After a dark second half, “The Walking Dead” closed its fourth season with a brutal season finale Sunday night. The final episode follows Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln, “Love Actually”), Michonne (Danai Guirara, “The Visitor”) and Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs, “Get Low”) as they finally draw near to supposed safe haven Terminus and are confronted by Daryl Dixon’s (Norman Reedus, “The Boondock Saints”) new group, who are seeking vengeance on Rick. For those who have not yet seen the episode, stop reading now, as there are spoilers ahead.
The episode opens as Rick shows Michonne and Carl how to trap a rabbit, an ominous foreshadowing that would set the stage for what they would encounter in Terminus. As he explains, Carl hears a man’s cries for help and fool-heartedly runs to save him, only to be pulled away by Rick. They watch the man be torn apart, before they are forced to fight through a herd of walkers.
But the true excitement of the episode begins that night, when the group of Joe (Jeff Kober, “China Beach”) and the “claimers” sneak up on Rick’s camp, holding them at gunpoint. As Joe begins the countdown to Rick’s death, Daryl comes out from the woods and stops him, offering himself up in Rick’s place. The scene that follows is perhaps one of the darkest in a show that has pulled few punches this season. Joe’s men begin to beat Daryl to death while another man pulls Carl from the car where he is hiding and throws him to the ground. Joe tells Rick they plan to “first have the girl, then the boy.” Rick, driven by desperation to save his son, bites out Joe’s jugular and proceeds to eviscerate the man who held Carl as his allies look on.
Approaching a topic as sensitive and disturbing as rape is a shocking place for the show to go, but it fits in with the season. This awakens the Rick Grimes who was so far gone at the beginning the season, when he was living life as a pacifist farmer. The entire season has revolved around the theme of these characters realizing what they must do to survive and protect themselves and each other in this world, and whether they can come back from that.
In short, the answer is that they cannot come back. These are the lengths one must go to survive and, as Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman, “Horrible Bosses”) told Carol (Melissa McBride, “The Mist”) after they were forced to kill Lizzie (Brighton Sharbino, “Cheap Thrills”) these moments are “a part of them now.” But this does not make them bad people; it does not make them monsters, as Carl fears in the episode. This makes them fighters. This is what has allowed the characters we know to make it this point, the fundamental ability and willingness to change in the way that they must. It is a trait the audience first saw this season in Carol, and which has come to face down each character with its inevitability: Change or die.
This fundamental difference has been shown the entire season, including the flashbacks to Hershel teaching Rick and Carl how to farm, encouraging them to leave their weapons behind. Hershel’s positive outlook is symbolic of a world that does not exist anymore, and while Rick can have peaceful moments with his son, he must not be reluctant to do what is necessary to ensure his survival. We see what happens to those who could not leave old moralities behind, represented through the unrealistic optimism and clinging innocence of Beth (Emily Kinney, “It’s Complicated), Mika (Kyla Kenedy, “The Three Stooges”) and Patrick (Vincent Martella, “Phineas and Ferb”).
The audience sees Rick make peace with this in a touching conversation with Daryl after the incident with the claimers. Daryl tells Rick that what he was forced to do is not him, to which Rick answers that it, indeed, is.
After the four regroup, they head to Terminus, sneaking in the back door as opposed to waltzing through the front as Glenn’s (Steven Yeun, “Carpe Millenium”) group did. They are met by the leader of Terminus, who has the four frisked before he offers to take them to get something to eat. As they stand at the grill, Rick sees the people of Terminus carrying many items they owned in the prison, including the watch Hershel (Scott Wilson, “Dead Man Walking”) gave Glenn. This prompts Rick to demand their people resulting in a shootout during which Rick, Carl, Michonne and Daryl are herded by gunfire to a boxcar and forced inside. There, they are reunited with Glenn, Maggie and the others as viewers are forced to wait until the fifth season to see how the they all will escape.
The episode is a fast-paced and climatic ending to a season of varied pacing that exhibits some of the best writing and storytelling we have seen from this show. It is matched, however, by some nice character moments, particularly in intimate conversations between Rick and Daryl, and Carl and Michonne. While there are still loose ends to be tied up next season, including the group’s escape from Terminus and Carol’s banishment, “Walking Dead” may have more promise in the upcoming season than fans have seen since the series’ first season.
