Paradise Lost and Other Disappointments

“Us”

The journey to Terminus is absolutely interminable! Tara and Ginger are having a nighttime convo. The Tara-Glenn group find Maggie’s bloody missive on the sign to Terminus. Glenn takes off running, just so happy that Mags is still alive!

Daryl’s group of psychopathic merry men (a.k.a. “Claimers”) are still around. Michonne and Carl engage in some lighthearted banter and adolescent rivalry—Carl manages to walk along the railroad tracks without falling and wins the game.

Daryl learns the rules of his group. Everything, including food, is “claimed.” In one case it was a “critter,” or bunny. And Joe, the head of the group, explains evolution to Daryl, who claims that he “ain’t claiming nothing,” because there are no rules any more.

Glenn goes terminator on his group. Tara hurts her leg, but Glenn says no, no, we can go on. Really, Glenn? Love has turned him into a dick. Tara, after all, feels indebted to Glenn for saving her back at the prison; he is fully taking advantage of her sentiment.

Joe’s rules are simple indeed; don’t steal, don’t lie. Joe is full of witty aphorisms, about cats and such like! Charmante.

Glenn is still eager beaver to go through a dark, scary tunnel to reach his one true love. Blinded Tara volunteers to go with him when Ginger says he needs to protect Eugene and sexy combat girl. So, with a gimpy Tara, Glenn is going to risk both their lives. Nice!

Naturally, Glenn and Tara encounter a bunch of walkers crushed by a falling chunk of ceiling in the tunnel. However, there are many more very mobile zombies just beyond the fallen rock. Looks like Glenn and Tara have stumbled upon what is known in the apocalyptic vernacular as a roving herd. After confirming that Maggie is not among the zombies, Glenn must figure out a way to push through. Tara is getting into all sorts of incompetent scrapes: now her leg is wedged after slipping into a crack.

Eugene’s great one-liner: “After I save the world, I still have to live with myself.”

One of Daryl’s compatriots tries to pick a fight with him and it backfires, in a deadly way. Joe saw the dude plant a dead rabbit in Daryl’s stuff, so they all go after the dude to teach him a lesson. A one-time lesson. No do-overs.

Tara is really playing the martyr, telling Glenn to leave her and look for Maggie, but Glenn refuses. Just when you think they are toast, Maggie, Bob, and Sasha show up to save the day with submachine gun fire!

Glenn and Maggie make lovey dovey conversation now that they are reunited.

Joe is looking for revenge on the guy who killed his “colleague” in the house that Rick was hiding out in. The man Rick strangled turned and attacked Joe and his men. One of the men saw Rick’s face as he ran away from the house.

 “A”

The season finale is upon us! Finally. I am NOT going to miss my weekly blogging about The Walking Dead, let me tell you. It’s tiring.

Rick is teaching his son about the art of snaring critter to eat. Rick stuffs a taxidermied bunny into his pouch. They hear a man call out for help. He’s being attacked by a group of walkers, but Rick decides there are too many to save the man. The three run away and encounter yet more zombies. They walk a bit more and find a truck. Seems like a safe place to hide out in. But Joe and his men find Rick and Joe puts a gun to Rick’s head in the dead of night. Daryl steps in and says that these are “good people,” so Joe should let them go. Naturally, Joe doesn’t agree, and his merry pranksters start to beat Daryl up, presumably to death.

These men are monsters! One starts to torture Carl. Somehow Rick escapes with Joe holding a gun to his temple. In the fray, Rick goes for the jugular and kills Joe with a bite to the neck. Hey, you do crazy shit when your kids are threatened. Then, one by one, all of Joe’s men are picked off handily by Michonne et al.

The scenes in this episode are interspersed with blasts from the past, domestic glimpses into the former Farmer Rick’s life. Hershel said the “war is over,” but he could not have been more wrong. These semi-bucolic scenes remind us how far Rick has come from planting beans.

Rick is now covered in blood and understandably a little shook up from last night’s encounter. Michonne and Carl are resting in the truck. Daryl and Rick catch up. Rick calls Daryl his brother and that those deebags had nothing to do with him. As you recall, Maggie and Glenn and Co. have reached Terminus, and now Rick et al have. They watch the compound from a safe distance.

Michonne admits to Carl that she used her turned boyfriend and his friend as her pet walkers to blend in with the crowd. It worked! She also confesses that meeting Rick and Carl have made her more human, let her get in touch with her humanity again. Carl thinks he’s a monster. He admits it to Michonne. Just saying it out loud probably makes him feel better.

The four scope out Terminus. A bunch of people are doing stuff on long tables in a warehouse. One lady is broadcasting Terminus as a sanctuary over the airwaves—what’s left of them. They have to put their weapons down. The Termians seem too hipster, too pat. Daryl without his crossbow is like…

I was right! Everyone there is armed. The hipster, bearded guy has a gun in his pants, and Glenn’s watch! Hershel’s present. Rick sees the gun, grabs it, and puts it to the guy’s head, asking where did you get the watch, see?

We flash back to Patrick, the young man who started the season by munching his way through the cellblock. He’s playing with legos, and Carl is practicing cleaning his gun, taking it apart. Carl may be a monster, but he really knows his way around a firearm, I’ll tell you what.

Gunfire erupts. Terminus perhaps is not the happy place it purports to be. Rick and Co. run around the complex, evading gunfire. However, if the Termians wanted to hit their target, they could. So, clearly they are keeping them alive for some mysterious reason. They are surrounded. Stuck.

The Terminus group makes Rick and Co. march into what looks like a cattle car. Glenn and Co. are already in there. Yet do not despair! Rick avows to keep on fightin’.