City with Joel ( [Pedro Pascal](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/pedro-pascal/)), plus Sam’s older brother Henry (Lamar Johnson). She wants to have fun, wants to explore all the artifacts of the before times, wants to live a life. Like a lot of comics language(*), it sounds more dramatic than it actually is, since “endure” and “survive” have roughly similar meanings.

This Last of Us review contains spoilers. · This assertion from Henry (Lamar Johnson) to Joel is the most thought-provoking moment in “Endure and Survive,” ...

The Last of Us is so much more than a creature feature. But the sniper showdown and subsequent carnage that ensues is so tremendously entertaining that it’s easy to forgive the script’s minor shortcomings. [infected horde](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-last-of-us-are-the-infected-zombies/) is scary as hell, an impressive feat in 2023, after more than a decade of zombie content on our screens. Watching the brothers die the way that they do is just plain awful, and Bella Ramsey’s whimper in reaction to Henry taking his own life is utterly heartbreaking. Does the added backstory add to the drama of their deaths? Henry and Sam’s tragic ending plays out almost exactly as it does in the game, the major difference being the added context of the insurrection and the conflict with Kathleen. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time to develop many of them (Frank and Bill being the big exception, of course). The scene from the game is every bit as soul-crushing as the show’s version, so it calls into question whether all of the drama involving Kathleen and her cohorts served this moment whatsoever. But several elements of Joel and Ellie’s stop in Kansas City simply don’t develop and blossom as well as [Tess, Bill, and Frank’s stories](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-last-of-us-bill-story-changes/) did. The two-part story of It’s a reference to Henry giving up Kathleen’s slain brother Michael, the beloved leader of their Kansas City resistance group, to FEDRA in exchange for treatment for his kid brother Sam’s (Keivonn Woodard) leukemia. It’s an acknowledgment that, for some people, it’s worth committing evil unto others—and in certain cases, all others—if it’s done in the name of someone you love.

It's graphic and horrible, and 8-year-old Sam (Keivonn Woodard) witnesses some of this violence as his older brother Henry (Lamar Johnson) rushes him into ...

He briefly aims the weapon at Joel before turning it on himself and pulling the trigger. Ellie also agrees to stay up with the nervous Sam, but she dozes off. Just as she prepares to shoot Henry, a mass of infected climb up from underground and butcher Kathleen's forces. Joel manages to sneak up and take the guy out, but not before he calls for backup. Their survivor community grew to nearly 50 people (including a guy called Danny), and they carved out a little haven under the postapocalyptic hell above. [a section of the game](https://youtu.be/SnIbo5WUGQU), the tunnels lead our heroes into suburbia, where a sniper's bullet cuts through their jovial atmosphere. Joel spots a child's drawing of two people holding guns, with the caption "Danny, Ish, our protectors." Joel initially dismisses Henry as a rat but ultimately acknowledges that he was right to do whatever it took to keep Sam safe. FEDRA managed to clear the city of infected by forcing them into these tunnels. Despite Joel's "asshole voice," they form a tenuous alliance and enter the subterranean maintenance tunnels. The episode opens with a flashback showing how Kathleen's civilian militia force overthrew FEDRA 10 days before Joel and Ellie got into town -- the people rose up against this oppressive force and pretty much slaughtered its members in the streets. Her brother Michael was killed by FEDRA (the Federal Disaster Response Agency), which runs quarantine zones with the remnants of the US military and represents one of the last remaining bits of the government.

Unfortunately, the episode fell a little short of what's come before this season, and I can't help but think it's partly because what works in a video game just ...

In the morning, she wakes up and sees Sam sitting on the edge of the bed and she must think that her blood medicine worked because she goes over to him and touches his shoulder. What did I do?” Joel tells him to give him the gun, but Henry points the gun at his own head and pulls the trigger. Everything to do with Sam and Henry and Ellie and Joel worked great, but everything else felt sloppy and tacked on, like pieces glued together that didn’t quite fit. What did work in this scene were the rest of the infected pouring out of the hole in the earth and overwhelming Kathleen and her thugs. They bury them outside of the little motel and head off, on foot, toward Wyoming. Joel makes for the children but Henry pulls a gun, tells him to stop. In the end, Sam is bitten and reveals this to Ellie who cuts herself, telling him that her blood is medicine. Take out the Bloater also and have a similar showdown with the hunters, hunted and infected (though scaled way down because we just don’t need 75 goons chasing down our heroes in big zombie-proof trucks, this isn’t Mad Max!) and I guarantee it would have felt more intimate and worked better. Bloaters are a type of Cordyceps mutant-zombie-monster that’s not just more disfigured and sensitive to sound like the Clickers we’ve met earlier, it’s pretty much covered head-to-toe with fungal growth, and somehow it’s grown into a giant. The two are adorable, which makes the ending even more awful and horrific. The video game bit in Episode 5 that I’m referring to is the Bloater. The Last Of Us aired two days early this weekend rather than delay a week to avoid conflict with the Super Bowl this coming Sunday.

Not long after an episode that made pop culture stand still—the HBO series delivered another unforgettable tale.

Sam secretly reveals to Ellie that an infected scratched his leg—and the infection is clear as day. As Ellie runs around to try and help Henry, Joel snipes the infected from his window. Joel goes around through the back of the house and takes out the sniper. “I know why you did what you did,” she reveals to Henry, “but did you ever stop to think that maybe [Sam] was supposed to die?” Whoa! “No, because the girl is with the man who killed Brian,” she says. Henry says that he can help them get out of the city in the morning, and later shares his story with Joel. In a tense scene, the four of them get acquainted and share food. Jumping forward in time to their ambush of Joel and Ellie, Henry informs them, “We don’t want to hurt you, we want to help you.” Classic good guy talk. Kathleen resents him for selling out their secrets to FEDRA—and she blames him for the death of her brother. “Is that what he is to you?” Kathleen, we get it. Scared and hiding from the bloodthirsty Kathleen, Henry helps Sam color the walls with crayons to fix the “ugly” place where they’re both holed up. Dropped in the middle of a protest that turns violent, we see Henry hiding with his younger brother, Sam, who is deaf.

(Including one big-boy fungus monster!) They actually do manage to escape, but at a price. Sam, Henry's little brother, was infected in the skirmish. He turns ...

But because I am the protector and because he is a kid to me, I just want him to stay a kid. Once I learned that I got the role—and I read the scripts—I saw that there was ASL in there. That scene [in the playroom], I revealed to Joel who I am in that moment. What was the life with Henry and his family—mom and dad, you know? So it was a life for a life, and am I the bad guy? So I wanted to make sure that I was doing my absolute best because this was important—and representation is important. I didn't know that I would have to learn ASL for the role up until I got the role. I wanted to interpret it the way that I felt I would—and my processes and how I would get there. I had everything that I needed in order for me to show up and do it to the best of my ability. Ultimately it was just about trying to be as present and honest to that moment as possible. I didn't want to completely just emulate everything the actor did in the game. So I understood the pressure and the importance of that moment, but also I didn't want to do a carbon copy.

Joel and Ellie's escape from Kansas City makes for The Last of Us' most violent and shocking episode yet. A recap of “Endure and Survive,” episode 5 of ...

“I am the bad guy because I did a bad guy thing,” Henry tells Joel, and the line speaks directly to the complicated morality at the heart of the episode and the series. Rather than setting up a system to sustain the insurgency’s promises of freedom and equality, she uses her power to continue a vendetta, in the process perpetuating the totalitarianism of FEDRA under a different name. It’s the most shocking moment in an episode that features a man having his head torn from his body (R.I.P. It’s as cheery as such a place can be (as long as they don’t think too hard about why it’s now abandoned), and it contains some issues of the comic book they both love, the one whose hero pledges to “endure and survive.” And then all hell breaks loose in the form of a scary, chaotic fight scene from which Ellie, Sam, and Henry barely escape (but Kathleen does not). Henry reveals himself as “the most wanted man in Kansas City” (or “Killer City,” as he calls it later), making him a natural ally, and they share a meal. Emerging from the tunnels, Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam stroll the streets of suburban KC with a sense of victory. We got a glimpse of Sam (Keivonn Woodard) last week, but we really got to know him and his brother, Henry (Lamar Johnson), over the course of this episode, which follows them from the early days of the uprising that drove FEDRA out of Kansas City through their end in a motel somewhere outside of city limits (if it’s even possible to talk about Kansas City as a place with city limits after that infected attack). Remember: The credits end with silhouettes of Joel and Ellie for a reason. Henry hasn’t really thought through the middle part of the plan, resulting in a standoff made all the tenser by the “weird fucking tone” Joel uses to reply to Henry. It opens with scenes from the aftermath of the KC insurgency’s FEDRA toppling, which finds ecstatic citizens chanting “Freedom!” and “Fuck you, FEDRA!” as they fill the streets. If you’re reading this immediately after finishing “Endure and Survive,” the fifth episode of The Last Of Us’ first season, it’s okay to take a moment before reading further.