[MASSIVE spoilers throughout. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200 if you haven’t watched the episode.]
HOLY CRAP!!!
That was amazing. Before I get into the nitty gritty of what we just watched, I want to take a moment to reflect on how tremendous this season of the Walking Dead has been. Every episode had tension, it had heartbreak, it had fantastic scenes, it had huge twists. There was action, there was zombie gore, there were lies and love. And there were times when we didn’t want to see “our guys” die, but they did, and we were shocked. I had such a great time watching the show this year, and definitely think it may have been the best series of episodes since the very first few of Season 1.
Whew!
Okay, on to this finale!
“Conquer” does a terrific job of wrapping up this year’s many plot points and and opening the door to whatever is coming next. The decision to extend the episode to 90 minutes is well worth it; in fact, there is so much going on that it’s amazing that it’s all contained within one sitting. This is easily the amount of stuff that you’d get out of binge-watching on Netflix for four hours, but it’s neatly tied together here.
The writers have gone to a great length to link together everything we’ve seen over the second half of the season, and even some things from Terminus. From Father Gabriel’s back stabbing, to Sasha battling depression, to Abraham & Eugene’s relationship, the episode shows us that it was all planned from the beginning, that all of it was necessary to lead us to this point. To redemption.
And it all points to one person: Rick Grimes.
Rick is everyone’s father and brother. He taught Carol to fight, Glenn to be brave, Morgan to see hope and Michonne how to have a family again. But Rick also caused the splinter in the group. The outside world dehumanized him, turning him into a survival-first savage. At the beginning of this season the first sparks of his monstrosity showed up when he not only led the escape from Terminus but essentially brutalized and humiliated its cannibalistic leaders. Since that day it’s been a quick descent into mental chaos.
The show wants us to believe that Rick is doing the right thing, but it also wants us to do so at arm’s length. We need to be afraid to be near him, especially if we don’t always see eye-to-eye. It’s because of that fear that I tend to believe Alexandria almost represents us in a way. We’re hopeful for a future, but uneasy if it includes this maniac who’s screaming at us about the outside world. There’s a great moment early on in the episode when Michonne tries to remind Rick of where they are and where they should go. “We had to stop being out there,” she says. “Out there” isn’t just a place, it’s a mentality. It’s Rick’s mentality. He’s not around other people yet, at least not emotionally. He still sees everyone as naive and unworthy of what they’ve been handed.
So, whenever he’s questioned by someone — whether it’s Glenn or Michonne or Carl — he lies, blatantly, about his intentions. He still wants control, and is willing to kill for it. Even when he begins to question himself, the little devil on his shoulder, Carol, jumps in to tell him that he needs to snap out of it. “You said you don’t want to take this place, or lie? Oh sunshine, you don’t get both.” SUNSHINE! The writing for Carol’s character has been at top form, and the bits of evil in her affect and lead Rick all over the place.
And so we get to the big tentpole of the episode: Rick’s trial. Even though Deanna said it was a discussion about what to do next, we know what it’s really about. She wants Rick out and is looking for confirmation from the others. Reminder: Rick is ready to kill if needed, even going so far as to plan a coup. But we find out he doesn’t need it. As he’s headed to the strange campfire trial, he sees that a gate has been left open (by the apathetic Father Gabriel, no doubt) and realizes that walkers have entered. This town and these people *are* unprepared. They *are* naive. And they won’t survive without him. Watching that “click” take place in his head, especially after he took out a few of the zombies along the way, signified that some of the remnants of the protective, father-like Rick Grimes was still there.
Hell, as he’s about to get voted off the island he shows up to the meeting and drops a walker in the middle of everyone, like a dog bringing a dead bird to its master. He reiterates that he was right in saying that they would die without his leadership, even though he was in a heated fight when he said it. He’s won, enacting the coup not by blood but by action.
I think that’s been the major revelation of this season: actions speak louder than words, especially now more than ever, and especially when there are truthful intentions behind them.
Rick has finally redeemed himself.
And then in comes Pete. He’s drunk, he’s stumbling, he’s essentially a walker. He’s also carrying Michonne’s sword, and “accidentally” slices open Deanna’s husband Reg, the epitome of innocence. Deanna (who’s undoubtedly had the worst week of her life in losing both her son and her husband) lays down the exclamation point. “Do it,” she says emotionally. Rick, like the dog that he’s become, almost excitedly turns around and shoots Pete point blank in the head.
That moment is the wake up call that the townspeople needed. I think they finally realize that their utopia has been hiding the reality of the world. Things really are dark, and evil, and brutal, and only by working with people like Rick would they be able to make it through.
Vindication!… Sort of.
Because as Rick kills the evil Peter, we see the face of his complete opposite: Morgan.
We have to remember that it was Rick who sort of saved Morgan many seasons back, on more than one occasion. Morgan had lost his wife and son, and Rick brought him back from the precipice of death. Now, Morgan feels that good people like Rick show that there’s still hope in the world. The episode opens on him staring at a lucky rabbit’s foot, as if to tell us that it’s all rainbows and unicorns in his world. Even when he’s jumped by two men he still finds a way to avoid killing them and leave with a smile.
It’s odd to see him as the Yang to Rick’s Yin. But again, if it wasn’t for Rick then he wouldn’t even be here. When he manages to rescue Darryl and Aaron (in what is probably one of the best zombie fight scenes in the series) he comes off like a new world Noah, reiterating that all life is precious. Morgan is a fan favorite for a reason, and now he seems to be a peace-loving ninja too.
With Rick standing over the body of Pete, happy at what he’s accomplished, he looks up only to catch the eye of the mortified Morgan. Is this the person that Morgan walked hundreds of miles to find? A cold-blooded killer? It shows us how far Rick has fallen, and how far he still has to go to be humane again.
But he’s not the only one. We finally see the payoff of Gabriel’s and Sasha’s battles with their inner demons. Both have been instrumental in throwing Rick under the bus in the town. They’ve been running from their problems for a long time, and are tired and weary now. This episode they openly ask to die or be killed several times. They’ve become nihilists.
Sasha is digging a pit to dump in the bodies of the walkers she’s hunted, evoking mental images of ethnic cleansing. She then decides to lay down in the middle of them as if to say “take me away, I’m done”.
Gabriel opts to go for a walk outside of town, almost politely asking the walkers to kill him and hoping that his position as a holy man will rescue him. When one gets close he chickens out and kills it. On his way back from the woods he lackadaisically leaves the gate open, allowing other walkers to follow him in. He doesn’t care any more.
It comes to a head in the church. Gabriel walks in, defeated, lacking belief. Sasha is sitting in the makeshift pews, asking him for help. He denies her, blaming her for the deaths around her. He once again wants to put the blame on someone else, except this time he wants her to take action and kill him for it.
They fight, as if to determine who is the more distraught. Ultimately Sasha gains the upper hand but can’t bring herself to kill Gabriel, even with her rifle pointed at his head. Maggie busts in to stop the murder but I get the feeling that Sasha would have stopped on her own. Both of the characters are intriguing in their personal fights. They’ve blamed everyone else for what has happened, but now that they’re forced to interact with someone who feels the exact same way they almost seem to cancel each other out.
A similar situation occurs between Glenn and Nicholas. Still hateful of the group, especially because of Aiden’s death, Nicholas tricks Glenn into following him into the woods, only to shoot him in the shoulder and leave him to fend for himself with walkers piling on top of him. At first I thought “there’s no way Glenn can escape this.” But then we see Glenn standing there alive, the realization setting in that these survivors know how to get out of these situations, that they’re conditioned for this. He has a gun pointed at Nicholas, ready to kill him, but decides not to. He’s not a murdered, even if Nicholas is.
And so there we go. Everything that has been leading these people emotionally to be at each other’s throats, to mistrust each other, to fall apart, has now become the glue that binds them together. Alexandria is adopting them, even if it will never embrace them with open arms. They have a home, they’re going to make it work. And that’s the end of this chapter.
However, we know that a new chapter is beginning. We’ve been teased with the mysterious “W” scars on walkers in the woods nearby, and we know that their numbers have been increasing.
“Conquer” gave us the answer as to what it all means.
As it’s explained, the “W” is a reference to the Native American belief that men descended from wolves. Therefore they were held in high esteem by early peoples, ruling the land. As European settlers came in they would put bounties on wolves, hoping to not only reduce the population of the animals but to also break the spirit of the local tribes.
The “W” that people now wear is endemic of their belief that they own this land and everything on it. They are the “wolves”, and everyone else is trespassing. New settlers will not be allowed in. They’ve been the ones sending the large numbers of walkers (many of which are fallen members of their “tribe”) to Alexandria. They even have them trained, as Darryl and Aaron find out when they set off a booby-trap in a parking lot and walkers pour out of trailers. In the final scenes we see the two Wolves that Morgan released herd the zombies back into their trailers with a noise-filled, disco-lighted stage show.
Yes, the Wolves are building an undead army. And it looks like Alexandria is in their sites. This has the potential to bring an entirely new and exciting struggle to the show.
With many of the interpersonal issues taken care of, the plot can focus on external factors again, something we haven’t seen since the days of the Governor. If there’s some group of people who have figured out how to go past just surviving and have started being aggressive and animalistic, then next season should be an entirely new challenge for Rick and the rest of the survivors and townspeople.
But before we head into next season, which is still months and months away, we need to take a breath from everything that happened during this one. I hate using cliches but it really has been tension-filled, edge of my seat storytelling. So much has happened this year — from Terminus, to Father Gabriel at the church, to the barn scene, to Alexandria — that it’s hard to find any one moment that sticks out the most.
However, there is one scene from this finale that I think summarizes this entire season well.
Michonne, returning to her home after the meeting, carries the bloody sword in her hands, ready to place it back over her mantle. Then, something happens. She hesitates. She looks at it, realizing that no matter what kind of protection the town gives her, or authority she gets from the deputy uniform that she now wears, or even the peacefulness that exists as children play outside her door, the world has not changed. The world is still violent, and going back to the past is no longer an option or a possibility. She takes down her sword, holds it, and sheaths it on her back.
The outside is still there, and it’s not pretty.
All images courtesy AMC.
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