'The Last of Us' production designer says that episode 5's epic scene took about one month to shoot: 'No one got hurt, so that's the best you can hope for'

• Episode five of "The Last of Us" features a harrowing, large-scale action sequence.
• Insider spoke with production designer John Paino about how its intricate details came together.

"The Last of Us" episode five is one of the most harrowing of the series thus far, and that's saying a lot for a show that broke into a full pandemic apocalypse within its first 20 minutes.

The episode continues Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) quest to escape Kansas City after they're attacked by anti-FEDRA rebels who have taken over the city. Teaming up with Henry (Lamar Johnson) and his younger brother Sam (Keivonn Woodard), who are also being pursued by resistance leader Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), they finally make it out of the city — only for things to quickly become disastrous.

Insider spoke with production designer John Paino about creating the set for the epic final showdown in episode five, which he said was one of the most complex sequences in the entire series.

"I think it was four weeks of shooting for that one sequence," Paino told Insider.

The set that eventually gets flooded with Infected was built from scratch

In the episode, the Kansas City resistance catches up to the group just outside of the city, pursuing them in a massive snow plow vehicle through a cul-de-sac. After Joel manages to successfully shoot the driver from the upper floor of a house at the end of the road, the vehicle crashes into another home, collapsing the front and causing it to go up in flames.

The real trouble, however, emerges when the truck sinks underground, creating a hole for a horde of Infected to emerge, including one incredibly strong variant known as a Bloater in "The Last of Us" video game.

On "The Last of Us," Paino told Insider, the goal was always to make things "as real as possible." That meant that some sets like the quarantine zone (QZ) in Boston, Bill and Frank's village in episode three, and the episode five cul-de-sac, were constructed from the ground up.

According to Paino, there was no other choice when it came to the cul-de-sac.

"There's no way to do it otherwise for various reasons," Paino said. "Not only because we won't find the architecture, but because of all of the elements that have to come together and work safely as well."

Getting the scene right took lots of planning and tons of time to shoot

Paino told Insider that there were "extensive" meetings about pulling together all the sequence's complex elements. Those included the logistics of the truck collapsing the front of a house, which Paino said was rigged to fall, as well as more minute details, like how tall the building Joel is pinned in had to be for him to be able to act as a sniper support for Ellie, Henry, and Sam.

"It was one of the few sequences in our show that was storyboarded, and it had to be because of all the elements of it and coordinating and choreographing it," Paino said.

While many of the effects in the scene were practical, some of the pyrotechnics were augmented with VFX. Other details, like the truck sinking in the ground, also relied on computer effects, he told Insider. After that, actors playing Infected clad in prosthetic makeup could climb out of the pre-dug hole.

"It sounds like four weeks is a lot, but it's also at night," Paino told Insider. "Things are harder to do. But everyone was safe, no one got hurt, so that's the best you can hope for."