‘The Last of Us’ Season 1: All the Easter Eggs You May Have Missed

Despite evading Super Bowl Sunday, HBO’s The Last of Us nonetheless tackled the audience with perhaps its most upsetting episode yet — and that’s saying something, since we’re still only two weeks removed from the ballad of Bill and Frank.

Creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann’s fifth Last of Us episode, “Endure and Survive,” asks the viewer to do exactly that: endure and survive two of the show’s most brutal deaths yet. The hour sees Joel and Ellie join forces with fellow survivors Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Montreal Woodard), an alliance that works out surprisingly well until it all goes horribly wrong. On the bright side, we are dealing with yet another episode loaded with callbacks to the video game, some of which retraumatized longtime Last of Us fans all over again.

Here’s how “Endure and Survive” stacks up against the video game, plus all the other Last of Us Easter eggs from season one thus far.

Episode 5: Endure and Survive

New Town, Similar Enough Players

“Endure and Survive” largely centers Henry and Sam in the narrative, both of whom absolutely come our way from the game. There are differences, of course; Sam is not deaf in the video game, a change made for the show, with deaf actor Keivonn Montreal Woodard inhabiting the role. (Alas, TV Henry and Sam’s deaths are almost identical to what happens in the game. No happy endings here, I’m afraid.) Another critical difference: Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen isn’t trying to track them down. In fact, she doesn’t exist at all. The Henry/Sam story takes place in Pittsburgh in the game, not Kansas City, and a vicious group called the hunters owns the role given to Kathleen’s resistance group in the show.

It Ish What It Ish

The Henry/Sam portion of the game sees the group heading into tunnels to make their way out of town; just like in the show, they come across an underground community filled with toys, games, and other childhood playthings. You can learn much more about this community’s backstory in the game: it was founded by a person named Ish, who lived out at sea during the cordyceps outbreak and sought shelter in the sewers. Ish slowly recruits other survivors to live in the bunker, which falls apart when a community member accidentally leaves a door open, letting the infected come their way. Mercifully, we don’t see any of this backstory with our own eyes, though it couldn’t have been any more painful than episode five’s ending.

Savage Starlight

In the community, Ellie and Sam come across an issue of Savage Starlight, an in-universe comic book set in the year 2186 that follows the adventures of a space traveler named Dr. Star. The comics are collectibles in the Last of Us video game and are connected to a series of trading cards found in the game’s sequel. If you squint, you can view Savage Starlight as a tip of the cap to HBO’s other riveting pandemic drama, Station Eleven, which features a comic book even more prominently than The Last of Us. Nothing more than a coincidence, but a notable one all the same.

Penalty Kick

If you thought Joel looked particularly pained watching Ellie and Sam play soccer in the underground bunker, there’s a reason for that: Joel’s daughter, Sarah, was a soccer player. It’s a detail that didn’t appear prominently in Sarah’s tragically brief time on the show, but Joel’s melancholy is a testament to the show’s thorough character work.

Shots Fired

In both the show and the game, Joel’s tasked with taking down a sniper all on his own. Once done, he wields the weapon to provide covering fire for Ellie, Sam and Henry as they try to make their escape. Manic and mayhem ensue—a bit more dramatized for the sake of the show, but still locked and loaded with clickers and infected aplenty in the two different versions of this tale.