Roughly eleven days prior to where the last episode left off, Kansas City is in the midst of turmoil as the resistance movement fully takes over the formerly FEDRA-controlled territory, opening their gates in celebration of their newfound freedom. Kathleen — the leader of the resistance — is on a personal hunt for an individual named Henry. She interrogates a group of suspected collaborators, promising them that they wouldn't be killed as long as they give her information on Henry's whereabouts. Upon gaining some useful clues, her second-in-command Perry questions the resistance group's priorities but Kathleen remains committed in her path of revenge. She orders the suspects all executed.
Meanwhile, Henry, along with his little brother Sam, manages to evade resistance patrols. They encounter a doctor who Henry recognizes. The three hole up in a secret hiding spot. Henry tallies up their limited supplies as Sam settles in the corner of the hideout. The doctor notes that Sam seems scared and points out that Henry might be responsible for it. Henry comforts Sam. Ten days later, Henry and Sam are still in the hideout. Food is running low and the doctor hasn't returned yet. By next morning, Henry reluctantly states that the doctor might've died and both he and Sam prepare to escape. As they're leaving the ground floor, Henry hears a shootout. He spies through a window and sees a crashed truck, along with a rifle-wielding unaffiliated man killing resistance members. Henry comes up with a new plan. Later in the night, both of them sneak up to two sleeping individuals on a skyscraper floor: Joel and Ellie.
Henry proposes that they join together so all four of them could escape Kansas City by way of the maintenance tunnels. Joel is unconvinced of his plan, especially after learning that Henry was a FEDRA informant, but Ellie is fine with it. Ellie befriends Sam, who is deaf and communicates through sign language and a writing board. The new group makes their way to the tunnels. They discover an long-abandoned shelter within the network and decide to rest for a short while. Henry opens up to Joel about his past, teling him that he had sold out the resistance's former leader, Kathleen's brother and a good man. Henry had done so in order to procure the medicine to handle Sam's leukemia. In another part of the city, Perry finds Kathleen, who has holed up in her childhood home. Kathleen reminisces about her brother and admits that he is much better than she would ever be and would be ashamed of her actions today. Nonetheless, she will not be convinced to stop. Perry acquiesces, telling Kathleen that she had done more for the movement than her brother did and will continue to follow her orders.
Nighttime has fallen. Henry, Sam, Joel and Ellie leave the tunnels and make their way through the residential area. As they're walking through the roads, they are suddenly being shot at from a house at the end of the street. Joel heads out the back in order to eliminate the sniper as the other three hide. Joel enters the house and sees an old man holding the gun. Joel pleads for him to stop fighting. The old man silently refuses and Joel kills him. He discovers an active resistance radio in the room and immediately he cries out for the other three to run as the resistance arrives.
Kathleen and her resistance members clear out the crowded roads with a huge truck leading the way. Joel manages to shoot the driver down and it careens off the side and into a house, exploding after its fuel tank ruptures. Kathleen calls out for Henry to reveal himself. Henry does so and tries to negotiate for Ellie and Sam's safety, though Kathleen is unmoved. She prepares to execute Henry. They are all interrupted as a rumbling spreads from the burning house with the crashed truck. A massive horde of infected begin spilling out and start attacking the resistance members. Ellie tries to find a hiding spot as Joel starts picking off infected with his newly-acquired sniper rifle. A very large infected emerges from the hole and Perry sacrifices himself in order to let Kathleen escape. Ellie rescues Henry and Sam and together they attempt to leave the carnage behind. They are briefly interrupted by Kathleen, still on her plot to avenge her brother. She is killed when a small infected jumps on her. Joel arrives and the four finally escape from the now-doomed Kansas City as an endless number of infected emerge and overrun the survivors.
The four hole up in a motel. Joel and Henry quietly reflect on their future as Ellie and Sam read comics together in another room. Henry tells Sam to sleep and closes the door to the room. Ellie nonetheless keeps Sam awake and the two converse. Sam eventually reveals that he was bitten. Ellie quickly reveals her immunity and desperately spreads a glob of her blood on his wound in an attempt to cure it. Sam asks for her to stay and she agrees.
Later in the morning, Ellie wakes up and sees Sam silently sitting on his bed, facing away from her. She nudges him, only to be attacked a now fully-turned Sam. Ellie and an infected Sam crash into the main room where Joel and Henry were sleeping. Joel immediately goes to save Ellie, only to be halted by a bewildered Henry wielding a gun. After a long and terrifying moment, he shoots his brother dead. Henry points the gun at Joel, who tries to calm him down. Deeply anguished and in denial, Henry commits suicide, a shocked and tearful Ellie looking on.
Joel and Ellie dig graves for the two brothers. Ellie leaves Sam's writing board on top of his grave, the words "I'M SORRY" written on it. She walks towards west and calls for Joel, who joins her shortly thereafter.
Tropes in this episode include:
- 1-Dimensional Thinking: Ellie, Henry and Sam run from the bulldozer in a straight line up the street.
- All for Nothing: Not only does Henry fail in saving Sam, but the Kansas City Resistance goes down in mere minutes after an ungodly amount of infected pour out of a hole. It's a safe bet that not only will Kansas City be next, but that this was a foregone conclusion for KC after FEDRA fell (as they were the ones keeping the infected back).
- All There in the Script: The Bloater is not actually called that by any of the characters during the episode and is only named in the credits.
- Always a Bigger Fish: Kathleen and her troops have Henry, Ellie and Sam surrounded and held at gunpoint, until the explosion of one of their vehicles creates a sinkhole from which dozens of infected start climbing out. And after them comes a massive bloater in such an advanced stage of infection that its skin is near-bulletproof and it is strong enough to rip a human head apart with only its bare hands, as Perry finds out the hard way.
- Anyone Can Die: This episode kills off supporting characters Kathleen, Perry, Henry and Sam.
- Asshole Victim: On paper, Kathleen is a resistance fighter against FEDRA who took up the mantle after her brother was betrayed. She succeeded in turning the city around, until infected came and killed them off. If not for Kathleen's detestable brutality and callousness, it would be a sad story.
- Big Brother Instinct: Henry is shown to be fiercely protective of Sam during the entire episode. We find out that he even betrayed Michael in order to get the medicines to treat Sam's leukemia, at the cost of becoming the number one enemy for the revolutionaries.
- Call-Back: It turns out that Edelstein, the doctor whom Kathleen was holding captive and killed in the previous episode, helped Henry and Sam to hide from the resistance the night that FEDRA was overthrown and was bringing them food. Since Edelstein fails to return one day, Henry correctly assumes that he's been caught and killed, and quickly starts to plan an escape from the city.
- Car Fu: Perry orders the drivers to run down the infected with their vehicles, with limited success. Later, a couple of Clickers chasing after Ellie are run over by a speeding SUV.
- Les Collaborateurs: After FEDRA has been overthrown in Kansas City, the Resistance around Kathleen starts rounding up and killing those who have collaborated with the system. Even Joel is disgusted when he learns Henry was a rat. However, the show paints the collaborators in a sympathetic light, emphasizing how their decisions were driven by the need to survive, and Joel concedes he was wrong to prejudge Henry for it without knowing his circumstances.
- Commonality Connection: Both Ellie and Sam are fans of the Savage Starlight comics, and both have collected different issues of the series.
- Continuity Nod: Ellie's book of puns makes another appearance when Ellie shows it to Sam and he too cracks up about it.
- Conveniently Timed Distraction: Kathleen is about to shoot Henry when the crashed bulldozer suddenly gets dragged down into a pit. This event draws everyone's attention which allows Henry to escape.
- Cue Card Pause: Ellie pulls this joke on Sam. When he asks her if she isn't afraid, she writes "I'm scared all the time" on the board. Then she adds "... of scorpions". Sam is not amused.
- Death of a Child:
- While hiding in an abandoned van, Ellie is attacked by a clicker with the body of a young girl. Notably, this is the first Infected child ever shown.
- The death of Sam, a little boy with cancer, at the hands of his brother after Sam goes full Zombie Infectee is a big tragedy. Henry is so aghast at what he's done that he shoots himself.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Both Henry and Joel agree that the catchphrase "Endure and Survive" is redundant.
- Designated Girl Fight: During the battle, Ellie seeks shelter in an abandoned car, where she is followed by a litle girl clicker. The same clicker kills Kathleen while Perry is killed by the implied male bloater.
- The Dog Bites Back: KC FEDRA had been abusing its power to rape, torture and murder people for 20 years. Once the tides turn, the Resistance goes ballistic on the remaining FEDRA members.
- Don't Make Me Destroy You: Joel urges the sniper not to try anything stupid, but the old man doesn't listen and gets shot before he could turn his rifle on Joel, seemingly (and probably accurately) making the calculation that being killed by Joel is preferable to whatever Kathleen would do to him if he allowed Henry to escape.
- Dramatic Irony: Henry believes that the tunnels are empty because a source at FEDRA told him so, and even after three years figures there won't be much down there. As the viewer is aware from last episode, there are Infected down there — a lot of them. Fortunately, the tunnels they take do turn out to be clean, as FEDRA seemingly sealed off a single section to contain them.
- Dramatic Slip: Ellie slips while running from the bulldozer but Joel manages to take out the driver, which makes the truck sway to the side and crash into a building.
- The Dreaded: KC FEDRA had a nasty reputation for being particularly cruel to the people under their control, earning KC the nickname of "Killer City". Even Joel, who lives in the Boston QZ where people were shot en masse at the beginning of the outbreak and are executed in public for breaking quarantine rules, says they're rumored to be especially cruel and brutal.
- Driven to Suicide: Henry shoots himself after his brother Sam is infected, making his betrayal of Michael to save his life All for Nothing.
- Due to the Dead: Joel and Ellie take the time to properly bury Henry and Sam, and Ellie leaves Sam's tablet as a grave marker (with a final message of apology).
- Every Car Is a Pinto: The bulldozer explodes soon after crashing into a building.
- Face-Revealing Turn: When Ellie approaches Sam the morning after his infection, he turns around and we see his mutated face as he swings in for an attack.
- Fictional Document: The Savage Starlight comic book series that both Sam and Ellie are fans of is fictional.
- Full-Circle Revolution: If there's any doubt that the militia is just as bad as FEDRA, Kathleen tells her guys to kill all the collaborators and burn the bodies (like FEDRA would do to the infected).
- Foreshadowing: After Henry divulges his plan to escape Kansas City using the underground tunnels, Edelstein states "Tunnels? Why go to the trouble? You can kill yourself right here." At the end of the episode Henry ends up killing himself after killing his brother Sam.
- Giant Mook: The infected horde includes one "bloater" - a long time infected that is basically just fungus in humanoid form, towering over everyone and Immune to Bullets.
- Gory Discretion Shot:
- Perry's violent decapitation at the hands of the Bloater can only be seen in the background as Kathleen runs away.
- When Henry puts a bullet in his head, the scene cuts to Ellie's reaction and we never see the aftermath. Also Sam's death is shown with little detail.
- Hates Small Talk: After the opening ambush gets resolved, the four of them become friendly and share food and do small talk around a gas lamp. When it comes to Joel to reveal his name, he is reluctant to do so and immediately tries to break up the gathering so each party could go their own way.
- Healthcare Motivation: Henry explains to Joel that he ratted out Kathleen's brother Michael to FEDRA (leading to his death) in order to get drugs for his terminally ill brother.
- Hitchhiker Heroes: Subverted. It looks like Joel and Ellie are gaining two new team members for their journey to Wyoming but comes the next day they are on their own again.
- Hope Spot: Sam shows Ellie that he's bitten and she tries using her blood to cure him since she's immune. It doesn't work.
- Hypocrite: Kathleen majored in this.
- She has the audacity to tell Henry that she knows that he became a collaborator to get medicine for Sam, and then asks him if he thinks that the world revolves around Sam. This is coming from the woman who turned her whole fighting force into a manhunt for Henry to begin with, while refusing to deal with the Infected that are presently underground and are trying their damnedest to get in, all to avenge her brother — who apparently told her face-to-face to forgive Henry and, going by what everyone says about him, would never have wanted Kathleen to do any of this.
- She also blames FEDRA for killing people without a fair trial, only to order the same to be done to the collaborators (many whom didn't really have a choice) after she is finished with them.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: When Joel and the gang clear the tunnels, they are ambushed by a sniper who's not good at it. Joel outright says the sniper has bad aim and it's dark. He's able to get into the sniper's building and kill him.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: While quite competent, Joel has admitted and shown not to be 100% accurate with firearms in the past. In contrast, during this episode he kills a sniper blocking their advance, and then uses his sniper rifle to go on an absolute rampage against both Kathleen's crew and the infected to cover for Ellie's escape.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Two cases with Kathleen:
- Instead of handling the previous episode's ominous sinkhole, she continues to devote all of the resistance's resources to tracking down Henry and Sam. When one of her drivers crashes and accidentally causes a cave-in, the source of that sinkhole is revealed to be an army of Infected. The resistance is swiftly and brutally destroyed by an overwhelming force that, had Kathleen been prudent, she may have been able to safely deal with before it escaped.
- Kathleen is perfectly willing to kill children like Sam and Ellie for the simple crime of existing alongside her adult enemies. She is killed by a child Clicker.
- Make an Example of Them: For intimidation, the Resistance drags a body of a FEDRA member behind a truck with lots of knives sticking out of their body.
- Meaningful Background Event: While Kathleen holds Ellie, Henry, and Sam at gunpoint, the clicker that kills her can be seen in the background slowly creeping up top to ambush her.
- Mistaken for Related: Henry assumes Joel and Ellie to be father and daughter. Both are quick to correct that mistake.
- Mood Whiplash: After they make it out of the tunnel, everyone is in a good mood and Ellie cracks a joke about Joel when suddenly a shot rings out and everyone is rushing for cover.
- Mythology Gag:
- In the tunnel shelter, Joel finds the same drawing of Danny and Ish that can be found in the sewers in the game. While waiting for nightfall there, Ellie and Sam also play soccer like in the game.
- The Bloater kills Perry in the exact same way it would kill Joel if it grabs hold of him in the game. This time, we even get to see the gory aftermath.
- No Healthcare in the Apocalypse: Henry struggled to find drugs to treat Sam's leukemia due to it being After the End, which gave him a Healthcare Motivation that drove him to betray Michael.
- Not Helping Your Case: Ellie tries to convince Henry that she and Joel are friendly, which is not helped by Joel's "asshole voice" sounding about as insincere and threatening as humanly possible.
- Off with His Head!: Perry gets his head torn apart by a Bloater.
- Oh, Crap!: Perry is horrified by the sight of the Bloater that lumbers out of the crater.
- Palm Bloodletting: Ellie donates her blood to Sam by cutting her palm.
- The Paragon: Kathleen's brother. Going by what everyone is saying about him he was pretty much Jesus Christ. Subverted in that Perry points out that he spent twenty years being loved by everyone and failing to change anything while Kathleen spent a few weeks burning the place to the ground in order to change everything, and she has therefore his and everyone else's undying loyalty.
- Reliably Unreliable Guns: Joel's rifle jams up at the worst possible moment, putting Ellie at risk of getting run over by the bulldozer. He fixes the issue Just in Time.
- Repressive, but Efficient: For as horrible as KC FEDRA was, at least they took care of keeping the city free of Infected. Kathleen overthrows FEDRA but doesn't enact the same protection in lieu of chasing Henry; naturally, the Infected not only emerge, but they do it quicker because of Kathleen's incompetence, dooming her and the whole city.
- Revenge Before Reason: Rather than deal with or run away from whatever was making the floor cave in the previous episode, Kathleen focuses all the resistance's efforts on finding Henry and Sam. That "whatever" is revealed in this episode in all its horror: a stampede of infected with a Bloater among their ranks. They make short work of every resistance member that showed up with Kathleen. Kathleen then doubles down on this stupidity by continuing to pursue Henry rather than run from the horde as Perry told her to, which gets her mauled to death by a Clicker.
- Senseless Sacrifice:
- When the Bloater comes out of the crater, Perry holds it off and tells Kathleen to leave and get to safety. After the Bloater kills him, she stays behind to kill Henry, and is immediately killed by a clicker.
- Kind of a theme of the episode. Kathleen sacrificed everything to avenge her brother, only to lose her city, her people, and her own life when they're overrun by infected that could have been avoided by prioritizing properly and letting Sam and Henry go. Henry lost Sam to a random bite from an infected after giving up Michael to get medicine and spending weeks on the run, killing himself in despair. All of them lost everything and gained nothing. Worse, knowing Kathleen, the vast majority of combat-trained people left in the city were probably at the final confrontation, leaving the people still alive in the city not only facing a horde of infected, but almost totally without capable defenders.
- Smash Cut: The infected horde is seen finishing off the last of the Kansas City Resistance fighters before the scene abruptly cuts to the motel Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam took refuge in.
- Sniping Mission: Combined with Escort Mission when Joel acts as a sniper who clears the way for Ellie to escape the massacre.
- Sniping the Cockpit: How Joel dispatches the driver of the bulldozer chasing Ellie, Henry and Sam.
- Sound-Only Death: When Joel shoots the sniper, the scene cuts to the youngsters outside as they hear the shot. Henry's suicide is also not shown, cutting to Ellie's horrified reaction right as he turns his gun on himself.
- Staking the Loved One: More accidentally than not, Henry shoots his zombie-fied brother when the latter attacks Ellie.
- Suicide by Cop: A variation: when Joel corners the old sniper in the building, he tries to just have the guy slide his gun over. The sniper tries to pull his gun around and gets shot.
Word of God states that the guy figured he was going to die by either Joel that moment or Kathleen after, and made his decision. - Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When Sam reveals to Ellie that he was bitten, she tries to use some of her blood to cure him because of her immunity. It doesn't work, as immunity doesn't really work like that. And even if it did, she'd likely need to donate a lot more than just a drop of blood for it to be effective.
- Tempting Fate:
- After finding the tunnels empty when they first enter, Henry boasts that his intel was correct. Joel immediately shushes him, as they've barely been in the tunnels for two seconds and don't know what's ahead. Fortunately, Henry lucks out in this instance.
- Henry celebrates the success of his escape plan after the group makes it safely through the tunnels, only for a shot to ring out — a sniper has them pinned down and Joel quickly discovers that Kathleen and her mercenaries are not far behind.
- A subtle example with Kathleen. When she corners Henry, Sam, and Ellie, she tells Henry that he shouldn't have screwed with fate by attempting to save his terminally ill brother. Only a few moments later, the kicker arrives as a horde of Infected pours out from underground, killing Kathleen and her entire resistance — she tempted fate by neglecting to deal with the signs of Infected in order to chase Henry, and she's paying the price.
- Title Drop: Multiple times.
- Ellie and Sam bond due to their shared enjoyment of the Savage Starlight comic series. Sam teaches Ellie the sign language translation for the catchphrase "endure and survive".
- Joel and Henry agree on the phrase not being good by virtue of being rather redundant.
- Villainous Rescue: An infected horde burst in and saves Ellie, Henry and Sam from the resistance...although the trio is just as much prey as the people who were about to kill them.
- Wham Shot:
- Just as the sinkhole opened with the militia aiming at whatever is down there, out comes a horde of Clickers.
- After they escape from Kansas City, Sam then pulls up his pant leg to reveal a bitemark.
- Zerg Rush: Dozens of Clickers pour out of the crater the truck makes. Even before the Bloater emerges, their numbers are such that the militia can't kill them fast enough to prevent the Clickers from overrunning them, even with the advantage of a bottleneck and all their members carrying automatic weapons. Dozens more pour out after the resistance loses, and they just keep coming as the horde heads towards the city. It's safe to say Kansas City is done for.
- Zombie Infectee: Sam is bitten during the escape from the Infected and the Resistance, showing the bite to Ellie. In desperation, she smears some of her blood on the wound in an attempt to cure him, rather than take the pragmatic route of telling Henry and Joel. It doesn't work, and the only reason she isn't mauled in her sleep is because Sam is smart enough to face away from her before he turns.
