This Last of Us actor is happy he got the ‘best death of the season’

polygon.com:

[Ed. note: As you might’ve guessed from the headline, this post contains spoilers for a death at the end of The Last of Us episode 5.]

Everything goes wrong for everybody at some point in the suburb throwdown at the end of The Last of Us episode 5. “Endure and Survive” ends with an elaborate action set piece, with infected swarming out of a sinkhole and overrunning Joel (Pedro Pascal), Ellie (Bella Ramsey), and their Kansas City allies and enemies alike. A lot of people die. But few get as brutal a death as Perry (Jeffrey Pierce), who gets torn to pieces by a bloater.

Even out of focus in the background as Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) escapes, it’s a particularly gnarly kill. And Pierce, who also voiced Joel’s brother Tommy in The Last of Usgame, wouldn’t have it any other way — and not only because it’s an Easter egg.

“Craig [Mazin, co-showrunner] said, ‘Look you’re gonna get the best death of the entire season,’” Pierce tells Polygon in an interview. “And for me — he is a man who has lived by a code of honor. And the idea that he gets this honorable death that he gets to choose, and to sacrifice himself in the hope of Kathleen potentially being able to escape, is really as heroic and selfless an act as you can hope for.”

That strength was something Pierce wanted in every moment that Perry was on screen. The way he saw it, Perry was former military, had no interest in joining FEDRA and their death squads, and had been moving around until he found Kathleen and her brother and joined their cause. Pierce describes going back and forth with the props department, assembling the look that he wanted for the character he envisioned: a plate carrier tactical vest, a personal weapon along with his FEDRA Beretta, three separate