Sam’s face paint in HBO’s ‘The Last of Us,’ explained

Warning: the following article contains spoilers for The Last of Us episode five, “Endure and Survive.”

The fifth episode of HBO’s The Last of Us finally peeled back the curtain on the two strangers which managed to get the jump on Joel and Ellie while they were asleep. Doing their best to avoid being discovered by the incensed residents of Kansas City, the pair was surprised by two fan-favorite characters straight from the video game. 

Thankfully, things were resolved relatively quickly and peacefully between everyone involved in the standoff, with the strangers turning out to be Henry and his younger brother, Sam, who are arguably higher on Kathleen’s hit list than Joel and Ellie. The four find themselves with a common goal and enemy, and spend the duration of “Endure and Survive” working together to find a way out of Kansas City while avoiding detection.

As far as the matter of Sam is concerned, he has a few characteristics which deviate from the source material, primarily the fact that he is deaf and suffers from leukemia. However, there’s also the orange face paint across his face. Why was this an inclusion, and what does it mean? 

Sam’s face paint

While Henry, Sam, and Edelstein were sheltering from the Kansas City rebellion after they overthrew FEDRA, Sam would spend his spare time drawing and painting all over the walls of their hideout. He had an obsession with drawing himself as a superhero, or “Super Sam,” who had an orange mask across his eyes, presumably to conceal his “secret identity.” 

When Henry and Sam finally ran out of food, and they presumed Edelstein dead, they had to make their move. Like any child his age, Sam was understandably frightened by the prospect of having to go out and potentially come face to face with bandits who are out to kill them. To try and alleviate his fears, Henry paints the “Super Sam” mask on his little brother’s face. 

From Ellie, Joel, and the audience’s perspective, the face paint perhaps succeeded in making Sam look a little more menacing, particularly in that final shot of episode four, “Please Hold My Hand.” It undoubtedly made Sam feel a lot braver about confronting these strangers, too. However, it all boiled down to a child’s imagination, and his older brother bringing some of that imagination to life to help instill some confidence in his sibling.