The Walking Dead - S5E9 - What Happened, and What’s Going On

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Previously on The Walking Dead, ‘Coda’

First, I was spoiled. And I will go into a rant about it on the podcast tonight, but for now, just know that I was spoiled on the big character death about an hour before the show aired… and I was furious.

I was particularly annoyed halfway through this episode when I realized that the way it was unfolding was meant to make you think one thing and then sucker punch you with another. I didn’t get to experience that as they show intended because people are the worst.

But, I will say that even if I hadn’t been spoiled, the cold open would have completely tipped me off that Tyreese was going to die - or at least be in serious trouble. Intercut with scenes of first Noah then Rick trying to convince the group to go to Noah’s home in Virginia, there are shots of the prison, Woodbury, railroad tracks, and Lizzie and Mika - both alive, but clearly showing signs of the wounds that caused their deaths. Those things were only important to Tyreese, and together, only things that he experienced. You can’t say that about any other remaining character.

Ten miles away from Noah’s subdivision, Rick (riding with Noah, Tyreese, Michonne, and Glenn) radios Carol, who is waiting at another location with everyone not in the car. They are smartly checking to see how far the walkie-talkies will work. He tells her they are close and they agree that if she doesn’t hear from them in twenty minutes, she’ll come looking for them.

Before they get there, Noah tries to make Tyreese feel better about his call to negotiate with Dawn. He says it worked, they just had no way of anticipating just how fucking petty she was. Tyreese talks about how his father used to make sure they listened to the radio, and heard all the horrible things going on all over the world so you don’t disconnect from it. He called it paying the high cost of living.

Once they get to Noah’s subdivision, they find it abandoned: dead bodies are scattered everywhere, the homes have been burned out, etc. Noah breaks down in the middle of the street and Tyreese agrees to stay with him while the others do a quick sweep of the neighborhood for supplies.

Rick and Glenn talk about whether or not they really believed this place would be safe. Rick admits that he saw that Dawn didn’t mean to kill Beth, but he wanted to kill her anyway. Making this trip was for Beth, and it could have been for them… but it’s not. Tyreese tries to reach a despondent Noah by telling him that he needs to keep going. If he hadn’t made the decision to keep going after Karen, he never would have been around to save Judith. Noah seems to take this advice until he doesn’t… and then runs his ass to his house. And Tyreese gives chase and still can’t catch him, even though Noah has a limp. Okay.

Tyreese does the knock test and when no walkers come out, they go inside. Noah’s mother is dead on the living room floor, her head bashed in. While Noah has a private moment with his mom, Tyreese investigates the rest of the house and finds one of Noah’s little brothers dead in his bed. The other, is a walker in another room. As Tyreese looks at their photos on the wall, the walker brother sneaks up on Tyreese and bites him in the arm. Noah kills his walker brother with a model airplane and then runs for help.

Now, I don’t know how fucking far Noah had to go, but he’s gone long enough for Tyreese to hallucinate dead people:

• White Glenn tells Tyreese that his poor life choices cost the group losses - like Bob.
• Bob calls bullshit. He’s like, “My dumb ass would have gotten bitten eventually.”
• Mika and Lizzie try to convince him that it’s better now on the other side.
• The Governor (Yes, I squealed!) is like, “‘member that time you said you’d do your part to be a member of my crew and then you fucking didn’t?”

Then the Governor turns into a walker that Tyreese tries to fight off even though he’s bleeding like a geyser. He ends up letting the walker bite him on the same arm Noah’s brother chomped so he can grab a weapon and kill it.

Michonne wants to stay and make a go of it. Glenn and Rick ain’t feeling it and point out all the reasons why this place isn’t secure. It’s not until they inspect where the wall was compromised and find limbs strewn about that Michonne is like, “Okay. You may have a point.” But she’s still sick of running. And she convinces Rick that they should at least travel the 100 miles to D.C., even though Eugene was full of all the shit in the world.

They FINALLY hear Noah screaming because I don’t fucking know why or how he got pinned down on a porch by two walkers, but whatever. They save his bad luck ass and he tells them about Tyreese.

Tyreese is still bleeding out and hallucinating:

• We’re joined by Beth and her guitar, and she tells Tyreese it’s okay.
• Bob tells him it’s okay if he didn’t want to be a part of it anymore (I fucking loved this!).
• White Glenn is still yapping, chewing gum, and rocking those stab wounds Sasha laid on him.
• The Governor basically tries to punk Tyreese out for forgiving Carol.

When Tyreese has finally had enough of his shit, he tells him he did offer to do his part, but that was before he knew The Governor was fucking insane. He vows not to give up. The Governor pushes him to the floor where Mika and Lizzie hold his wounded arm. Then it shifts to Glenn and Rick holding his arm and Michonne cutting it off in one smooth sword slice.

They carry him through the subdivision, back to the car, dropping him a few times and stopping to take care of walkers at the gate. Once in the car, Rick has trouble getting out of the ditch he parked in for some fucking reason, and ends up crashing into a truck parked in front of him. A bunch of walker heads come tumbling out, all with a W etched on their foreheads.

They finally get going, but Tyreese dies in the car after seeing Beth, Mika, Lizzie, and Bob (all minus their injuries). Tyreese is buried after a service delivered by Gabriel. His grave marker is his skullcap. Then someone started cutting onions in my bedroom.

Thoughts & Questions: 

• The subdivision was clearly attacked: burned homes, dismembered bodies all about (torso and limbs in the subdivision; heads near where the group left their car), and graffiti on the walls saying, ‘Wolves are near.” This must have something to do with the Ws carved in the foreheads of the dead bodies.
• Glenn and that baseball bat is clearly foreshadowing.
• When Tyreese dropped his hammer. *sob*
• This is the best episode of the series so far.
• I’m gonna need Bad Luck Noah to find somewhere else to be.