Leon’s Fate in The Last of Us Episode 5 & How It Connects to the Original Game, Explained

The Last of Us’ episode 5 has just introduced another tragic family story that directly ties to Ellie’s discovery of the Seattle hospital’s infected floor.

Starting with a flashback in the opening scene, the episode witnesses Alanna Ubach’s Hanrahan returning to the screen and interrogating the WLF’s commanding officer Elise Park about a mission that failed while their group was out there in Seattle’s Lakehill Hospital.

As the conversation goes, Elise mentions her team going into the hospital’s basement and then talks specifically about a soldier called Leon whose discovery eventually decided the entire group’s tragic fate.

Even though the original video game doesn’t mention Leon carrying out a mission in the hospital, his name is still brought up in a pretty ironic manner — here’s how.

Leon and His Role in The Last of Us Show, Explained

In the series, it’s also revealed that Elise considered Leon one of her best soldiers and relied heavily on his abilities. But there’s even more to that — while leaving the room, Hanrahan says she’s sorry for Elise’s son, which suggests Elise is in fact Leon’s mother.

This might have hit the show’s audiences especially hard, considering that, upon realising that the cordyceps’ flying spores will infect him and his mates, Leon demands that his mother seal him and his unit in the basement’s second floor.

Tragically enough, Elise has no other choice but to do so, though the infected floor is soon discovered by Ellie and Nora who get into a chasing fight across the hospital.

Having figured out that the spores will turn them into infected (which isn’t Ellie’s case though), they also discover a couple of people sealed into the walls by mushrooms, with one of those humans potentially being Leon.

Is Leon in The Last of Us Game Too?

A character named Leon is once brought up in the original video game, though there’s no way to know whether it’s the same Leon the show is talking about.

There’s an interesting connection though: in the game, Ellie and Dina find an abandoned bag full of money stolen from Westlake Bank in Seattle, accompanied by a note mentioning that the heist went wrong because of the virus outbreak.

However, the note also rants about its owner’s unfortunate fate, revealing that this person was attacked by the infected and then sealed inside of the bank by his accomplices, with one of them named Leon.

It’s not clear whether the HBO series used the same name deliberately or not, but Leon’s ending in the show might be easily considered the creators’ revenge towards the character of the same name from the game.

When Is The Last of Us Next Episode Being Released?

The second season’s remaining two episodes will air on Max on May 18 and May 25 respectively.