This episode begins with a view of abandoned cities, our very own version of Zombieland, complete with staggering, crunching, munching crowds of what used to be people. They all stop to look up at the sky. It’s a bird, it’s a–oh, wait, it is actually a plane! But I thought everyone ever was dead/a Walker?! They follow the noise because somehow noise=food. They walk in that same general direction for mad long until they get to a fence. Not having the brain power to hop over it, they just keep walking into it over and over like a glitch in a Sims game, silly Walkers. With all their combined weight, the fence cracks and they keep walking for like, ever. Or until nightfall. They keep on walking, walking, then a gunshot rips through the air and they turn towards that direction and DEAR GOD THEY ARE ON THE FARM AND THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM EVEN I GOT SCARED! So many of them, blindly walking towards the farm and directly in front of them are little Carl and Rick, taking a nice stroll, probably talking about Shane’s murder. Well, someone’s night is about to get ruined. Cue the brilliant theme song that I fawn over every single episode.

Daryl and Glenn get back to the house, and Daryl starts spouting some of his observations when Lori asks where Shane and Rick are. You know, “Shane ain’t no tracker, he didn’t come up behind Randall. They were together.” Lori basically ignores him and says, “Go find Shane and Rick now!!” Daryl’s actual phrase was “you got it” but the sentiment was “this is why I don’t talk to you people.”
Back to Rick and Carl, who are still strolling blissfully through the field, with Carl shooting the breeze with questions like, “How did Shane die?” and Rick’s taking his sweet time answering, then takes a look to his left and oh, there’s a gigantic parade of Walkers heading towards them! But it’s not his birthday?

All jokes aside, I was honestly fucking terrified for them because they were so close and so many of them, it was insane. This episode tricked my body into thinking it was having a heart attack.

On the porch of the little house on the prairie, everyone’s on the porch and Glenn is just like, “Maybe we should go inside.” Daryl points out the brilliance of this idea by uttering the simple sentence, “Not unless there’s a tunnel downstairs I don’t know about, a herd that size will rip the house down.”

Carl and Rick ran to the barn because that was the closest place they could get to, and back at the house Lori was screaming because she thought Carl was lost. Like, why don’t any of these people have cell phones? This is set in the 21st century right? Like goddamn, let a bitch know.

Hershel and Andrea were firmly planted on the porch, ready to fight because they had guns and apparently an endless amount of bullets, right? I mean, I would just be so ready to cut my losses and run, but Hershel was all about his farm, even saying “I’ll die here.” Daryl just cocks his gun, swings his legs over the porch and goes, “It’s as good a night as any,” like everyone just suggested they go bowling and he’s not psyched about it but whatever, he’ll go because he’s easy like that. I love the hell out of Daryl.

Back at the barn, Rick and Carl are trading “I love you’s” and having sweet father-son moments right before Rick sprinkle gasoline all over the hay and the Walkers are about a second away from knocking the barn door down. Rick runs up to the doors, opens them right before telling Carl to drop the lighter when he says when. Rick’s so smart, he lures a giant group of the Walkers into the barn, taunting them with his body, before he runs up the ladder to the top where Carl is, and Carl takes forever to drop the lighter and they all burn alive. The effects here, I must say, were less than spectacular. Almost on Ringer’s pilot-status bad.

Daryl’s riding around on his motorcycle that I forgot he had, god, can he get any better? Rose and Glenn are driving through the field, with Andrea and T-Dawg following closely behind. Lori is still yelling about Carl and I am so tired of her right now.
The trailer pulls up, driven by That Guy Whose Name Continually Escapes Me, and Rick and Carl jump onto the top of it from the barn, but TGWNCEM left the door open because he is a dummy and got munched on. Ah, well. Looks like The Walking Dead are taking a page from the TVD handbook and killing off irrelevant characters that I should care about but honestly do not. Rest in peace, The Walking Dead’s version of Finn. You will hardly be remembered.

Everybody else in cars is still driving over Walkers, and like, driving over countless human beings isn’t going to go smoothly unless you’re in a monster truck. Kinda disappointed with this plan, to be honest.

Hershel is still standing his ground, he’s so brave, it really is admirable and noble. Lori’s still being annoying and I just wish someone would fill her in. Everyone is telling Hershel it’s time to go, but he’s all, “But it’s wabbit huntin’ season!” and keeps shooting away. Suit yourself, dude. There are just so many every-fucking-where, I was hyperventilating for thirty minutes straight.

Coma girl and her mom are walking across the field and a Walker grabs Whatsherface, right out from Coma Girl’s arms and it’s really hard to watch because of the gore and also the sad. Carol ends up getting cornered by a bunch of Walkers, but she has a stick in her hand, so. That’ll slow ‘em down. Andrea pops up to protect Carol, but ends up getting taken down by a few, and Carol was about to hop into the truck that pulled up, but it left because Walkers. Goddamnit. ANDREA IS THE BEST, AND

THEY JUST LEFT! Oh, yeah and Carol. Right.
Glenn and Rose are stuck in the middle of the field, surrounded almost completely, so Glenn very reasonably says “let’s dip,” but Rose says they need to stay, they can’t leave everyone else, but Glenn is so serious, like, “BITCH WE NEEDTA GO” so that’s what they do.

Back to Hershel, he’s still firing away, and a Walker comes up behind him and just as your stomach gets caught in your throat and you think he’s about to get munched on, Rick puts a bullet right in its head. Rick for President! Hershel’s still going on about how it’s his farm, but dude, that is so obviously not the case anymore, let it go. Because do you really want like 5,000 dead houseguests? They’d stain the upholstery and I’m pretty sure they don’t smell like fresh-cut roses.

Daryl’s watching the barn burn just so peacefully, like nothing else ever is going on, like he’s just sitting on the beach watching the sunset, calm as ever, and dear god do I love that man. He heads in the direction of the house, though, when he hears a scream and picks up Carol and his motorcycle isn’t cool anymore, it’s just stupid because ANDREA! ANDREA! She got flat left again! Worst friends ever.

Rick’s driving at literally 3 miles per hour, and Hershel is looking sadly back at his farm, poor guy, as they pull farther and farther away from it. Okay, seriously? We know. Daryl and Carol are beyond exposed, driving like bats out of hell past millions of Walkers that all could have just pulled them right off that bike, but thankfully didn’t. Farther away, because they got a head start on ditching everyone, Rose and Glenn have stopped driving because Rose is crying, worried about everyone and if they made it. Glenn made the most reassuring argument I’ve ever heard in my life: “They made it. They had to.” Someone get this guy a three-piece suit and call him a lawyer! Honestly? I would’ve slapped him for being so dumb. Glenn wants to get a move on, and he decides to head in the direction where the herd came from because he is the world’s dumbest person. Wait, Rose lets him drive! 2nd dumbest! They have a nice little heartwarming moment where Glenn tells Rose he loves her, and has loved her for a long time and her face is literally just like, “That’s nice.” She looks like she really couldn’t care any less.

Rick, Carl and Hershel are at the highway they first lost Sophia at and Carl is getting all sassy, like, “LET ME YELL ABOUT EVERYTHING BECAUSE I KNOW MORE THAN A GROWN MAN,” and Rick’s like, “Can you stop being a little shit for like two seconds?” Instead, Carl like runs away to have his temper tantrum off-screen, thank fuck. Hershel thinks Rick should think about Carl and his safety and put him somewhere safe, and Rick correctly points out, “Where? Where is it safe?” Hershel keeps bitching about how Carl won’t be safe where they are now or whatever and Rick says, “You’re a man of God. Have some faith.” All steel-like, the way Rick sounds when he’s serious. Hershel simply replies like, “Christ promised resurrection of the dead. I just thought he had something a little different in mind.”

T-Dawg, Lori and Beth are driving and Lori wants to go back to make sure everyone is still breathing, but T-Dawg’s just like, “They’re on their own.” Lori is like, “Boy, bye,” and goes to open the door and hop out with Beth just crying forever and T-Dawg reluctantly agrees and is like, “You’re out your damn minds!” and poor Beth is all, “I was just crying but okay,” and Lori looks satisfied like, “Dasss right.”

Back to the highway, after a happy reunion of Lori, Daryl, and Carol, a Walker’s staggering past them in an argyle sweater. At least they have style! Glenn asked how they found them and Daryl made a kind-hearted Asian driving joke and it was just a very sweet, happy moment. The joy didn’t last long, though when they learned that Andrea, Shane, Patricia and Jimmy the Trailer Guy didn’t make it. Daryl wanted to go back to look for Andrea but Rick was basically like, “Forget about that bitch, I got my wife, I got my son. It’s all gravy.” He wanted to keep it moving, and after a few grunts of disapproval, they decided that’s what they’d do.


Meanwhile, Andrea’s still alive and poor thing is running for her life on fucking foot, not giving up at all. What a trooper. Andrea deserves every award. But she’s out of ammo and she looks pretty fuckin’ exhausted. Like, it doesn’t look good for her at all at this point.

Back to Rick and the gang, they have to stay on some road because Rick ran out of gas and wanted to keep everybody together, aka trap them with him. Everyone is basically like, this is the most dangerous thing to do ever. But Rick is so convinced that they can find a Safe Place, a place to “fortify, hunker down. Build a life. There’s a place out there. I know there is, we just have to find it.” Poor Rick. Everybody else has pretty much gotten the hint that life will never be the same again, but Rick just doesn’t have a grip yet. They finally started really discussing Shane and Rick’s like, “Oh yeah, he turned, but he wasn’t bit. By the way, remember Jenner? Yeah, he told me that whatever turns us into Walkers, we all have it, we all carry it.” Like, he just slips that out. The group is in total shock and Rick’s just like, “Well, I didn’t think y’all needed to know.” AS IF IT WASN’T IMPORTANT AT ALL.

Carol, Glenn, Rose, Beth and Daryl are all giving him judge-y looks and making judge-y comments and Rick walks away to have a temper tantrum. Lori goes over to comfort him, she says, “I’m sure you had your reasons,” and Rick’s like, “I killed Shane.” Well. Her face should be pretty self-explanatory as to how she takes the news.

He tries to comfort her, but really? Of course she shoves him away. She walks away in a huff and Rick’s just like, “Perhaps that wasn’t the best decision I’ve ever made.

In the woods, Andrea’s still truckin’ and I’m still shocked. How is she even on her feet right now? And swiftly avoiding a bunch of Walkers taking bites out of her! She only has a knife, now, to protect herself and she eventually does go down, but not without a fight. Luckily, a stranger in a fucking cloak with two Walkers tied to her on chains, you know, like dogs, kills the Walker in front of Andrea. Honestly. I didn’t read the comics, so what the fuck? I just know she’s a woman and she wears a cloak, nothing more.

Checking back in with our happy campers, they all don’t trust Rick now, or at least the ones that still kind of do look a bit uneasy. Carol is doing her job of being That Bitch and running her mouth, talking about how, “we deserve better,” and how they just can’t trust Rick, only she’s taking all this shit while Rick is standing only about three feet away and totally hearing anything. He’s just like, “Nobody’s traveling on foot.” He’s worried about the group’s safety so he will not let anyone leave and Carol’s basically like, “Let’s dip,” and this is when Rick loses his temper. He starts going off about all he did for the group (“I killed my best friend for you people, for Christ’s sake!”) only too bad the stuff he mentions is stuff they didn’t know and could be categorized as bad, and now they all look positively afraid of him. Rick’s on the defense now, all, “He threatened us, he staged the whole Randall thing, led me out to put a bullet in my back. He gave me no choice. My hands are clean!”

His whole speech sounded like he was trying to convince himself of that rather than anybody else. This is such a pivotal point of the episode. You can see it in his face, hear it in his voice: Rick is unraveling, just like Shane started to.

He gets angry when nobody immediately rushes to go comfort him and make him feel better about his homicide, and he says, “You wanna be by yourselves? Go on, there’s the door. You can do better? Let’s see how far you get.” I had to italicize that sentence because the way he delivered that line was perfect…the venom and the anger in his tone was almost palpable.

Nobody moves. Everyone is just looking at him, a little in shock I think, and then Rick brilliantly delivers the best line leading into the best finale ending in history, he says, “This isn’t a democracy anymore.” His voice is steel, he’s laying down the law. The camera takes a visit to everyone’s face and Lori looks horrified, Glenn looks pissed, Daryl looks the way Daryl always looks: delicious, and I couldn’t read Hershel’s face because he is as expressive as Kristen Stewart in my opinion.

The camera then pans out, over the horizon, past the highway, just past this lake and on the other side, is a gigantic prison, and you’re seeing this to the tune of the eerie theme song playing in the background. Brilliant. Brilliant. Not only do we have a very surprising and shocking twist in a character’s integrity, but we also have two new plot points: Cloak-y, and that prison, enticing and exciting viewers for the third season.

That’s how you do a finale. Always leave ‘em wanting more.