Is Sam deaf in The Last of Us game?

In the most recent episode of The Last of Us, “Endure and Survive,” we spent a lot of time with Henry and Sam, a pair of brothers hiding out from a violent revolutionary force in the ruins of Kansas City. Sam and Henry teamed up with Joel and Ellie to escape the city, and became friendly in the process.

Sam, the younger of the two brothers, is Deaf. The Last of Us is based on a 2013 video game of the same name from Naughty Dog. In the game, Sam is not Deaf.

“One of the changes that we made for the TV show is we made Sam deaf,” explained co-showrunner Neil Druckmann. “And it started from a place of just like talking with [co-showrunner Craig Mazin] and we’re like, ‘What if we could use less dialogue?’ That kind of constraint led to really interesting storytelling decisions that I would say in some ways make that sequence [with Sam and Henry] more impactful than it is in the game.”

Does sam die in The Last of Us game?

At the end of the episode, we learn that Sam was bitten by one of the infected during a huge action scene. Although Ellie tries to heal him with her blood, figuring that her immunity to the cordyceps fungus might do the trick, it doesn’t work. Sam turns into a zombie. His older brother Henry shoots Sam dead before turning the gun on himself.

Unfortunately, this is also how Sam and Henry die in the game, so the show was true to the source material there.

Is The Last of Us star Keivonn Woodard deaf?

Keivonn Woodard, who plays Sam, is Deaf in real life. He’s also a hockey players who hopes to be the first Deaf player in the NHL.

Between that and acting, he has options.

HBO airs new episodes of The Last of Us on HBO and HBO Max on Sunday nights at 9:00 p.m. EST/8 CST.

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