Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Last of Us episode five, “Endure and Survive.”
Before HBO’s The Last of Us successfully broke our hearts for a fifth week in a row, we were first treated to an intense and horrific action sequence with a fairly substantial body count, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the outbreak prologue way back in episode one.
After a truck careens into a house and creates a sinkhole from which a horde of infected emerge, there was a slice of shock, awe, and horror for pretty much everyone. While the big setpiece was undoubtedly the gargantuan bloater, on the other end of the spectrum was a much smaller, yet equally terrifying threat — the clicker which crawls into a car with Ellie.
Turns out, the spider-like contortions weren’t the work of CGI — it was a live-action performance by a nine-year-old gymnast, Skye Cowton:
A number of commenters on a thread over on The Last of Us HBO series subreddit were absolutely dumbfounded by the fact that most, if not all, of the intense, claustrophobic, and isolated body horror took place in real-time and wasn’t the work of an animation team.
While Ellie managed to escape Cowton’s clicker’s clutches unscathed, Kathleen wasn’t so lucky — with the little girl leaping onto Melanie Lynskey’s character like a demonic Spider-Man and ripping her to shreds, allowing for the group’s escape. Of course, that wasn’t the end of the casualties in ‘Endure and Survive,’ but that’s something to sob about another time.
While we’re on the topic of praising Cowton’s performance — is it just us, or did her teal shirt and blonde hair make her the spitting image of Sarah as she was portrayed in the original game? The t-shirt design is different but still, the resemblance is uncanny, minus the fungus sprouting out of her face.
HBO’s The Last of Us will be back to terrify and traumatize us all over again, all set to air in its usual time slot this Sunday.
Published: Feb 12, 2023 06:02 pm