THE WALKING DEAD: "A" Season Finale
Season 4, Episode 16 “A”
DUSTIN: SO…
TIMOTHY: Yes?
DUSTIN: It’s about to happen.
TIMOTHY: Yes.
How scared are we?
ANNE-MARIE: Terrified. {flips a page in her magazine}
Yeah. It’s going to be brutal.
Dustin: I can’t stand it!!
ANNE-MARIE: I’m all atwitter… Do you think these shoes would look good on me?
{looks at magazine} Totes.
Are we going do this thing?
LET’S DO THIS THING!!
CURTIS: I’m here too!
PREDICTIONS:
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Tasha Yar will have to deep condition her wig.
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Rick and the team will meet up with Daryl and the jerks
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Tara and Maggie will braid each other’s hair and talk about their dads.
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Eugene will stare into the middle distance and be the worst.
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Abe will do naked jumping jacks and I will be amused.
Ooo!! So will I.
Wait. You’re going to do naked jumping jacks? Or be amused? ‘Cause I’m good with either.
Calm down you two. This is a family show. The Manson family maybe, but a family none the less. Ladies and Gentlemen, as you can see, Dustin and I are again joined by Mr. Curtis Smith and Miss Anne-Marie Zarrelli, who shall be Twittering for us this evening. As always, there be SPOILERS here, much that is questionable and inappropriate, and we know you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Which is good. We don’t know how to do this any other way.
This is true.
On to the show!!
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney #TheWalkingDead you better not kill Daryl tonight. Tara’s death will be enough sad. I don’t want to have to quit you.
My face is tingling… I’m so ready!
At a place, gates are opened… oh! It’s the prison! A car enters the gates. Maggie, Rick and Glenn get out of the car and cheerily greet Hershel. There is love and peace in the air.
Carl’s wig is terrible.
Carol and Tyreese are happy, it’s a happy time.
Right. This is probably going to be ugly. Why else would we be getting happy memory moments?
Meanwhile in the present… Rick is covered with all the blood. Well, that can’t be a good sign.
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney #TheWalkingDead Poor Rick. I hate being sticky.
I’m a little concerned here about how Rick is all by himself. That doesn’t seem like a good thing, what with the 1000-yard stare and the covered-in-blood thing.
Then we flash back again, to what I assume is the day before. Michonne, Rick and Carl are talking about how hungry they are as they cook a can of beans over the fire. Then they head off to check the traps Rick set for rabbits and such.
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney #TheWalkingDead Looks like tin cans are almost as valuable now as full ones.
There is indeed a rabbit in the trap and so Rick teaches Carl how to set the trap again; luckily it’s the same trap Wile E. Coyote used at least once a cartoon back in the Merrie Melodies days, so I’m familiar with it.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis
@@WalkingDead_AMC
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney #TheWalkingDead So how long until rabbits are an endangered species in this reality?
Anybody else feeling like all this talk about traps is really going to be foreshadowing about Terminus?
Someone screams for help! Carl runs in that direction followed by Rick and Michonne. Out in a field, there is a dude surrounded by walkers… well… surrounded might be the wrong word. There is a pretty big hole that he could break away and escape into the woods… but he doesn’t. So, you know… there’s that.
And we were just talking about traps, weren’t we? That open space and he’s not running through it?
They arrive just in time to watch the guy be eaten by walkers. It’s kind of gross. I hate watching people get bitten on this show.
Or maybe not. Maybe he’s just an idiot.
((rumble))
What was that?
I don’t know…
It… it felt like.. foreshadowing.
Erm… people being bitten foreshadowing or people being in traps foreshadowing?
Yes. So Rick and the gang run. They arrive back at the train tracks and there are MORE WALKERS there!!
In the past, Hershel wakes Rick and asks him to come help him. Rick asks him what time it is, and Hershel is all “Do I look like I got a watch? It’s early! I live in the now, mu*&er@#$%ers.”
Wise man, that Hershel.
Beth is there to care for the Lil Ass Kicker, who is the original cute baby from the beginning of the season, not the new cute baby from later episodes. Yes, I notice stuff like that.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis Look at all those ghosts. *tears up* @WalkingDead_AMC
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney #TheWalkingDead Wonder why all these flashbacks are making me nervous? #MaggieOrBeth?
Hershel tells Rick no guns would be necessary for the expedition.
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney Mar 30#TheWalkingDead Think their system involves HAVING A PLANNED ESCAPE ROUTE?
Back in the Present (which is still the past) Rick, Michonne and Carl fight walkers and run down the tracks. The road they are on is pretty much just a road, there are no houses to hide in or anything. But there IS an old beat up truck! It’s the same beat up truck for the future (which is the past).
Right. So this is where it’s going to get bad, isn’t it?
Michonne kills a walker on the side of the road.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis FINALLY! Liquifaction is addressed. @WalkingDead_AMC
Zombie roadkill. Surprised we haven’t seen more of this sort of thing, especially considering how Team Zombie drives.
They sleep in the car.
Later (but still before the later we saw before) Michonne and Rick sit by the fire and talk about how all they talk about is food. They stamp out the fire and begin to get ready to go to bed.
Michonne is worried about Terminus. Join the club, gurl, we meet on Wednesday nights. Bring a snack.
They are about to go to bed when Rick and Michonne are attacked by Joe and the jerks!! Oh noes!!
Guns!! Joe and the jerks are all “We gonna kill you and your little dog, too!”
Huh. I didn’t think we’d get this meeting here… figured we’d get Terminus tonight and this next season, but OK. This whole scene is not going to be OK, but OK.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis SHOWDOWN!!!! @WalkingDead_AMC
@#$%ing Joe.
Well, we have established that he’s a bit of a monster.
Then Daryl appears.
Oh @#$%. This is going to get real ugly, isn’t it?
Daryl tells Joe that Rick and Michonne and Carl are good people. Joe is all “They killed one of my jerks!” Daryl offers to take the beating or the bullet, or whatever Joe has in mind for Rick, but Joe is not having it. He sets the other jerks on Daryl.
I think it’s important to remind everyone why exactly Rick felt he had to kill Joe’s guy in the house, because remember, Joe’s Jerks had found Michonne’s shirt and were discussing who got to rape her first. These guys may have their schoolyard code nonsense, but they’ve always been monsters.
Another jerk has Michonne, and another jerk pulls Carl out of the car.
Joe is a basic monster… he says they are gonna kill Daryl, then rape and kill Michonne, then rape and kill CARL then kill Rick!!
Yep. Real ugly.
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney #TheWalkingDead Well this is all unpleasant.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis Mar 30I know someone I love is going to die this episode. I’m not ready. @WalkingDead_AMC
And then…
And then…
And the… I have no idea how to write any of that.
S’alright. I got this.
Joe is mocking Rick, laughing as Daryl is being beaten and the fat, creepy guy is… fondling Carl. Rick is begging him to let Carl go, but Joe isn’t listening.
Rick thrashes backwards, and Joe’s gun goes off right next to Rick’s head, deafening him and sorta concussing him which, in the real world, is what actually happens when someone shoots a gun right next to your head, so that’s really cool to see, and in the background, we can see Joe’s nose bleeding from Rick’s blow.
Joe isn’t happy about this and he and Rick fight, and Rick is really losing badly as Michonne tries to knock away the gun of the Jerk guarding her away, but it doesn’t work. Rick staggers to his feet as the fat, creepy guy is on top of Carl and we hear sounds that could be a belt being undone, and Rick more or less staggers into a bear hug from Joe as he asks Rick “What are you going to do now, sport?”
It’s an interesting question.
Here’s the answer:
That would be Rick, tearing Joe’s throat out with his teeth.
No one was expecting that, oddly enough, and the Jerks are stunned for a second, and that’s long enough for Michonne to grab the gun from her Jerk and put a bullet through his skull and take out one of the guys beating Daryl. She aims at the fat guy, but he grabs Carl and uses him as a human shield, threatening to kill him as Michonne is screaming at him to let Carl go.
Daryl curb stomps his last attacker to death as Rick grabs a knife off Joe’s twitching body.
He stands and faces the fat guy holding Carl, and says “He’s mine.”
This last remaining Jerk, perhaps sensing that the blood-covered man advancing on him isn’t really in the mood for hostage-negotiation, shoves Carl aside and starts begging for his life, but to no one’s surprise, Rick isn’t feeling all that merciful at this particular moment and he guts the guy, and when he’s opened him up from belly to throat, he stabs him in the chest.
And keeps stabbing him. Over and over and over.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis Rick won first place in this year’s Bumpkin carving contest. @WalkingDead_AMC
Let’s just say… Joe and the jerks lose and Rick, Michonne, Daryl and Carl win.
That would be, strictly speaking, an accurate assessment.
Back in the past, Hershel wants to gather pigs and horses and start a farm. Rick is all… sure… Hershel is all… I need your help. Hershel wants to teach Rick so he can teach Carl and then allow for peace.
Hershel tells Rick the war is over, but Rick isn’t so sure. Hershel tells him he has to start making room for peace and peace will come. Oh, Hershel.
Hershel wants to save Rick because he gave them all a better life. Hershel, I miss all of your face.
So we’re getting the sharp contrast, between Rick beginning the journey we saw him on at the beginning of the season, putting aside violence for the most part, and here and now, where he just… what? Where is Rick right now?
So back to blood covered Rick from the future, which was the past but is now the present.
Carl is asleep. Michonne is SO NOT!!
I would never sleep again.
Rick’s not the only one with that 1000-yard stare.
Daryl arrives and is all: “I have some water…”
Rick cleans Joe off his face.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis
“Hey. You got a little Joe on ya.” @WalkingDead_AMC
Daryl tells Rick he didn’t know what Joe was doing. Beth was lost somewhere… and then the jerks happened.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis
@WalkingDead_AMC She’ll be back. 🙂 #fingerscrossed
Daryl is the King of the Lost Puppies… just. The KING of them.
Rick forgives Daryl’s sins, Daryl is back with his family again.
And Rick isn’t as broken as he first appeared, is he? He listens to Daryl, he tells him he understands, that he understands Daryl was alone, and that he is glad he has his brother back. That part of his family is returned to him.
Then Daryl forgives Ricks sins, but Rick isn’t ready to be absolved.
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney #TheWalkingDead words words words
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis @anniemariney Yeah it’s like a lot of people made amends. People are gonna die now. They have to. @WalkingDead_AMC
Carl and Michonne are listening as Rick says all that matters is keeping Carl safe.
Back on the tracks, our gang is walking along, Michonne staring at Rick intently. Rick asks her if she’s OK, and she says yes. Without her asking, he says he is too, and she says she knows. When he asks her how, she says “Because I’m OK.”
It’s the same discussion about family that Rick had with Daryl, just with fewer words.
Michonne is okay. Rick is okay Carl is traumatized for @#$%ing life.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis
Carl. Just listen to the hat. @WalkingDead_AMC
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney
#TheWalkingDead I’m glad they combed Joe out of Rick’s beard.
Sign. It’s a Terminus sign; they decide to cut through the woods to check out the settlement first. I’m scared because there are still 30 minutes left.
Good Lord. You’re right. All that in just the first half of the episode?
Through the fence they don’t really see anything. They decide to wait and see what they see. Carl goes to scout out the situation with Michonne.
Michonne tells us that Andre died in a refugee camp because she refused to leave the camp and it was attacked by walkers. Her boyfriend and their buddy were high and she was afraid to kill them and they turned she made them her pets. Michonne says she was basically a walker for a long time. Finding the group brought her back from the dead.
It’s very sweet.
She tells Carl that he doesn’t need to be afraid of them. Carl has all these thoughts about being a monster himself. It’s very touching. Rick watches from afar as they hug.
Carl’s worried about being a monster himself. It’s a good sign that he’s worried about it.
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney #TheWalkingDead “I dunno. Its a little awkward how he keeps killing people to keep me alive.”-Weirded Out Hat
Rick buries a bag of weapons. He takes a smaller gun and leaves the big one.
I think we’ll be seeing that bag again. Probably for all the wrong reasons.
Then they jump the gate and head into Terminus.
They walk right into the like, the main control room of the place. There are all these people making Terminus signs and such and a woman reading the Terminus broadcast out over the radio.
There is a little bit of a confrontation, but it’s not that bad. Rick and the gang are even allowed to keep their weapons.
Everyone is so pleasant and reasonable. Really don’t like this.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis Are they cannibals? They are fine and young. @WalkingDead_AMC
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney Mar 30
@Creepy_Curtis Stop being so funny! If I favorite or re-tweet everything you tweet I’ll look like a stalker! #TheWalkingDead
They bring them to Tasha Yar and her terrible wig. Michonne asks why the people here let others in.
“When people become a part of us, we become stronger.” That answer… yeah, this is a bad place.
When they get out there, Rick notices that someone is wearing riot gear… and another person is wearing Daryl’s poncho… and someone has the watch Hershel gave Glenn.
These muther@#$%ers are cannibals.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis I hope they ate the Mullet with a nice Chianti. @WalkingDead_AMC
I’m just… I’ma stop typing. It’s not worth it.
Again, got this.
They start handing out… meat of some kind… and Rick steps up and grabs the guy wearing Glenn’s watch, pulling his gun; Michonne, Daryl and Carl follow suit, as Rick demands to know where the guy got the watch.
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney Mar 30#TheWalkingDead They obviously don’t sense the psychic power of Carl’s Hat.
In the past: LEGOs. That Poindexter is playing with LEGOgo’s and Carl is… cleaning guns or something.
Rick and Poindexter have a conversation about LEGOs.
Patrick, his name is Patrick, thanks Rick for bringing back the LEGOs. They were for Carl, but Carl is not in the mood for building things, and Patrick decided he was. He tries to justify playing with toys, but Rick tells him that he doesn’t need to justify anything.
CARL IS CLEANING A GUN!!
I was seriously just kidding until I saw it!
Rick tries to engage Carl on a human level, and uses cabbages to do that.
Meanwhile: In the present, Carl has a gun on that guy.
The watch guy tries to explain that he got the watch off a dead guy, but that would be exactly the wrong answer to give Rick right now, and Gareth shows up to try and talk things down, but all that pleasant and reasonable is so obviously a lie and all of these people are lying murderers and where are our people?
Then, suddenly, everything in the world happens all at once! There are snipers on the roof!! And the guys have to run!! EVERYONE RUNS!! They run through the entire Terminus camp. There are all sorts of insane rooms and bones and all sorts of creepy @#$%.
That’s putting it mildly. We have a whole penned in area outside that is de-fleshed bones of what looks like a hundred people, and the room full of candles and names with the words “Never Again”, “Never Trust” and “We First Always”… who the hell are these guys?
It occurs to me that our heroes are being herded… and they are. Suddenly they are in a courtyard with a train car and completely surrounded. We have no choice but to surrender to the cannibals.
Gareth has sussed out the relationships here, and uses Carl to control Rick, and it’s tense as all hell.
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney Mar 30#TheWalkingDead I feel an overwhelming sense of “I’m going to be pissed off at this resolution”.
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis
I got nuttin. Can’t wait to see how this plays out. @WalkingDead_AMC
Rick, Daryl, Michonne and Carl are led into the train car where they find Maggie, Glenn, Abe, Rosita, Tara, Eugene, Shovel and The Medic.
Rick is happy to see them, but there are faces he doesn’t recognize, and I swear he does recognize Tara, but Maggie says that they are friends and they saved their lives.
Daryl says that means that they are Team Zombie’s friends now, but he really means they are family, and we’re back in the prison with Rick and Carl and Hershel beginning the garden. Beth has Judith and it’s a sweet moment where Hershel is saying it can be like this all the time and Rick shakes his head.
“It’s like this now, and that’s good enough.”
Back in the train car, Rick says that the Terminus people “are going to feel pretty stupid when they find out” and Abe asks “Find out what?”
“They’re screwing with the wrong people.”
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis
They shouldn’t have threatened Carl. @WalkingDead_AMC #duh
Anne-Marie Zarrelli @anniemariney #TheWalkingDead Rick gots his mojo back. This I can handle.
Holy crap.
Yeah, Rick basically says they are gonna f@#$% Terminus up. “Screwing” doesn’t really have the same impact as “@#$%ing”, but we all heard it, even if he couldn’t say it on AMC.
Rick. Rick finally, finally, came to the place he needed to be tonight. I’ve seen a lot of folks reviewing this episode online (as I step into that weird place of writing what we talked about on the night and in the days we assembled this review) talking about how Rick has become the monster he needs to be to survive this world and I’m kinda stunned that all of them could so miss the reality of what happened here.
You mean Rick realizing that he can, will, and needs to be both the family man and the cold-blooded killer?
Exactly. It’s not that Rick became a monster or, as one reviewer who shall remain nameless said, a living walker, it’s that he found the balance between the man who wants to be a father and farmer, someone who creates and embraces life AND the man who will do anything, anything, to protect his family. And his family isn’t just Carl. His family is Carl and Michonne, Daryl and Glenn, Maggie and Shovel, the Medic, and now Tara, Abe and Rosita.
You left out Eugene.
Sigh. Even Eugene. Somehow I doubt Rick’s going to buy into the whole Eugene thing.
That’s because Eugene is the worst. But this season… I hated this show so much less this season.
Kudos to Scott Gimple, the new showrunner. He really gets this show. He gets these characters.
He made me like the Brian, I mean, the Governor. I don’t think I like him much for that, but yeah, this season. So much better.
And a cliffhanger ending, with Carol, Judith and Tyreese still out there…
And who will be arriving at Terminus soon. Carol is not going to be an easy mark for the Terminus crowd.
No, I don’t think she will be either. And then there’s Beth.
You have a theory about Beth you were telling me about.
Oh yeah. I think Beth is with the Sign-Maker. Whoever it is who has been leaving signs around dead zombies these last few episodes. That’s probably not a good thing. That person has issues.
Or she thought Daryl was dead, found a car and split for happier climes.
Also a possibility. Now about those predictions of yours…
Let me save you the trouble. No Tasha Yar wig conditioning, as it still looked terrible. The Jerks did find Rick & Co, and they regret it because they are all dead now, and while we have no direct evidence for Tara and Maggie having a hair and dad moment, we also don’t have any evidence against it. Eugene only knows how to stare into the middle distance and is always the worst, and, while Abe has his clothes on when we see him, we also don’t know what his daily workout regimen is, so one cannot say definitively that jumping jacks and nakedness don’t play a part. So that two right and two you can’t actually say I’m wrong about, but would only give me half a point on, and that gets me 3 out of 5.
…
What?
It’s more fun when I do it.
Only for you. And what’s this week’s lesson, he asked, knowing full well what your answer will be, and ready to be really annoyed with you if your lesson isn’t what I think it is?
“Don’t @#$% with Team Zombie?”
Ah… that’s the stuff. Thanks for reading everyone! We had fun watching and writing, and we’ll see you in October!
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis THANK YOU @WalkingDead_AMC for another OUTSTANDING season! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!
Curtis Smith @Creepy_Curtis Thanks also to @SciFi4Me @anniemariney @TheNightDusto and @timothyharvey for all the @WalkingDead_AMC parties!!!
