Contains discussion of suicide
This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us episode 5.The Last of Us episode 5 culminated the Kansas City story arc, with the explosive ending bringing plenty of destruction and character deaths along with it. After The Last of Us episode 4 laid the groundwork for the conflict brewing in Kansas City between the Hunters and Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam, The Last of Us episode 5 paid off the story excitingly in a finale sequence that had plenty of consequences for the show's characters. However, this only came after the further depth provided to the characters of Henry and Sam.
Henry and Sam's presence loomed over much of The episode 4 with the Hunters and Kathleen dead set on finding the duo. The cliffhanger ending of that episode introduced the characters, with The Last of Us episode 5 paying off their story as well as multiple other characters introduced in Kansas City. This payoff resulted in many deaths, both for major and minor characters in the dramatic ending of The Last of Us episode 5.
5 Anthony
The first of these deaths come in the form of a minor character: Anthony the sniper. After successfully navigating the tunnels of Kansas City, Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam emerge in a suburban neighborhood seemingly uninhabited by the Hunters. Eventually, though, Anthony makes himself known by shooting at the four from an abandoned house. In a sequence taken directly from the original The Last of Us video game, Joel sneaks into the house and kills the sniper. He is revealed to be an old man named Anthony, who alerts the Hunters to Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam's location.
4 Perry
The next death in The Last of Us episode 5 is Perry's, the Hunters' second-in-command. After the Hunters catch up to Henry, Sam, and Ellie, Joel shoots the driver of the lead truck which crashes and causes a huge explosion. After a brief stand-off between Henry and Kathleen, an infected horde is unleashed from beneath the truck and its explosion, causing chaos in the Hunters' ranks. Along with the regular Runners and Clickers of The Last of Us, a Bloater is shown for the first time.
The Bloater begins tearing through the Hunters, and Perry - played by Jeffrey Pierce, who portrayed Tommy in the original game - tells Kathleen to run before attempting to kill it. The Bloater is unaffected by Perry's weapons and makes a beeline for him. Upon catching him, the Bloater ruthlessly rips Perry's head from his body.
3 Kathleen
Kathleen's death at the end of the climactic sequence of The Last of Us episode 5 is the first that holds any nuance. After talking with Henry and stating that she does not care that Henry sold out her brother to save Sam from leukemia, the infected horde causes disarray. Amid the chaos, Henry, Sam, and Ellie escape but not before Kathleen catches up to them. Kathleen is then killed by what seems to be a Stalker, the second stage of an infected host with the speed of a Runner, the ferocity of a Clicker - showcased in The Last of Us episode 2 - and the stealth capabilities that give them their name.
The nuance of this death comes from the fact that the Stalker is a child host. Earlier, Kathleen says that the world does not revolve around Sam just because he is a kid and that children die all the time. She also states that Sam might have been meant to die. The fact that she was killed by a child zombie makes her death have a sense of poetic justice as - despite her understandable motivations - her comments against Sam make her somewhat detestable by the end of the episode.
2 Sam
Perhaps The Last of Us episode 5's most tragic death is Sam's. In the aforementioned scene in which The Last of Us' underground Bloater and other infected attack, Sam is bitten before he, Henry, and Ellie can escape to safety. While it is not overtly shown, the bite likely comes from the two Clickers attacking him and Henry while they hid beneath a car. Sam's death comes the morning after when he turns and attacks Ellie, forcing Henry to shoot him.
This death is extremely heartbreaking for various reasons. One of these is the effect it has on Ellie, who tries to save him using her blood after Sam tells her about the bite. However, the decisions of co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin to make Sam deaf, younger than in the game, and a leukemia survivor all make him an incredibly sympathetic character. Due to all this, his death marks the saddest in The thus far, with Sarah's death from episode 1 coming in a close second.
1 Henry
The final death in The Last of Us episode 5 is Henry's. After shooting the infected Sam, Henry is naturally distraught. The scene culminates with Joel trying to calm Henry down before the latter's death by suicide. Much like Sam and Kathleen's deaths, Henry's has an added nuance given the earlier events of The Last of Us episode 5. In an earlier scene with Joel, Henry talks about doing "bad guy things", lamenting his decision to turn in Kathleen's brother despite doing it to save Sam's life. Because of this, Henry thinks he is inherently a bad guy.
This is only worsened after Henry shoots Sam, ending both their stories. Henry repeatedly asks himself "What did I do?" while looking at Sam's corpse. Having to shoot Sam will only build on Henry's idea of him being the bad guy, as he does not have the hardened drive to survive like Joel does which lessens the impact of committing morally questionable actions. All of this worsens Henry's death and provides it with a nuance shared by Sam and Kathleen in The Last of Us episode 5.
New episodes of The Last of Us release every Sunday on HBO.