The Walking Dead: No Sanctuary (5x01)

Yay I'm so happy this show is back! My mother is especially obsessed with The Walking Dead, and it's always fun to discuss it with her when it's on the air. Let's take a look at the plot.

Rick, Carl, Maggie, Glenn, and the rest of the gang are in the train car, preparing weapons so they can attack their captors. However, the top of the car comes off, and they are tear gassed from above, which they obviously weren't expecting. Rick, Glenn, Daryl, and Bob are all taken, along with four strangers. They are lined up in front of a trough. The first four men have their throats slit. Just before Glenn is about to be killed, Gareth comes in to talk about procedure with the two butchers. Gareth asks Rick about the bag he hid in the woods, full of weapons. Again, just as Glenn is about to be killed, an explosion knocks everyone over.

Meanwhile, we see Carol, Tyreese and Judith traveling towards Terminus. They see a herd of Walkers heading towards Terminus. They then encounter Martin, one of the Terminus men, and overhear him talking about Carl and Michonne. Tyreese stays to guard Martin while Carol goes to help the group at Terminus. She causes the explosion, and sneaks in to the camp among the Walkers.

Rick uses the explosion as an opportunity to get free and kill the butchers. The group arm themselves and make their way through the chaos to the train car, where they get the rest of their group. The rest of the group had been trying to make their own weapons to get ready for whatever was coming. Eugene tells the group that he thinks there's a way to kill all the Walkers, using technology that was meant to take down living human targets, with bio warfare.

Carol, while inside the camp, meets Mary, who tells Carol that Terminus used to be a sanctuary, but then people came along and took it over, raping and torturing the inhabitants. Mary and the others took Terminus back, but they had to turn it in to what it is now, in order to do so. Carol shoots Mary in the leg and leaves her for the Walkers to devour.

Back with Tyreese and Martin, a group of Walkers appear outside. When Tyreese goes to look at them, Martin darts forward and grabs Judith, threatening to kill her unless Tyreese goes outside. Tyreese does, but he manages to kill the Walkers and comes back inside, pulling Martin away from Judith and beating him to death.

Rick and the gang escape from Terminus. They meet up with Carol. Daryl gives her a big hug, and Rick thanks her for causing the explosion that got them all out of there. The group go to find Tyreese and Judith. Carl and Rick joyfully reunite with Judith, while Tyreese and Sasha also reunite.

The group start heading off down the tracks, and Rick crosses out one of the Terminus signs, adding "no" before "sanctuary."

We get two flashbacks in this episode, one at the beginning, one at the end, depicting Terminus back when a group of people came and took over. Gareth informs them that they need to be the "butcher" instead of the "cattle."

Finally, a man approaches the altered Terminus sign. When he takes his mask off, we see Morgan Jones!

Problems?

I didn't think much of the flashback scenes. They seemed really odd and out of place here. Especially since I don't know anything about this Mary person, or really enough about Gareth, to care about their fate. I suppose the intent was to show us that these people weren't just flat-out evil from the beginning, to gain them a little bit of sympathy? But in this episode, to bookend it with these flashbacks felt very odd and not particularly useful.

But they didn't take up much time, and everything else here was awesome!

First of all, gruesome imagery like woah. If you're squeamish about necks, like I am, I might suggest peeking through your hands at a few sections of this episode. The slaughter scene was particularly gruesome. Also, when the Walkers overrun the place, we get to see lovely scenes such as Walkers munching on someone's face, and a woman being eaten slowly, while still alive. Yikes. Also, trigger warning for rape in this episode, during the flashback at the end.

Tyreese killed a human being. Which is awful, but it was such a good move for the story to take. After everything that's happened with Carol, we're left wondering whether we should be mourning for the loss of Tyreese's high principles, or celebrating the fact that he's finally become tough enough to survive. Also, it was extremely creepy and nerve-wracking to watch Judith's innocent little life be put in jeopardy like that.

Carol is a bad ass. I mean, we all knew that, but yikes. This was so cool. She was fearless, walking into that camp. And she must have been so scared that she would find her friends dead. When she found Daryl's crossbow and Rick's watch... ugh. She's ruthless, though. The way she left Mary to be eaten by the Walkers was actually a bit tough to swallow.

I like Gareth as a villain. He seems so cold and calculating, and yet his snarky way of talking draws you in. I hope that's not the last we see of him.

The best part of this episode, though, is clearly the reunions. Especially Carol and Daryl. I was not expecting that hug. I'm not much of a shipper for this show, because I think the multitude of relationships are all interesting as they interconnect, but I kind of wanted Daryl to kiss Carol in that moment, let me tell ya. Daryl was pretty much in tears as he hugged her, and then the way he dropped his head to her shoulder... wow. Rick and Carol had their moment of reconciliation and understanding, too. And then Carl, Rick and Judith! So precious! I loved the way Rick dropped his weapon and just ran full-tilt for Judith. Even though Rick has obviously changed a lot, and become a lot darker, he's still the same man underneath all of that, and he still loves his family.

Here's to an exciting season! Now, where the hell is Beth?

9/10