Synopsis of 5×09: After the loss of Beth, Rick takes a group with him to fulfill her mission of getting Noah back to his family in Richmond, Virginia. Unfortunately, things just go from bad to worse.
Rating: ★★★★☆
We’re back with the second half of the fifth season of The Walking Dead and we’ve got another change in direction and tone. After the sudden loss of Beth in the last episode, this one opens with someone ominously digging in the dirt interspersed with a number of confusing images – the prison tower, Maggie crying, Rick and Noah discussing Richmond, Gabriel praying, the train tracks to Terminus, pictures of twins, Lizzie and Mika.
After the opening credits, we find Rick in a van with Tyreese, Noah, Glenn, and Michonne. After the limited travel they’ve done throughout the rest of the seasons, they’ve suddenly gone five hundred miles to Richmond to check on Noah’s family. On the drive, Tyreese and Noah bond, with Noah telling him that the trade at the hospital was the right play, and Tyreese sharing some insight on his father.
Glenn tells Rick and Michonne about how he was thinking about what happened after the prison fell – Terminus, finding Maggie, losing Washington, losing Beth – and how he would’ve shot Dawn regardless of if it was right or wrong. Michonne thinks they need to stop and rest, in the metaphorical sense, because they’ve been out too long.
Noah and Tyreese make it to his house, only to find his mother dead in the living room. Leaving Noah to grieve, Tyreese follows a scratching noise and finds a boy dead in his bed. Unfortunately, Noah’s little brothers were twins and, while one was already dead, the other was a walker who took Tyreese by surprise. Before Noah can stab him in the head with a model plane hanging from the ceiling, his brother has bitten Tyreese’s arm.
Joining halluci!Martin and halluci!Bob is the Governor himself, reminding Tyreese that the bill has to be paid. The creepy girls, Lizzie and Mika, show up to tell him things are better now, arguing against what the Governor tells him. And as the Governor advances on him, he suddenly turns into a walker that Tyreese struggles to ultimately bring down.
Meanwhile, unaware of what is happening, Michonne is looking at Shirewilt and planning how they could stay in the gated community if only they fixed it up some. Rick argues that it’s not tactically sound as they find an open area in the wall that was broken in from the outside. Even more disturbing are the random body parts strewn about the grass in the area. If Rick won’t stay here, Michonne changes her tactics to convince Rick that maybe a trip to Washington DC to see how it’s faring is in order. Rick finally gives in to her plan as they hear Noah shouting for help.
Lizzie and Mika move forward to hold out his bitten arm and suddenly we’re shown the real picture. Rick is holding his arm, while Glenn holds him down, and Michonne quickly cuts off the bitten limb. They’re running with a disoriented Tyreese, trying to get him back to the rest of the group as he bleeds out. It takes a while to get him to the car, with Rick urging him to hold on interspersed with Bob telling him that it went the way it had to, the way it was always going to go.
As they get the car moving, Rick accidently hits another car they were parked near and a load of torsos with heads fall out onto their car. They have no limbs and are no real threat, but it’s a disturbing imagine nonetheless, one they don’t have time to dwell on. Tyreese is resting his head against the window when he hallucinates Beth driving the car, Bob sitting shotgun, and Lizzie and Mika in the back with him. He says, “Turn it off.” As they all encourage him that it’s okay. The car stops on the road, with everyone piling out of the vehicle and bringing Tyreese with them. At the end, we’re back to the beginning of the episode with Gabriel speaking over Tyreese’s grave…
But what was written on the curb???