Spoilers for episode five below

For those who tuned into episode four of The Last Of Us, you couldn’t fail to notice that there was just one thing driving the despotic leader Kathleen’s blood-thirsty campaign. She might have mentioned it once or twice? That person was Henry, who she believed to have ratted her brother out to his death.

Well, in episode five of the fungi-focused dystopian show we got to meet the eponymous “traitor” Henry (played by Lamar Johnson), and he wasn’t the monster he’d been rumoured to be, he was just looking out for his little brother, Sam (Keivonn Woodard), who accompanied him, and their full backstory was revealed.

Their story and relationship has echoes of that of Joel and Ellie’s - and his late daughter, Sarah - namely, how far will you go to protect those who you love? Intriguingly, it also had hallmarks of Kathleen’s psyche - are you willing to kill or be killed for beloved family members?

First up, who exactly are Henry and Sam?

In The Last Of Us game, Henry and Sam are simply two people that Joel and Ellie meet on their cross-country mission. While their on-screen story plays out the same way as in the game, the series has invented the character of Kathleen (a brilliant guest appearance from Melanie Lynskey), her brother Michael, and Henry’s involvement with his death.

We first meet Henry and eight-year-old Sam at the fall of the FEDRA-run Kansas city, as a resistance group known as the Hunters take over, and Kathleen steps up as de facto leader. She wants Henry dead, but he’s one step ahead of her, and has already found a hiding place for him and Sam to take cover before fleeing the city.

It’s with a kindly doctor, but if you flashback to episode four, you’ll remember that things don’t end well for him, as Kathleen shoots the good doctor for refusing to give up info on where Henry might be. Forced out by their food rations ending, the brothers plan on escaping the city at night, only to bump into Joel and Ellie. Henry holds them up at gunpoint, sensing that they could be helpful for helping them escape Kansas; Joel especially with his nifty gun skills.

Henry describes 20 years of FEDRA rule (“They raped and tortured and murdered people”), which is what led the Hunters to rise up. However, when he tells Joel he was a collaborator, Joel wants nothing to do with “a rat”, but Henry has a plan, and that’s escaping the city through a subterranean network. Kansas City’s own brand of mushroom-heads were all driven underground, but the tunnels are now empty, giving them what almost seems like a too-easy way to escape. But this is The Last of Us, so there’s always another grim surprise lurking.

What happens to Henry and Sam?

HBO/Warner Media

On discovering a kids’ hideout in the tunnels (almost unspeakably dark; what happened to the all the children?) the group decide to break and Henry explains more about what happened in their past. Sam got leukaemia, and the drug he needed to survive was in limited survival, and controlled by FEDRA, so Henry says: “I gave them something big”. That person was the Jesus-like figure and head of the resistance fighters, the Hunters, called Michael and who was obviously killed. “So, am I the bad guy?” Henry says, posing a difficult moral conundrum.

The gang make it out of the tunnels, only to be greeted by a sniper, and when Joel heads up to take the firing old man out, he finds out that he’s already radioed in to Kathleen, alerting her that Henry is on his property. Shit.

Kathleen and her henchmen career up in their trucks and she calls out to Henry, telling him to give up. She tells him: “I know why you did what you did. But did you ever stop to think that maybe he was supposed to die?”. Henry replies that Sam is just a kid and she says: “Well, kids die, Henry. They die all the time.” That’s a little harsh, and more than a bit hypocritical: while leading a terror charge against everyone to avenge her brother’s death, she says, “Do you think the whole world revolves around him? That he’s worth everything?”

Then in a jump-up-from-the-sofa moment, the ground caves in, and up jumps a band of the infected! And man, do they look annoyed. All hell breaks loose, but while our heroes manage to escape, a demon child monsters Kathleen to death, while her sidekick Perry has his head ripped off by what fans know as the Bloater. Is this the “fate” that Kathleen had been banging on about? Rot in peace, Kathleen.

Behind that shock ending

HBO/Warner Media

After the high drama of the chaos scene, the natural order for disaster movies finale has been re-established: the villains are dead, and our two heroes have adopted a new pair of friends. The happy ending is in sight! Which is what makes the final scenes so shocking. As the kids try to get some sleep (sorry, but no one is sleeping ever again after witnessing what they just did), they write to each other on the magic pad, and Sam scribbles, somewhat philosophically, “If you turn into a monster, is it still you inside?”. It is a real stomach-drop moment: he has been bitten.

It’s a good question, but sadly, we don’t have time to find out, as despite Ellie rubbing her blood on his infected bite (yeah, that’s not how vaccines work, but we’ll let her off as she doesn’t even know what a car seatbelt is), he’s on the turn.

Ellie fails on her promise to stay up with him all night, and in the morning, it’s too late. Sam lunges towards her and starts attacking her, and while Joel and Henry tussle over the gun. Henry turns and shoots Sam in the head. “What did I do?” he stutters, and shoots himself in the head instantly. Everything he’d ever done for Sam was ultimately all in vain.

Back in episode three, shortly before their joint suicide, Bill tells his partner Frank: “You were my purpose”, which is why he doesn’t want to carry on living, and it’s the same for Henry with Sam. His purpose is now gone, and he no longer wants to go on. The relationships that sustain these characters through the most horrific and bleak of times hold the key to their protector’s own survival. With them gone, there is no future. Then, once again, there are just two: Joel and Ellie.

‘The Last Of Us’ continues weekly on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV

Laura Martin is a freelance journalist  specializing in pop culture.

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