In the episode, Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) agree to escape Kansas City, Missouri, with Henry (Lamar Johnson) and his brother Sam (Keivonn Montreal Woodard), who are being hunted by bandit leader Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) and her second-in-command Perry (Jeffrey Pierce).

"Endure and Survive" introduced a "bloater", a mutated creature significantly larger and stronger than most other infected; the costume was built using prosthetics and later emphasized using visual effects.

The episode received positive reviews, with praise for its writing, direction, cinematography, and performances of Johnson, Woodard, Lynskey, and Ramsey.

The episode received several nominations at the 75th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, including for Johnson, Lynskey, and Woodard, and editors Timothy A.

After a resistance movement overthrows the government and takes control of Kansas City, Missouri, their leader Kathleen Coghlan sets out to find Henry Burrell, whom she blames for the death of her brother Michael.

Henry and his deaf brother Sam take refuge with elderly smuggler Edelstein, who fails to return from a scouting trip ten days later.

As Kathleen prepares to kill Henry, a damaged truck crashes through the ground and releases a massive crowd of infected, including a heavily mutated specimen known as a "bloater" which tears Perry apart.

[7]: 1:14 The writers wanted to honor the game's unseen character Ish—who built a community in tunnels underneath the city—but found they could not properly depict it in the episode, opting for brief references.

[7]: 27:37  The writers understood the game's sniper sequence would have translated poorly to television and chose to make the shooter an old man to add sadness to the scene.

[7]: 32:36  While meeting with Druckmann and Webb in Santa Monica, California, Mazin realized the full action sequence would be more effective at night—as opposed to day like the game—as its visuals and the creepiness of infected would be improved.

[17] He was allowed to experiment with the scene, including performing lines similar to the game;[18] he wanted to portray Henry's shock and confusion at the sudden events.

[20]: 2:24  Mazin wrote Sam as deaf—a change from the game—to avoid his relationship with Henry feeling repetitious of Ellie's with Joel, which he felt would have been emphasized due to the different perspectives of the series.

[34][35][36] The classroom and tunnels were built in the cellar underneath the old Inglewood Brewery in Calgary; production designer John Paino and his team enjoyed the "kind of dankness" it had.

[40][41] The action sequence took significant planning—Bolter estimated around 80% of the episode's planning focused on the scene—and was filmed in four weeks; about a week-and-a-half was dedicated to the infected horde rising from the ground.

[1] The sequence was one of few in the series prepared on a storyboard due to the combination of elements like pyrotechnics and visual effects, which presented potential dangers.

[42] The neighborhood was built in an empty lot near the Calgary Film Centre to allow full control of the significant special effects required.

[1] Webb cited Saving Private Ryan (1998) as inspiration for some of the shots during the sequence, particularly from Joel's perspective in the house or Ellie's on the street.

[20]: 3:44  The child clicker—designed by Naughty Dog artist Hyoung Taek Nam, who originally designed clickers for the game—was portrayed by a young contortionist actress,[7]: 49:22  Skye Belle Cowton;[28] prosthetics and visual effects were combined to make the creature.

[49] Gower said his team wanted the creature to have a "practical presence" for interaction on set, which could later be emphasized with visual effects; the bloater was made taller and given additional muscle definition.

[7]: 46:22 The visual effects team consulted with Mazin and Druckmann to emphasize her childlike features, adding pigtails and showing more of her face.

[56] IndieWire named "Endure and Survive" the seventh-best television episode of 2023; Ben Travers praised its portrayal of love and loss in the midst of authoritarian rule.

[52][54][58] Den of Geek's Bernard Boo called Ramsey's reaction to Henry's death "utterly heartbreaking",[53] and Total Film's Bradley Russell found their award-worthy performance throughout the episode made the moment more effective.

[64] Total Film's Russell considered some moments—like Henry painting Sam's face—just as powerful as the show's acclaimed third episode, but found Kathleen's death underwhelming.

[59] Digital Spy's Janet A. Leigh found the episode's deaths pointless, noting Henry and Sam were not given enough meaningful scenes and questioning Kathleen's inclusion if only to kill her abruptly.

[66] Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall praised the action sequences for remaining character-driven,[63] and Kotaku's Claire Jackson thought the pacing of the sniper scene made it more effective than the game.

[67] Game Rant's Rabab Khan wrote that the cinematography captured the tension during the sniper sequence, and the changing shots effectively represented the horror of the subsequent action scenes.

[68] IGN's Simon Cardy found the cinematography reflected the intense atmosphere and the cuts from close-ups to wide shots emphasized the terror and scale.

[67] Den of Geek's Boo found the action entertaining enough to forgive the lack of character development earlier in the episode;[53] and Push Square's Aaron Bayne felt the Kansas City scenes were less memorable and frightening than the game's Pittsburgh.

[52] Slant Magazine's Pat Brown found the action sequence insufficiently tense as the episode failed to "build the undead up as objects of real dread".

[69] Polygon's Pete Volk criticized it for its low lighting and the bloater for its weightlessness and lack of presence in the world, comparing it to the child clicker which he found effective due to its inhuman movements.