The Walking Dead: Five Things We Learned From Tonight's Episode

With the finale coming up next week, tonight's episode of AMC's The Walking Dead was bound to [...]

By Russ Burlingame

With the finale coming up next week, tonight's episode of AMC's The Walking Dead was bound to answer a lot of our questions -- and it did, in fairly spectacular fashion. Spoilers ahead for tonight's episode, titled "Us." The episode, originally slated to be directed by Man of Steel writer and Da Vinci's Demons creator David S. Goyer, eventually had to be handed off to special effects guru Greg Nicotero instead for scheduling reasons. What he did with it was bring together two of our long-separated groups, relieving some of the show's lingering tension surrounding whether any of our heroes would ever meet again. That unified group then moved on to the end of the line, where they found what seems to be a fairly idyllic home. Pretty sure things won't really play out that way, but let's focus on what we did learn today...

jeff-kober

Daryl's new group are not The Hunters They're hunting animals, not people, in those woods. And let's face it: they're not very bright. The Hunters, while they grossly overestimated their abilities against somebody as capable as Rick Grimes and his group of survivors, were fairly bright and part of the reason they were so successful at hunting and eating people is that they managed to lure people into situations, or pick on them when they're at their most vulnerable. Daryl's group seem to be relying on muscle (and their own, unique moral code) to make their way in the world, and while it would be hard to put cannibalism past them, it doesn't seem to be their primary source of nutrition...or, you know, something they're particularly focused on.

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They also don't have Beth Joe was pretty open with Daryl, so there's no reason to imagine that there's a car out there somewhere, abducating people on these men's behalf and then hiding the information with their newest member. There was some speculation, when the railroad garage was seen on trailers, that in fact one particular car in the background of a few shots kind of looked like the one that abducted Beth...but it's hard to tell. In the lighting above, the car looks powder blue, whereas the car in the garage was white. Also, we saw the one in the garage from the front, not the back.  Could they be the same? Sure...but that suggests even more no connection to Joe and his group.

terminus-found

Terminus is a real place ...Now, whether it's "terrible," as Robert Kirkman has suggested, is a different thing altogether. So far, it doesnt' seem like it. With a lush garden, propane tanks and a barbecue, things seem pretty promising. The biggest concern most people have (especially with that line "we'll make you a plate," rather than "would you like something to eat?") is that this storyline will be a twist on the comic book story "Beware the Hunters" and the meat on that grill will be human. If that's the case, the next question becomes whether Beth will be on the menu. We haven't seen her since her abduction, and while some were thinking that the cross in the car's window could imply Gabriel was "rescuing" the injured girl and simply left Daryl behind with no particular malice (just cowardice), many others assumed all along that she was being taken by The Hunters.

dr-mullet-creepy-smirk

Eugene is really not keen to go to Washington If his character arc traces the one from the comics, there's a pretty good reason why Eugene would be more interested in sticking with the larger group and finding shelter than in making it to Washington, D.C. in order to save the world. That's because he's full of crap. Whether that will come to fruition in the show isn't yet clear (though we're guessing yes), but one thing is for sure: He isn't in any hurry to get back to learning whether the zombie plague is or is not the same thing that killed the dinosaurs.

The Walking Dead After Rick

Yes, the marauders are after Rick We've long suspected that the fact that Tony has got a good enough look at Rick Grimes to make life more difficult for Rick and his group of survivors if they ever stumbled across Daryl's new group. Now, we learn that not only is that true, but that they've been pursuing Rick all this time. By their version of events, he attacked their whole group when he left Lou on the bathroom floor to die and reanimate -- and that's partially true. It's also true they did nothing to him to provoke the attack, at least directly, but they were an obvious threat to him...which Joe leaves out, doesn't know, or doesn't care about.

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