We get to meet the most wanted man of Kansas City Henry, and his little brother, Sam. On top of this, I will give a spoiler warning for this article. I will normally talk in generalities, but the ending is just too much not to talk about. Also, I've got plenty to say about ASL. So, let's get into it and go over the episode.

This had a lot of changes from the game, but others have said plenty about it. I'm just focused on what we've got from this show. Henry and Sam took a very different path with Henry being someone who was forced to betray his dear friend to save his brother. Henry sees it has having killed his dear friend to save the most important person to him: his brother. These two are very deeply bonded brothers. They do want to take care of each other. Sam is young but smart and observant. But he is still a kid. Henry being the older brother has a lot more to carry. He knows what he's done to keep Sam safe and won't let Kathleen catch either of them since he knows its a death sentence either way. While we don't see anything that happened, we do see them hiding in the aftermath of the Rebels having taken over Kansas City. Slowly, they are forced out of their safe hiding place for food and to back a break for the city limits.

Kathleen's brother understood this and offered his forgiveness over it. Kathleen wouldn't give someone the chance anymore. Everyone has done what they've done and there's no going back from it. If you've betrayed your friends and family to FEDRA once, you will do it again. She proves this with her actions after learning what little she can from the hostages she's taken. There were no survivors from that massacre.

Kathleen just wanted revenge for the death of her brother. She doesn't see herself as a good person any more. She's always need the path forward, sometimes it was leaving behind a trail of blood. Sometimes it was just a lesser level of violence. She led the rebellion and managing everything after what happened with her brother. He had been taken by FEDRA for leading the uprising. He would protect her and he did just want to protect the City from the corruption of FEDRA. Everything we hear from Henry says they were pretty terrible throughout. The best thing they did was drive the Infected underground and keep them contained there. Otherwise, they just took everything they could from the people, took bribes and were little better than armed thugs at times. FEDRA isn't great, but it sounds like the worst of the worst were here.

Those depressions in the ground were a warning of the underground system of Infected being able to break through to the surface once more. This is also the first time we got to see 3 kinds of Infected: the Infected, the Clicker, and the Bloater. That is the massive Infected that tore Perry apart. For a little reference, the Bloater actually takes a decade or so to “form.” The numerous layers of fungal growth make make it much harder to kill with traditional firearms. This makes it much harder to kill then your normal Infected or Clicker. It's inhumanly strong for these changes as well.

Let's talk a little about Ellie and Sam. These two do reach an understanding with each other without much trouble. They are kids and there are some thing that they do want to do. One of them is play around. The scene with them playing soccer, drawing, and enjoying some of the peace and quiet the tunnels afforded them was a rare bright spot throughout this series. I can say that they had this same bond in the game. They did both share a lot of the Savage Starlight comic series, playing silly games, drawing and just having a chance to laugh. Both Joel and Henry have different reactions to this. Henry is happy to see Sam actually happy again. Joel is being grumpy about it, just wanting to get through this. But likely somewhere in that cold heart of his, he is happy that Ellie gets to be a kid for a bit.

Joel is more closed off about everything throughout the episode. Until everything that happens at the end, Ellie was right. Joel might be a grump about it, but he will listen to Ellie. Just like she predicted, Joel offers Henry that he and Sam could travel with them while he's searching for his brother.

The biggest difference was at the end of the episode after Sam revealed that he got bit on the leg during their escape. Ellie tries to help him, smearing some of her blood over the wound in the hopes of stopping the infection. The problem is that it's something much more to bring about a cure for the Cordyceps infection. Ellie wants whatever saved her to be able to help more people. We've seen her get scratched and show no signs of infection from it. Sam wanted the hope and unfortunately it was not as simple as just some of Ellie's blood. She wanted something that couldn't happen. Her blood isn't what's protecting her. Her body seems much more apt at dealing with the infection and isn't subject to it. There is something more protecting her. The question does remain about what that is. It certainly wasn't just her blood for sure.

The coldness of Joel has been rubbing off on Ellie a bit. She still has a lot of her own spirit, but we see how she just just shut down at the end of the episode. The biggest tell of anything happening with her was the simple message that she wrote for Sam: “I'm sorry.” She just passes Joel his bag and its off toward their destination. It tells of the loss she's feeling from what's just happened with Sam. She was certain he was going to be safe.

In case you don't watch them, I do Let's Plays for GameShampoo on YouTube as well. Most of the videos in the past few years have had me signing my introduction. If you watch the Alice: Madness Returns Videos, you'll see me signing as I'm talking. All this to say that American Sign Language is my second language. Any time I get to see it represented in popular media, it always gets me. This language does struggle since it's considered more a creole than a full language. But the dependency someone would have in a world like “The Last of Us” is absurd. You can't hear and need someone you trust with your life that can hear. But to just see it there and being used was outstanding. Keivonn Woodard who played Sam is deaf. They had an interpreter on set to help convey what needed to get across. Most of the people there did learn a degree of ASL to be able to talk with him. Having something to write with is something not uncommon with anyone using ASL. There is only so much you can get across with signs or pantomime if someone doesn't understand the language. Having something like that writing pad is critical for conversation. Something like that little pad is reusable and has a great lifespan for usefulness. It was perfect and allowed for easily the most heartbreaking scene of the episode. I know ASL has been getting better known and I'm very grateful. It's still something I'm going to advocate for. It's a wonderful language to learn and you can do a lot with just finger-spelling. Also, learning to count with ASL gives you the chance to reach almost 1 million with just one hand. I'll be more quiet about it once it does make the status of a full language. Even then, it's still a beautiful language. Take some time to watch some poetry. Some of it you don't need to understand the language. Perhaps take some time to watch some ASL interpretation of songs.

The title of the episode is something very appropriate in the end, “Endure and Survive.” This is the motto of the comic book series that Ellie and Sam are reading (and the trophy name if you collect all 14 of the Savage Starlight comic books for Ellie). This does come back to something I've talked about before. There is a difference between surviving and living. Joel and Tress had been surviving for the most part for example. A lot of their focus was just on finding their next job or meal. Frank and Bill were living. They didn't have to worry about as much as the others did. Bill was a hardened survivor and someone who could handle whatever came at him. He did see it as his duty to protect Frank. But that is something to keep in mind. While on the road, all you can do is survive. But we did get something very important here. Henry and Sam offered a mirror for Joel and Ellie to see themselves in a different light. Joel can see that Ellie is drifting away from him. While he hasn't admitted much, he has conceded that he can enjoy the puns that she'll spout off. It is something to watch and this is a patch that they do need to get through.