In The Last of Us, when Joel asks Henry why Kathleen is hunting him down, he reveals that he is a collaborator. Upon hearing that, Joel becomes more reluctant to work with Henry than before.
Joel and Ellie immediately go to war with Kathleen’s group, the resistance, as soon as they enter Kansas City. Joel manages to kill the soldiers coming at them. When Kathleen learns of this, she starts referring to Joel and Ellie as collaborators.
Another person Kathleen sees as a collaborator is Edelstein, who helped Henry and Sam stay away from Kathleen and settle down in an attic.
The resistance manages to capture Edelstein. They interrogate him, hoping that he will give away Henry’s location to them. Kathleen pours out the frustration of losing her people to Joel on Edelstein and kills him right away.
Meanwhile, Henry realizes that Edelstein isn’t coming back to them. He and Sam then head out and team up with Joel and Ellie to get out of the city.
The moment Joel hears from Henry that he is a collaborator, he clarifies that he doesn’t work with rats, but unfortunately, he doesn’t have an option as Henry is the only one who knows a way out of this city.
What is a collaborator?
A collaborator in The Last of Us is someone who betrays his own people and works alongside FEDRA. Joel apologizes to Henry when they’re down in the tunnels on their way out of the city for calling him a rat.
Joel assumes that Henry became a collaborator for Sam, and he feels it’s not right for Kathleen to send an army just for a kid. Henry then talks about the events that made him a collaborator.
The resistance used to follow Kathleen’s brother. He was a great man. He was kind and forgiving. Even Henry claims that he would have followed him to the end.
When Sam got sick with leukemia, there was only one drug that worked. There was not much left of that drug, and only FEDRA had it. FEDRA would have only given Henry that drug if he had offered them something big.
Henry did give them something big in the form of Kathleen’s brother. That day, he became a collaborator. The resistance took FEDRA down, and since then, Henry has been running away from them.
Kathleen lost her brother, and now she is inflicting damage on all the FEDRA members and looking forward to making Henry pay, as she believes that Sam was supposed to die anyway but not her brother.
Also Read: The Last of Us season 1 episode 5 recap & review: Endure and Survive
