"A"
written by Scott Gimple
directed by Michelle MacLaren
After getting basically knocked on my ass by the recent episode of The Walking Dead, title "The Grove," which featured some arguably some of the most disturbing fratricide ever featured on television if not mass media in general, I expected a truly terrifying finale. The penultimate episode, while it featured quite a few zombies, felt somewhat transitional, like it was designed simply to get the characters involved into a certain position in time for the finale.
The last episode definitely delivered on its promise of chills, and as with the more truly disturbing TWD episodes, it was living, breathing humans, not the walking dead, that proved to be truly scary.
To be as spoiler-free as possible I will keep the synopsis short and sweet. This episode focuses on Rick (Andrew Lincoln), Carl (Chandler Rigg), Michonne (Danai Gurira) and Daryl (Norman Reedus). It features two climactic, extremely violent confrontations, and ends with one hell of a cliffhanger. Suffice to say, "Terminus," which has been the buzzword for the entire second half of season 4, was not at all what the survivors were hoping to find. That's basically it; anything more could give away some of the nasty shocks the episode has in store for viewers.
Fans of the show familiar with the comic book series and its twists may recognize Terminus and the true nature of its inhabitants, but to the credit of the people running the TV show, although they've shown us a little bit of what the "Terminians" are really like, as well as certain hints here and there, they haven't quite shown their hand just yet; they're saving that for Season 5.
This episode, however, belongs to Rick. The narrative is interspersed with flashbacks to the prison which, prior to the second invasion by governor-led forces of its walls, was truly becoming a home to Rick, and which are effectively juxtaposed with the violence and paranoia in which Rick and the tattered remains of his crew find themselves caught up. He is both cunning and unbelievably brutal in this episode, and both Scott Gimple's script and Andrew Lincoln's gut-wrenching performance remind viewers why Rick is the series' lead character, even though he's been away for several episodes at a time. Rick's journey is an utterly compelling one, and the manner in which Lincoln inhabits the character makes it hard for me to imagine anyone else playing him with the same effectiveness.
Though these events may be familiar to readers of the comic book, the TV creators have shown time and again that, while they strive for the most part to pay faithful homage to those pages, they have not shied away from some pretty radical deviations time and again. People hale and hearty in the comics have bitten the dust (or been bitten) in the TV show, so basically the rule is that nobody is safe.
Heck of a way to end the season, really...
9/10
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