The Walking Dead Episode 416
“A”
Written By: Scott M. Gimple & Angela Kang
Directed By: Michelle MacLaren
Original Airdate: 30 March 2014
In This Episode…
Rick, Michonne, and Carl are still making their way towards Terminus. They come across an old car with a flat tire and decide to camp here for the night. Carl dozes in the car while Michonne and Rick keep watch by a fire outside. There is a snap from the woods and suddenly, they are set upon by a couple angry men with guns. “You screwed up,” snarls one of the men. It is Joe and his group - they were the ones who came into the house a few episodes back. Rick was the one who killed Lou. Daryl appears and insists they let Rick go. “They are good people,” he insists, without coming right out and stating they are friends. Since Rick killed Lou and Lou was Joe’s friend, Joe sees this as a lie, and sets a couple of his goons upon Daryl to “teach him a lesson.” One of the other goons drags Carl from the car and puts a knife to his throat. With this threat to his son, Rick insists it was he alone who killed Lou. Joe simply laughs and gives him a rundown of how the night is going to go: first they are going to beat Daryl to death; then they will “have the girl,” then they will “have the boy,” then they will shoot Rick dead. Then they will be “even.” Rick knocks his head back into Joe, causing him to fire harmlessly into the air. Unfortunately, he is too weak from hunger to fight back efficiently, though he, Michonne, and Carl all try. A chubby, balding man wrestles Carl to the ground and shoves his face in the dirt. When Rick hears the man’s belt buckle come undone, he goes bananas and takes a huge bite out of Joe’s neck, severing the jugular and killing him almost instantly. Joe’s guys are surprised enough that Daryl was able to kill the men beating the hell out of him; Michonne is able to kill the man threatening her; and Baldy threatens to kill Carl. Michonne intervenes, but Rick growls, “He’s mine.” He viciously stabs Baldy, over and over and over, while Michonne holds Carl. Carl just watches..
While it is not the first time Rick has killed a human being, it is the first time he did so with such violence and rage. So when morning comes, he is sitting on the ground, soaked in the blood of the men he killed, just staring. He is in shock. Michonne sits with Carl inside the car; he dozes with his head in her lap. Daryl offers Rick a damp rag to clean himself with, so that Carl doesn’t have to look at his blood-drenched face. He sits, and apologizes for hooking up with Joe and his crew. He knew they were bad, but figured that they had a code - it was simple and stupid but at least it was something. After he lost Beth, he was alone. Rick insists this isn’t on Daryl. “You are back with us, that’s everything. You are my brother.” Daryl appreciates this, and returns the kindness by assuring Rick that what he did last night, “anyone would have done.” Rick’s only concern now is keeping Carl safe. In the car, Carl hears this.
The group continues to Terminus. A sign shows they are getting close, and Rick determines they will complete their approach through the forest. At the outer fence, they spread out and keep watch. Rick suggests Carl - still traumatized - come with him, but Carl insists he will be fine. Instead, he goes with Michonne, who worries that he is afraid of Rick. She tells Carl about the circumstances around Andre’s death. She, Andre, Mike, and Terry went to a refugee camp. Things got worse and worse there. One day, Michonne was returning from a run and she saw the fences were down. She heard the moans. Mike and Terry were bit, and she could have stopped it. Instead of killing them, she broke off their jaws and sliced off their arms and took them with her. They were meant to be her “ball and chain,” thinking that was what she deserved. The ironic thing was that they kept her safe by turning her into a monster. “I was gone for a long, long time,” Michonne insists. It was Andrea who brought her back; Rick who brought her back; Carl who brought her back. “You don’t have to be afraid of him or me.” Carl says something interesting right here, something that I haven’t yet deciphered. “My dad told me that he was proud of me, that I’m a good man. I’m not. I know what he wants, but I still have these thoughts. I’m not what he thinks I am. I’m another monster, too.” Is he a monster because of the kid in the woods he shot? Is there something else going on? What could possibly keep him so guilty?
Anyway, Rick buries most of their weapons in the woods before they all jump the fence and sneak into Terminus from the back. They all have their weapons at the ready and sneak into the main building, towards voices. They walk in, and no one seems particularly surprised to see them. Gareth, the “leader” introduces himself and asks if they are there to rob them. “We wanted to see you before you saw us,” Rick tells him. This seems logical to Gareth, and he assures them they have found sanctuary here. He and his cohort, Alex, ask Rick’s group to put down their weapons. They do so cautiously, and Gareth and Alex frisk them. Alex jokes about Daryl’s battered face, and Gareth promises they aren’t those kinds of people. “We shouldn’t have any problems - just solutions.” They are surprised when Alex hands back their weapons, and he takes them on a quick tour.
The tour starts with Mary at the BBQ. While Mary cooks up plates of food for them, Rick takes in his surroundings suspiciously. He spies the prison riot gear, a poncho - and Glenn’s watch hanging from Alex’s pocket. Rick grabs Alex, puts a gun to his head, and demands to know where he got the watch. Alex swears the watch came off a dead person; the riot gear off a dead cop; and the poncho from a clothes line. There are snipers on the roof, and Gareth comes out to diffuse the situation. Instead, shots ring out (not sure who shot first) and Rick’s group runs like hell. They run into a garage, out through a door marked “A,” out into the open, and through another door, also marked “A.” No one seems to notice the pile of bloody human bones they run past.
Through the door, they follow voices screaming for help. They have stumbled into some kind of altar. Piles of belongings are neatly arranged, with words written beneath them (maybe where they came from?). On the wall, “Never again. Never trust. We first always.” is written. Michonne realizes they are not trying to kill them - the snipers were firing at their feet. They continue through another door marked “A,” and are back outside. The face a fence, and on the other side of that fence, men with guns aimed right at them. Gareth and Alex are behind them. They are trapped.
Gareth calls for them to drop their weapons. He tells Rick to go to the train car (again, marked “A”) and if he does, the boy goes with him; otherwise he kills the boy. Rick goes. Gareth sends Daryl next, followed by Michonne. He is very specific about them lining up and staying in the order he called them. Rick demands his son, and Gareth waves him over. In front of the train door, Rick sees empty boxes of powdered milk. Gareth demands they enter the train car, so they do. Rick first, then Daryl, then Michonne, then Carl. They are locked in. From the dark, Glenn appears, followed by Bob, Maggie, Sasha, and the rest of their group. It is not the warm homecoming one would expect. Maggie insists that the new people there (Abraham, Rosita, Tara, and Eugene) saved their lives; they are friends. “Then they are our friends, too,” Daryl asserts. “They’re gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out,” Rick says. “Find out what?” “They’re screwing with the wrong people.
Dig It or Bury It?
Well that was intense. It seems fairly clear that those at Terminus are cannibals, operating in a WWII Nazi concentration camp-style. Double the horror; gives new meaning to Cannibal Holocaust. I have to assume that this train car is a “Hansel and Gretel” situation: they are being kept there to fatten them up a bit. I actually thought that this would lead to our group of survivors being killed and forcing us to follow an entirely different group. That’s the kind of thing you could get away with in comic books (again, I haven’t gotten that far in the comics) but I think that TV audiences would freak out if that happened.
I am really looking forward to finding out the full horror of Terminus, and find out what kind of monster Carl believes he is.