Last of Us Episode 5 Trailer Reveals a Terrifying New Enemy

All is not well in Kansas City. The bad blood between Kathleen and Henry puts Joel and Ellie in a dangerously tricky spot. But thankfully, you don’t have to wait much longer to see what goes down in The Last of Us Episode 5.

This week, the latest installment of The Last of Us will be available to stream early. With Super Bowl Sunday overlapping with the buzzy show’s usual release time, Episode 5 hits HBO Max a couple of days ahead of schedule, which means you can find out who Henry and Sam are, why Kathleen wants them dead, and what exactly is breaking through from underground very soon.

Here’s what you need to know ahead of The Last of Us Episode 5, including its early release date and time, plot, preview, and more.

When is the release date for The Last of Us Episode 5?

Instead of releasing during its usual Sunday night spot, Episode 5 of The Last of Us lands early on HBO Max on Friday, February 10, 2023, so as not to conflict with Super Bowl LVII.

What is the release time for The Last of Us Episode 5?

The Last of Us arrives at 9 p.m. Eastern for streaming on HBO Max this Friday, instead of the typical Sunday.

How many episodes are left in The Last of Us?

The Last of Us Season 1 consists of nine episodes, which means we’re officially over halfway through the first season, with four installments left after this week.

What is the plot of The Last of Us Episode 5?

Episode 5 of The Last of Us, titled “Endure and Survive,” will focus on Ellie and Joel as they team up with Henry and Sam in dodging the Kansas City militia group on the lookout for all of them. The fifth episode will also share a glimpse into the brothers’ backstory and how Henry ended up on the wrong side of Kathleen’s aggressive vendetta. On top of trying to evade the thuggish revolutionary forces, they will also likely be faced with an advanced-stage Infected, known as a Bloater, appearing for the first time in HBO’s video game adaptation.

What is the runtime for Last of Us Episode 5?

The runtime for Episode 5 is slated to be around 60 minutes long.

Who is in the cast for The Last of Us?

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey star as Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us. Alongside the show’s main pair, the series also features Melanie Lynskey as Kathleen, Lamar Johnson as Henry, Keivonn Woodard as Sam, Jeffery Pierce as Perry, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Nick Offerman as Bill, Murray Bartlett as Frank, Anna Torv as Tess, Graham Greene as Marlon, Elain Miles as Florence, Nico Parker as Sarah, Merle Dandridge as Marlene, and Storm Reid as Riley.

Is there a trailer for The Last of Us Episode 5?

Yes! HBO released a preview for The Last of Us Episode 5, and it gives audiences a sneak peek at the newest advanced stage Infected: Bloaters. Not only will Joel and Ellie have to deal with that explosive problem, but also the growing brutality of Kathleen’s militant followers as they hunt down Henry and his younger brother Sam.

The promo also teases Henry communicating with Sam through sign language and Kathleen rambling on about her thirst for justice, as well as telling an audience that, “Kansas City is free.” What will we learn about the state of the post-apocalyptic world next?

What happened in The Last of Us Episode 4?

Episode 4 of The Last of Us, titled “Please Hold My Hand,” opens on Ellie playing with her newly and secretly acquired pistol as she poses with it in the mirror of an abandoned roadside gas station. Outside, Joel is siphoning gas from long-deserted cars to use for Bill’s truck. Ellie pokes fun at Joel for trying to explain how siphoning works when he doesn’t actually know. He tells her not to wander off. Ellie whips out and begins to read from a book of puns, to Joel’s annoyance, so he asks her to go wait in the truck.

On the road, Joel and Ellie pass by many post-apocalyptical scenes, including an abandoned amusement park, a river full of deserted ships, a huge neglected FedEx facility, and a dilapidated sign for Arby’s — a callback to last episode. In the backseat, Ellie finds a Hank Williams cassette and a certain magazine. She feigns innocence asking why the pages are stuck together and finds it hilarious when Joel uncomfortably tries to answer.

With the sun setting, Joel pulls off the highway into a grass field and drives toward a stretch of woods where they will make camp for the night. He tells Ellie they won’t be making a fire, not because of potential Infected, but because of dangerous human hunters. Before going to bed in a sleeping bag, Ellie asks Joel a riddle from her book, but Joel already knows the answer, which Ellie finds amusing. Joel is clearly very way of falling asleep, and when Ellie wakes up in the middle of the night she sees him not resting but standing guard instead.

In the morning, like a true young teen, Ellie is disgusted by the bitter smell of Joel’s brewing coffee. Back inside the truck, Ellie is in charge of navigating with a map in the front seat as they make their way toward Wyoming, where Joel’s brother, Tommy, will hopefully be. Joel explains that Tommy is what he calls a “joiner,” meaning someone who signs onto things in hopes of being a hero. Before the outbreak, Tommy enlisted for Desert Storm. Later, on their way to the Boston QZ, Tommy was persuaded by Marlene to join the Fireflies, which he later dropped out of before going to Wyoming. Ellie asks what the point of doing anything is in this dreary post-apocalyptic world, to which Joel replies that family is worth protecting. He then tells Ellie she is cargo, not family.

They approach a highway underpass outside of Kansas City but it’s blocked with a pileup of cars and semi-trucks. Joel decides they will cut through the city to make it to the other side of the freeway. In the city, Ellie is having problems navigating the small streets by map. She points out the city QZ, which strangely doesn’t have any FEDRA presence. A limping man runs in front of the truck asking for help, but Joel turns the truck around and speeds away, but they hit some spikes in the road and crash into a laundromat.

Ellie and Joel are both OK, but people are now shooting at them. Joel instructs Ellie to crawl through a small opening in the wall and hide on the other side. Joel shoots two people attacking them, but another attacker surprises him by coming through the back door. The man pins Joel down and begins choking him when Ellie appears and shoots the man with her handgun but doesn’t finish the job. Catching his breath, Joel is shocked that she saved him, but quickly takes the pistol from Ellie. He tells her to go to the other room again. Once she is out of view, Joel shoots the man begging him for mercy and quickly hides in the room Ellie is sitting in.

We then switch to a woman, named Kathleen, interrogating an older man in a former FEDRA cell. Kathleen is the leader of the rebel insurgence that overthrew FEDRA in Kansas City, and she is asking the man, who was her doctor pre-outbreak, where the other “collaborators” are, but he won’t answer. She mentions that her brother was murdered in a cell just like this one. The doctor agrees she was wronged in the past, but she needs to stop. Kathleen asks why he didn’t stop when he was telling on his neighbors to FEDRA and she holds a trigger to his head, telling him she needs to find someone named Henry, who she blames for giving FEDRA information about her now-dead brother. Moved by the doctor’s plea since he delivered her, she lowers her weapon and leaves the cell as a horn sounds.

Outside, Kathleen’s followers have brought back the men Joel shot. A man, named Perry, dressed fully in militia gear, tells Kathleen they suspect this was done by outsiders, but Kathleen believes it was done by mercenaries called in by Henry. She asks if a doctor could help one of the wounded but dying men, but Perry says it’s too late. Kathleen then walks back inside, opens the cell, and shoots the doctor. She then goes back outside to tell the crowd of people that Henry is responsible for these murders and instructs her militia to find and end him.

Hiding in a defunct bar, Joel seemingly tries to apologize to Ellie for having to save him and hurt someone for the first time, but he admits he’s bad at this. She tells him it’s not her first time. He then takes out her pistol and teaches her how to properly hold it. Joel decides that their next move is to sneak into the tall building in the distance to scope a way out of the city.

Back with Kathleen’s militant cronies, Perry tells Kathleen that they found evidence of Henry. They go up to a small attic space where people were obviously living, with empty cans of food scattered around and a child’s crayon drawings on the wall. Kathleen says they are close to finding them and “Henry won’t let Sam starve.” Perry says there’s something else he has to show her. He leads her to a room in the basement, where the ground is cracked and sunken in — and something is moving beneath the surface. Kathleen and Perry quickly run out and shut the door. Perry wants to deal with this urgently, but Kathleen insists it must wait.

Joel and Ellie make it to the tall building, where they must now climb several dozen flights of stairs. At flight 33, Joel is winded and tells Ellie he has to stop (he’s in his 50s, to be fair). Resting in a room there for the night, Joel scatters shards of glass on the ground in front of where they will sleep, in order to alert him to anyone coming in the door. Before they fall asleep, Ellie tells Joel a pun about diarrhea, which actually makes Joel laugh.

In the middle of the night, Joel abruptly awakes from his sleep as Ellie yells his name. The episode ends with Ellie and Joel being held at gunpoint by a young man and a boy with a superhero mask drawn onto his face — Henry and Sam.

Will there be a The Last of Us Season 2?

Yes, Season 2 of The Last of Us was officially confirmed by HBO after releasing only two episodes, thanks to the show’s steadily impressive viewership numbers each week. Plus, the original video games, The Last of Us Part I and Part II (and potentially a Part III to come), set the series up with lots of juicy plot to unfold in a future season.