The Last of Us Episode 5 premiered last weekend, and it’s been making a ton of waves. Serving as the big mid-season climax for the series, “Endure and Survive” featured more than a few horrific deaths and a huge battle involving revolutionary soldiers, clickers, and even a monstrous bloater.
One of those horrific deaths was that of Kathleen, played by Melanie Lynskey. After spending most of the past two episodes carving a path of terror through Kansas City in her attempts to avenge her dead brother by killing Henry (Lamar Johnson), Kathleen finally gets her comeuppance when she’s attacked by a clicker. And not just any clicker: a child clicker, which calls to mind Kathleen’s horrifying proclamation that she’s going to kill Henry’s younger brother Sam, and that children “die all the time.”
Showrunner Craig Mazin explained the reasoning for this turn in the latest episode of The Last of Us Podcast by referencing another big HBO sci-fi series. “Let me crib a line from Westworld, ‘These violent delights have violent ends,'” he said, referring to a quote from Romeo and Juliet which became a mantra for Westworld. “I think it’s important to show that when you are dead set on using violence to settle the score and win the day, you are going to probably get subsumed by that yourself.”
“If people struggle a little bit with how they feel…then I think we probably did it correctly.”
According to Mazin, the writers killed Kathleen like this to underline the idea that the more a person is drawn into the cycle of violence, the more likely they are to meet a violent end. “And the fact is, Kathleen is a moral criminal. She’s done terrible things. Does she deserve to die? I don’t really get into that. I just know that the odds that you are going to die by the sword go up dramatically if you live by it,” Mazin said.
When The Last of Us Podcast host Troy Baker pointed out that Kathleen had the opportunity to escape and chose not to, Mazin’s response recalled yet another popular piece of (tragic) media: Charles Dickens’ Moby Dick. “Well, that’s the thing. told her to run, and she couldn’t help but chase the white whale to the very end.”
“It was important for me, also, that Kathleen is killed by a child,” Mazin added, recalling her cold-hearted lines to Henry about children dying all the time.
"The thing is, a lot of what we talk about when we’re talking about the moral conundrum of The Last of Us is, ‘Why does my kid’s life matter more than yours? Does my kid’s life matter more than your mother’s? Does my kid’s life matter more than an old man’s life?’ And so, the idea that she is ultimately killed by a kid felt sort of like a circular completion of that story. You’re not supposed to feel good. You’re not supposed to feel bad. If people struggle a little bit with how they feel about that moment, then I think we probably did it correctly."
The Last of Us premieres new episodes Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.
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h/t CBR.com