HBO’s The Last of Us episode five will air earlier in the week to avoid clash with Super Bowl

Warning: This article contains spoilers for HBO’s The Last of Us episodes four and five.

Mere minutes after HBO’s The Last of Us episode four had finished airing, Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann revealed that episode five will be airing earlier in the week to avoid an on-air clash with Super Bowl 57. The fifth episode will now be shown on Friday, February 10 instead of its usual Sunday schedule.

Since the Super Bowl showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles is set to go live on February 12 at 3:30 PM PT, it will most likely persist until well past the popular video game adaptation’s air time of 6 PM PT. This would presumably diminish episode five’s viewership numbers since the NFL championship tends to attract nationwide attention.

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Now that The Last of Us viewers can look forward to an earlier airing of the upcoming chapter, the preview that was shown during the end of episode four should be even more exciting as it displayed a number of elements from the game that the player base has long been waiting for.

Not only will it be the first full appearance of Henry and Sam, but it will also finally reveal the notorious and powerful Bloater in action. Though not much was shown of the lumbering infected enemy in the trailer, it will most likely pose a threat to all of the characters involved in the show’s current arc, which include Kathleen, Perry, and our protagonists, Joel and Ellie.