Melanie Lynskey (Kathleen) talks through epic The Last of Us climax

The Last of Us is a show about a zombie apocalypse, but so far the series has mostly focused on its characters and let the infected take a backseat. That means that when we do see them, it’s that much more shocking. And in the latest episode, “Endure & Survive,” the fungal zombies came out in droves to devastating effect.

In the final act of Episode 5, Joel (Pedro Pascal), Ellie (Bella Ramsey), Henry (Lamar Johnson), and Sam (Keivonn Woodard) manage to escape Kathleen’s (Melanie Lynskey) oppressive forces in the Kansas City QZ. But Kathleen and her army catch up to them and back them into a corner. Just as Kathleen is about to take her revenge, a horde of Infected burst out of the ground, slaughtering everyone. There’s even a bloater, an infected who has been eaten away by the fungus for a very long time:

Kathleen’s reign of terror comes to an end when a child clicker leaps onto her and takes a bite. The stunt actress is 9-year-old Skye Belle Cowton, a “rhythmic gymnast.”

“It was crazy. She was so not afraid,” Lynskey told Entertainment Weekly. “She’s on a wire swinging through the air and she’s just like, ‘Great!’ in the middle of the night in her little Blue’s Clues t-shirt.”

“The level of detail was just crazy” on The Last of Us

For Kathleen’s death scene, creator Neil Druckmann talked her through those chilling blood-curdling screams in an ADR session. She didn’t hold back. “He wanted it to sound like someone was ripping your throat out,” Lynskey explained. “It’s so awful, but that’s how specific he is.”

Lynskey is proud to have had a chance to play in the sandbox created by the team. “I’ve never been so astounded in my life at what I saw around me,” she said.

The Last of Us was the largest production in Canadian history, and it shows. There’s no cost-cutting in those sets. “They built that cul-de-sac,” Lynskey said. “They just built it next to a studio. It’s huge and there are houses and you could walk into the houses because the set designer and the art director and production designer wanted it to be where you could use any space if you needed to. The level of detail was just crazy. You could have done a close-up on anything and it would’ve been absolutely perfect. There’s no fudging. So even just to see that was so insane.”

All things considered, fighting a horde of the undead wasn’t the hardest thing to film. Rather, the cold weather of Canada in winter was tough. “Everyone was making sure we were warm enough and making sure all the stunt performers and background people were warm enough, which is something that I’m always very concerned with.”

The Last of Us star defends Melanie Lynskey from internet trolls

Nowadays, nothing can exist without trolls on the internet taking issue with it. For instance, some viewers of The Last of Us have hit out Melanie Lynskey’s portrayal of Kathleen, saying she doesn’t look right for the role. Most notably, former America’s Next Top Model winner, Adrianne Curry, took to her Twitter (which has since been deleted) to say that Lynskey’s “body says life of luxury…not post apocalyptic warlord.”

Jeffrey Pierce, who plays Kathleen’s right-hand man in the show (and also voiced Tommy in Naughty Dog’s original video game), has come to Lynskey’s defense. “I think it just shows an embarrassing lack of understanding of the world,” Pierce told EW. “Look, I would say that Hollywood has done a terrible job of creating the mythology of, what is a man? What is a woman? What are these aesthetics that we hold up as power? And so I think that, in this particular story, because of who [showrunners] Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are, we get to turn those narratives on their head.”

The Last of Us is now streaming on HBO. New episodes drop every Sunday!

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