Movies - TV
The Last Of Us Almost Had An Even Darker Ending To Sam And Henry's Story
By JOSHUA MEYER
Spoiler Warning!
This story contains spoilers for
Season 1 of “The Last of Us.”
Two of the most brutal deaths in Season 1 of “The Last of Us” were that of Henry and his deaf younger brother Sam. Henry is very protective of Sam, which makes it intensely gut-wrenching when Sam succumbs to the Cordyceps infection, and Henry is forced to shoot his own kid brother, then takes his own life in despair; however, there could’ve been an even darker ending.
The Season 1 finale revealed that Joel tried to take his own life after losing his daughter early in the Cordyceps outbreak. Showrunner Craig Mazin told Empire that this revelation originally came earlier in Season 1, and had this storyline been preserved, it would have seen Henry live to bury his younger brother Sam, only to leave Joel with some very bleak departing words.
Mazin explained, “It's the next morning, they bury Sam, and Henry essentially tells Joel, ‘You can do whatever you want, try as hard as you can, but she's gonna die. There's no f***ing point.’ [Then Joel reveals] that he [...] attempted suicide and failed. And Henry's like, ‘No, you're an idiot, you should have done it.’ But it was actually even darker and more disturbing that way.”