Go Inside The Heartbreak Of The Last Of Us Episode 5

In The Last of Us Part 1, brothers Henry and Sam are survivors making their way into the world and looking out for one another. In the game, they come across Ellie and Joel while they're sleeping and quickly form an alliance that just as quickly turns into a personal hell for Joel and Ellie. Their collective journey was the focus on Episode 5 of HBO's The Last of Us.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for HBO's The Last of Us. If you aren't caught up on Episode 5, go watch it now.

Henry and Sam on the show, played by Lamar Johnson and newcomer Kevionne Woodward, respectively, kept the same narrative from the game mostly the same except for three big exceptions: Sam is now deaf, he's much younger as he was originally Ellie's contemporary, and they're fugitives from the resistance fighters. However, their fate is still exactly the same though.

"Sam and Henry are another example of this duality we encounter who are bonded together because they're the only family they have left, but because they also speak a language only very few people speak," showrunner Craig Mazin explained during HBO's post-episode breakdown featurette.

Game co-creator and writer of the show Neil Druckmann said that it was Mazin's idea to deviate from Henry and Sam's original narrative as well as to make Sam deaf, which Druckmann jokingly said how it made him angry he didn't think of that the first time around.

Lamar Johnson did not know any ASL before getting the role but picked it up quickly working with Kevionne, who is deaf in real life. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey also learned it as they said ASL director CJ Jones was willing to teach anyone on set who was willing to learn. Jones is also credited for creating the signing language used in the Avatar movies.

"Sam is deaf and I am deaf," signed Woodward. "We both sign. And seeing how deaf people are, and how they navigate the world, and that they can, I think is important."

Henry and Sam tag along with Ellie to try to escape an armored humvee that is shooting at them and it's up to Joel to take it down with a sniper rifle. The noise triggers Infected to come and Joel then has to kill the rising horde only with the far-ranged gun while the kids escape.

Sam is bitten by an Infected and turns by the next morning, attacking Ellie. Henry shoots his brother dead before turning his gun on himself. In the game, it cuts to the next season with Ellie and Joel continuing their own journey. In Episode 5, they bury the brothers with Ellie feeling the guilt of not being able to save Sam with her blood, putting doubt into her purpose and possibly her destiny.

"The scene where Ellie tries to heal Sam with her blood, to her, it was her chance to be this hero that she'd been promised that she was," Bella Ramsey said. "And she was so desperate because also the relationship that she'd built with Sam."

Mazin later explained that this is the turning point of Joel and Ellie's relationship saying that it's been 20 years since Joel has had somebody like Henry had Sam and it terrifies him to think about losing her. The next episode will have Joel confronting his brother Tommy, played by Gabriel Luna, who we haven't seen since the first episode.

HBO's The Last of Us airs new episodes on Sunday at 9 EST.