The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024) s01e06 Episode Script
The Last Time
1
Thorne, I need to speak
with you privately.
- Let's take a ride.
- Yes, sir.
He told me everything,
gave me the full briefing.
The Echelon Briefing?
JADIS: The CRM will
bring the world back.
Tell me you won't come after them.
No. Because we are coming for them.
We're gonna get the dossier.
He's gonna get the Echelon Briefing
and find out everything that they do
that the city doesn't know about.
We're gonna help the city stop them.
[GUNSHOT]
RICK: I remember it all.
What it was like.
Who we were. Who we are now.
♪
MICHONNE: My name is Michonne.
I lost someone.
Years ago.
OKAFOR: Both of them have
something I believe the CRM
needs to become what it needs to be.
JADIS: People are a resource.
NAT: I know how to build things,
and I know how to burn things,
but it takes more than that
at the end of the world.
♪
BEALE: You tried to escape four times.
Why are you here?
♪
THORNE: There's someone
you love out there.
♪
MICHONNE: Do you still love me?
RICK: Always.
♪
MICHONNE: It sounds simple, right?
We each go in. You get the briefing,
I get the dossier she left behind.
We bring what we know
to the city, then go home.
Together.
It's never that simple.
♪
RICK: I'm Sergeant Major Rick Grimes.
You probably think I'm dead.
♪
♪
He said I didn't need to be scared,
that it was just "the burning".
♪
♪
♪
♪
♪
♪
[LAUGHS]
You're really here.
Yeah.
You gave them the debrief.
Now tell me what happened.
Well, there was turbulence.
We We went low to get out of it.
- We were struck by lightning.
- Yeah.
We were going down over water,
and Bethune shoved me out.
She saved my life.
Not hers, mine.
So thank you for bringing her in.
No, you brought her in.
Why don't we just say it was Okafor?
That we were just keeping
his thing going.
[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY OVER PA]
I used to think that giving up
meant a lack of character
and a a weak will.
But you and I, we gave up
so much to be here.
And now I realize that giving up
can be a sign of strength.
A commitment to something
bigger than oneself.
Giving up made me understand
what we're really doing here.
Hopefully, you will understand, too.
I want to.
♪
I'm glad you made it, Rick.
You are needed.
It is up to us, but
not like Okafor said.
Okafor, he
[SIGHS]
He was never really here, not in
the way he should have been.
That's why he died.
But you lived. I lived.
We are meant to be a part of this.
It's time to let go of his bullshit.
Well, show me the other way.
♪
♪
[GROWLING]
♪
♪
- [EXHALES DEEPLY]
- Threat neutralized.
I'm gonna take a sweep of the perimeter.
♪
♪
[LOCK CLICKS]
♪
[DOOR LOCKS]
♪
♪
He wants to talk to you.
♪
[WALKERS GROWLING]
Rick.
This is it.
♪
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
I never had to do this.
I never had to do my six
for citizenship because I
I never really became a citizen.
The end of the world and
the beginning of the world.
And we're the dead ones, Rick.
We're kind of like them.
But they only kill for food
or out of compulsion.
- Isn't that right?
- It is.
Our scientists haven't figured it out.
Maybe they never will.
But us, the other kind of dead ones,
we have this.
The sword that kills is
the sword that gives life.
And that's us. We're the sword.
I have my aides and lieutenants
leave me in solitude
the day before an operation.
I don't like distractions.
I alone decided the path ahead,
and I alone want to feel
the weight of it.
I never interrupt that time.
But you are here.
After everything.
And I am humbled by that.
So, I'll share some time with you,
maybe even ask you to carry
some of that weight.
♪
♪
♪
[PANTING]
♪
[STOPS PANTING]
[EXHALES SHARPLY]
♪
♪
♪
♪
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
♪
[PAPER TEARING]
♪
♪
♪
♪
WOMAN: Officer Stokes? Are you in there?
[DOORKNOB RATTLING]
♪
♪
[GAGGING]
♪
[PANTING]
Put your gun on the table.
♪
[GUN CLICKING]
[GUN THUDS]
That prosthetic with the blade.
[RUSTLING]
In front of me. Away from you.
[THUDDING]
[METAL SCRAPES]
♪
[BREATHES DEEPLY]
I want you to reflect on your life.
On all your lives before and after.
All the before and afters.
All the things you did
before this moment.
Because
after this next moment,
everything will change.
♪
What was the worst thing you did
to make sure someone else survived?
[GRUNTS]
[GUNSHOT]
No!
♪
Aah!
[GURGLES]
♪
I killed someone with my teeth.
Like they do.
I'm sorry you had to do that.
Oh, you don't have to be.
Still, it's a damn thing, isn't it?
Yes. Yes, it is, sir.
You've made some
extraordinary choices, Grimes.
I've given this briefing,
the Echelon Briefing, 2,533 times.
Just me and the elite
soldier in question.
And the soldier in question
has never been someone like you.
Never.
♪
This is the first.
It's the start of what's next.
And that couldn't be
more appropriate for today.
A day completely about
tomorrow.
♪
I missed you so much.
Words can't even say it right.
You don't have to.
I know.
Are we crazy?
Certifiable.
♪
I grew up in Pittsburgh.
The same day my alcoholic
father broke my jaw,
I left home and landed
a job at a VFW hall.
Barback.
I was 15.
And those men and women at the VFW,
they became my real parents.
They were who formed me.
So when I was 18, I signed up to fight.
I went to Vietnam.
Twice.
But there was a whole journey
beyond that.
Fort Benning, officer training.
Then the journey led me
back to Pennsylvania,
to its National Guard,
and through its command,
thank God.
I went away.
I had to.
I could've let the world take me away.
But I came back
like you.
♪
♪
WOMAN: Copy that, sir.
♪
♪
♪
♪
You said you saw what the federal forces
did at the beginning.
I did.
They bombed the cities.
Okafor said that they called it
"clearing disease vectors".
"Vectors", yeah. Their word.
I made the decision
to take them on ourselves.
Second Civil War fought
on good Pennsylvania ground.
There were two fronts
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
And we were losing.
We couldn't sustain
two theaters of battle.
In my hometown, we had
an opportunity of terrain,
tactics, and a massive
incoming dead mass
that the federal forces were unaware of.
So, uh, I evacuated our forces
under the cover of night
and let the dead overwhelm their troops.
♪
And that whole city.
♪
I saved Philadelphia
by sacrificing Pittsburgh.
My enemies, my friends
my home.
♪
It's not exactly tearing into
a person with your canines,
but it's not nothing. Isn't that right?
No, it's not nothing, sir.
My dad taught me, for better or worse
sometimes things have to burn
to bring things back.
It was that.
The sword that kills is
the sword that gives life.
I killed my past and a whole city
so another could live.
♪
Let me tell you
the first secret, Grimes.
The first one that I share
with each Frontliner
I've briefed.
The most likely outcome after
all the fighting and killing,
all the plans and sacrifices, we lose.
Most likely outcome
is that we're all gonna die.
♪
MAN: The CEP overview
will begin imminently.
This is a mandatory briefing.
Please sign for review.
♪
MAN #2: Heads up, everyone. Eyes front.
♪
MAN #3: One of the most
sensitive aspects
to Operation N1W is
the Child Evacuation Protocol.
So, we were born this way.
- Aah!
- Aah!
Aah!
I guess so.
We've discovered million-strong
dead masses out there.
Our modeling shows that
non-necrotic human life
people now have 14 or so
years left on this planet.
Could be quicker.
And it isn't just the delts.
It's starvation the tenuous balance
between population and yield.
Disease, with a billion petri dishes
out there stumbling
and cooking in the sun,
waiting to transmit God knows what to us
while it transforms into God knows what.
And in the end, the most likely outcome
is that this rock will be
cluttered with corpses
to eventually rot
into food for the trees.
And it all becomes
a strange temporary museum
to an even stranger species
that conquered it
and marked it for a
blink of its existence.
This is why we do what we do.
♪
What do you do, sir?
We're trying to beat the odds, Grimes.
♪
Aah! [GROANS]
MAN #3: Through CRM Frontliner
embeds living in Portland
under false identities,
we have, over years,
had operatives enmeshed
in the Portland school system
to facilitate an evacuation
of selected children.
The CRM destroys communities
for resources,
for strategic superiority,
and to ensure the city's secrecy
and security above all.
Once the operation on Portland begins,
children will be airlifted away
from three school sites.
It will result in an evacuation
of possibly 10% of the children
in the city before the area is gassed
and its population is liquidated.
We have embeds spies
in selected communities
throughout the continent
and the world to monitor them,
to potentially sabotage them,
to influence their politics
and approaches.
Up until recently,
we supplied test subjects
for scientific experiments
to CRM-run labs.
[GROWLING]
Omaha didn't just die.
We destroyed it, along
with its Campus Colony.
And in 18 hours, we will
take our final action
to leave us as the supreme
force on this continent,
maybe the world.
We will destroy Portland.
We tell the Civic Republic
what the CRM does.
Like the bombing, whatever else they do.
If we don't, who will?
No one.
You don't leave people behind.
♪
This is the shit we do.
In response to the loss of Portland,
our last alliance partner
which we will report as another
tragic, mysterious,
shocking incident
the Civic Republic Military
will declare martial law on the city,
doing away with the Council.
Stakes are too high for freedom.
With the city under CRM control
and our Alliance partners dead,
we will march across this country
and further eliminate
any growing competition.
We will take their resources
and ensure supremacy.
And maybe
Maybe we get to survive.
♪
MAN #3: Bubble windows
will be in blackout.
The children will not see or hear
what is happening to the city.
It is critical to remain even,
to be steady,
to not give in to the trauma
the children will experience
or that the participating forces
will experience.
[WALKIE-TALKIE CLICKING]
We'll get back to the Civic
Republic in Jadis's helicopter.
I'll fly us to jump points for
the refuels they won't expect.
Anything changes on base,
key the walkie.
I'll get back to you when I can.
If I can be gotten back to.
[STATIC ON WALKIE-TALKIE]
[DIAL CLICKING]
You expecting a call?
That was Thorne.
She went through this.
Thought it would be good to talk it out.
MAN #3: Soldiers should put
the children's focus
on the comfort items
we'll furnish them with.
[SLIDE PROJECTOR CLICKS]
Avoid saying, "It's going to be okay".
Just say "they" will be okay.
Any one of them could prove
to be the difference
in our civilization's survival.
We will, in many ways, scavenge
♪
After everything,
after all the escape attempts
to right here, now
I think that the next leader
in the next decade,
that might be you.
After trying to get away so many times,
after so many years, you found
yourself free, dead to us.
You could've gone wherever
it was you wanted to go.
And you came back.
You've become a powerful story.
A powerful symbol, one the CRM
may need to tell to win
the hearts of the people
who will see some of their
freedoms delayed yet again.
I sacrificed. Okafor sacrificed.
I would expect the same for you.
But you said it you already have.
♪
Who's the person closest to you
who's died in all of this?
♪
My son.
He's who I saved tearing out
that man's throat.
But you couldn't save him in the end?
♪
No.
What if I told you you would
never have to suffer
that kind of loss again,
that wherever you were running to,
whoever you were running to
you could keep them safe,
you could bring them to us?
♪
Family, friends, a lov
I don't give a damn.
They will be spared from our march,
whenever we would have found them.
I'll take that chance.
I'm taking that chance on you.
♪
♪
Portland will die,
and this force will take
over the Civic Republic.
We will begin our march
on the countryside.
The Next World will begin,
and through that, somehow,
some way, we will survive.
We will burn things
to bring things back.
The sword that kills is
the sword that brings life.
♪
♪
Swear on the sword.
Let me ask you a question, Grimes.
I'm just gonna ask it
and look in your eyes.
♪
Swear on the sword.
Don't let it take.
♪
♪
No.
♪
Why did you come back?! Aah!
You were gone! You were dead!
You could've saved whoever you wanted to
and then saved the world. Why?
The world isn't gonna end!
It is! I'm trying to make sure we don't!
♪
- [GRUNTS]
- [GROANS]
Goddamn Okafor!
[GROANS]
I never lost my son.
I lost myself.
He brought me back.
My wife brought me back.
♪
We're the sword that kills.
We're the sword that gives life.
One life. One unstoppable life.
We're not dead.
Aah!
[GROANS]
You are.
♪
[BODY THUDS]
♪
[SWORD CLATTERS]
♪
♪
Thorne? It's Grimes, over.
THORNE: Copy. Over.
I got the briefing. We'll talk later.
Beale went to the woods to be on his own
before the all-hands, over.
Do you want to meet now? Over.
No.
Beale gave me something to do already.
Over.
♪
♪
♪
♪
[ELEVATOR DOORS CLOSING]
♪
[BUZZER]
♪
♪
[BEEP]
♪
♪
[ELEVATOR BEEPS]
♪
♪
Damn it.
Got to do it.
♪
♪
[BEEP]
♪
[BUZZER]
♪
♪
♪
♪
♪
[SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY]
♪
♪
[HELMET CRACKING]
♪
Rick!
We can't go home. Not yet.
- No.
- Do you know what they're gonna do?
I got the Echelon. How did you
They have an entire tent
of bombs out there.
They're evacuating the kids,
then it's a whole city of people, Rick.
This is happening now.
We can still get home, but not yet.
We have to stop them,
because we can stop them.
♪
- Is this yours?
- Yeah.
What's in it?
[EXHALES DEEPLY]
[WALKERS GROWLING]
THORNE: What are you up to, Grimes?
♪
How'd you come up with this?
Took some inspiration from
the genius known as Nat.
You know, Beale said I could
lead the CRM one day.
[SCOFFS] Shit.
Guess you were right.
You could do this all by yourself.
We could just go.
This is
What we have to do.
What sort of world are
we making for them
if we walk away from
something like this?
You know
I'm mad at the time I missed.
Not seeing our kids growing up.
[EXHALES SHARPLY]
I know we can't, but I just
I think about that time and
I just want to go back.
♪
♪
We are back.
[SCOFFS]
And this is the shit we do.
Yes, it is.
♪
THORNE: Grimes?
♪
♪
MAN: All-hands briefing in 10.
Squad assignments posted.
All-hands briefing in 10.
Squad assignments posted.
♪
♪
♪
[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY
OVER LOUDSPEAKER]
♪
♪
after final intelligence
[CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
♪
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie
[CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
♪
confirmed at squad level.
Confirmed at squad level.
[CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
- This is it.
- Yeah.
This is the last we're apart.
I should be scared.
Just standing here, I should
be scared, but I'm not.
Because of you.
I forgot.
I have something for you.
♪
♪
[WALKER SNARLING]
♪
But if I argue for her, they'll
think I'm emotional, indebted.
You gotta make sure she stays.
I put my neck out for her. For you.
♪
We need to take care of this.
♪
She's not gone.
♪
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY
OVER LOUDSPEAKER]
♪
♪
♪
♪
♪
Hey!
Hands!
Hands!
[MAN CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY
OVER LOUDSPEAKER]
Where's Beale?
I know you lied to me.
What did you do?
Rick.
Dana.
Thorne.
Take off your helmets.
♪
[HELMETS CLATTER]
♪
Put your bag down.
♪
♪
You are going to turn around,
you are going to go back inside,
and you are going to undo
whatever you did.
♪
And when I find Beale,
you're going to regret this.
♪
♪
Keep going!
[BREATHING RAGGEDLY]
You're going to fix this.
[GROWLING]
It never died.
It won't stop. It can't stop.
[GROWLING]
♪
This way!
[GROWLING]
♪
Pull the flag down over us!
♪
♪
[GROWLING]
♪
[BOTH GASPING]
Just a little longer.
It breaks up quick.
THORNE: Grimes!
♪
There's Thorne.
She's got a mask.
I'll rush her. You get the other mask.
Why you?
You got the sword. We go?
We go.
♪
[RICK COUGHING]
[THORNE SHOUTS]
♪
You You destroyed our chance!
You destroyed the whole world!
♪
♪
[WALKERS SNARLING]
♪
[SHOUTING]
♪
♪
[SWORD CLATTERS]
♪
You were the one he was
always trying to get to.
How did you get to him?
I didn't give up.
I didn't give me up like you did!
Where is he?!
♪
Where is he?!
Turn around.
♪
♪
[GASPING]
You don't understand.
In a dead world, love is dead!
Love doesn't die.
Watch.
♪
[GROANS]
Love
doesn't
die!
[WALKERS SNARLING]
♪
♪
[GASPS]
[SWORD CLATTERS]
[MICHONNE GASPS]
♪
♪
[BOTH PANTING]
♪
[GASPS]
[WHIMPERS]
Okafor was right.
He was right.
You just have to hope Beale was wrong.
[COUGHS]
[WALKERS SNARLING]
♪
♪
♪
MICHONNE: Come on! Come on!
♪
[SNARLING]
♪
[BOTH PANTING]
♪
WOMAN: N1W.
With the CRM's Frontliner force
and the CRM Force Command
including Major General
Johnathan Beale
all casualties of the incident connected
with the shocking revelations
regarding all their operations
and activities,
the CRC voted unanimously
for emergency oversight
over the remaining forces of the CRM.
MAN: Command hierarchies and
layers of operational secrecy
indicate infantry units
did not participate
in the atrocities perpetrated by
these highest levels of the CRM,
thus presenting hope
for immediate reform.
And in another stunning,
unanimous vote by the CRC,
overturning CRM guidance,
free movement has been
established for the Republic.
Citizens are now free to leave at will,
and the city will now
welcome new citizens,
as they may arrive.
With oversight of the military
now in the council's hands,
the CRM's priority has shifted
beyond the CR's defense
to now engage with,
assist, and even airlift
any survivor or community
they may encounter.
MICHONNE: Shoto? It's Daito.
♪
♪
♪
[ALL SOBBING]
♪
♪
- Hi.
- Hi.
Hi. Hi.
How are you doing?
Oh, my. You're so big.
[LAUGHS]
♪
Hi there.
♪
I knew it, Dad.
I knew you were still out there.
♪
I just never wanted you to feel alone.
I thought I was.
Then I realized
♪
I wasn't.
[SOBBING]
♪
You got him back.
You told me to.
♪
♪
You're the brave man?
♪
I am.
♪
He is.
♪
But maybe you can call me Dad.
♪
I knew you'd come back.
How?
I believed.
♪
♪
♪
♪
♪
RICK: We tell the Civic Republic
what the CRM does,
like the bombing, whatever else they do.
If we don't, who will?
MICHONNE: No one.
SCOTT: At the start of this episode,
Rick and Michonne couldn't be closer,
and it's just everything coming together
towards a final reckoning.
ANDREW: What we need to do is find out
what the CRM have been doing,
and also destroy the information
that Jadis has 'bout Alexandria.
So there are these two
conflicting plot lines
that are happening simultaneously.
SCOTT: The world that we were
finding ourselves in
has been hinted at.
We're talking five, six years
of leaving breadcrumbs
to see it all come together like this.
It's incredibly satisfying. It's crazy.
BEALE: I saved Philadelphia
by sacrificing Pittsburgh.
My enemies, my friends,
my home.
SCOTT: Beale made his own sacrifice.
That, I think, instilled
a real pragmatism to Beale,
to do what he had to do
to bring the world back.
ANDREW: And this is where we find out
that one man's vision for the future
is despotic and wrong.
What they're about to do at Portland
is to pretty much gas everybody
and most of the children as well.
And it's born out of an idea
that happened in season two with Shane.
I'm sorry.
Basically, it's about pruning the weak.
This is the only way that
you survive in this world.
It's not natural selection,
it's artificial selection.
I think that the next leader
in the next decade, that might be you.
SCOTT: Beale detects that Rick
can't go along with him
before Rick says anything.
We're not dead.
Agh!
You are.
ANDREW: The architect of this
appalling dictatorship is dead.
There's a power vacuum now,
and Thorne will take it.
Unless Rick deals with this thing.
And then also the front liners,
they have to get rid
of this army of 3,000.
We can still get home, but not yet.
We have to stop them.
They both have the same instincts
in that last episode.
DANAI: They're both, like,
right on par with each other.
If they look to the left or the right,
they're right next to each other.
They just have this compatibility,
and they both fit into this realm
where they are driven
in the exact same way
and will go the exact same lengths
that most people would not go.
THORNE: Hands!
SCOTT: Rick and Thorne
are kind of mirror images of each other.
They've had a similar journey,
but Thorne and Michonne are,
you know, even more mirror images
'cause Thorne gave up,
Michonne never gave up.
In a dead world, love is dead.
Maybe in another life they
would maybe have been friends.
But in terms of
Michonne's state of mind,
Thorne is just a part of something
that Michonne wants removed.
[BOTH BREATHING HEAVILY]
SCOTT: These are two people
that were separated by time
and space and circumstance
in a world where it's impossible
to go a few miles
without experiencing danger.
And they found each other.
DANAI: She knew, she said,
"I just kept feeling
that you were still out there
needing help, needing me".
And he was. That type of connection
that just never died
between them is epic.
MICHONNE: You're not stuck anywhere.
I'm not stuck either.
We can make this whole
damn world ours if we want to.
ANDREW: What Danai and myself and Scott
and all the people involved
in the writers room
wanted to do is to give a story
that felt complete,
that was heightened,
that each episode felt
like its own kind of film.
When I woke up in the hospital bed
all those years ago.
It's one continuous story
that began with a man waking up
three weeks into the apocalypse,
half dead, looking for his family.
And his family obviously became
this apocalyptic family,
the people that they collect
along the way.
And I wanted the reunion.
And then I love a
"Shawshank Redemption" finish,
which is get them together,
see the emotion,
and then pull away
into a God's eye view.
SCOTT: That last image is
the visual expression of them
making the whole world
theirs if they want to.
And they did.
JUDITH: I knew it, Dad.
I knew you were still out there.
♪
♪
♪
♪
Thorne, I need to speak
with you privately.
- Let's take a ride.
- Yes, sir.
He told me everything,
gave me the full briefing.
The Echelon Briefing?
JADIS: The CRM will
bring the world back.
Tell me you won't come after them.
No. Because we are coming for them.
We're gonna get the dossier.
He's gonna get the Echelon Briefing
and find out everything that they do
that the city doesn't know about.
We're gonna help the city stop them.
[GUNSHOT]
RICK: I remember it all.
What it was like.
Who we were. Who we are now.
♪
MICHONNE: My name is Michonne.
I lost someone.
Years ago.
OKAFOR: Both of them have
something I believe the CRM
needs to become what it needs to be.
JADIS: People are a resource.
NAT: I know how to build things,
and I know how to burn things,
but it takes more than that
at the end of the world.
♪
BEALE: You tried to escape four times.
Why are you here?
♪
THORNE: There's someone
you love out there.
♪
MICHONNE: Do you still love me?
RICK: Always.
♪
MICHONNE: It sounds simple, right?
We each go in. You get the briefing,
I get the dossier she left behind.
We bring what we know
to the city, then go home.
Together.
It's never that simple.
♪
RICK: I'm Sergeant Major Rick Grimes.
You probably think I'm dead.
♪
♪
He said I didn't need to be scared,
that it was just "the burning".
♪
♪
♪
♪
♪
♪
[LAUGHS]
You're really here.
Yeah.
You gave them the debrief.
Now tell me what happened.
Well, there was turbulence.
We We went low to get out of it.
- We were struck by lightning.
- Yeah.
We were going down over water,
and Bethune shoved me out.
She saved my life.
Not hers, mine.
So thank you for bringing her in.
No, you brought her in.
Why don't we just say it was Okafor?
That we were just keeping
his thing going.
[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY OVER PA]
I used to think that giving up
meant a lack of character
and a a weak will.
But you and I, we gave up
so much to be here.
And now I realize that giving up
can be a sign of strength.
A commitment to something
bigger than oneself.
Giving up made me understand
what we're really doing here.
Hopefully, you will understand, too.
I want to.
♪
I'm glad you made it, Rick.
You are needed.
It is up to us, but
not like Okafor said.
Okafor, he
[SIGHS]
He was never really here, not in
the way he should have been.
That's why he died.
But you lived. I lived.
We are meant to be a part of this.
It's time to let go of his bullshit.
Well, show me the other way.
♪
♪
[GROWLING]
♪
♪
- [EXHALES DEEPLY]
- Threat neutralized.
I'm gonna take a sweep of the perimeter.
♪
♪
[LOCK CLICKS]
♪
[DOOR LOCKS]
♪
♪
He wants to talk to you.
♪
[WALKERS GROWLING]
Rick.
This is it.
♪
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
I never had to do this.
I never had to do my six
for citizenship because I
I never really became a citizen.
The end of the world and
the beginning of the world.
And we're the dead ones, Rick.
We're kind of like them.
But they only kill for food
or out of compulsion.
- Isn't that right?
- It is.
Our scientists haven't figured it out.
Maybe they never will.
But us, the other kind of dead ones,
we have this.
The sword that kills is
the sword that gives life.
And that's us. We're the sword.
I have my aides and lieutenants
leave me in solitude
the day before an operation.
I don't like distractions.
I alone decided the path ahead,
and I alone want to feel
the weight of it.
I never interrupt that time.
But you are here.
After everything.
And I am humbled by that.
So, I'll share some time with you,
maybe even ask you to carry
some of that weight.
♪
♪
♪
[PANTING]
♪
[STOPS PANTING]
[EXHALES SHARPLY]
♪
♪
♪
♪
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
♪
[PAPER TEARING]
♪
♪
♪
♪
WOMAN: Officer Stokes? Are you in there?
[DOORKNOB RATTLING]
♪
♪
[GAGGING]
♪
[PANTING]
Put your gun on the table.
♪
[GUN CLICKING]
[GUN THUDS]
That prosthetic with the blade.
[RUSTLING]
In front of me. Away from you.
[THUDDING]
[METAL SCRAPES]
♪
[BREATHES DEEPLY]
I want you to reflect on your life.
On all your lives before and after.
All the before and afters.
All the things you did
before this moment.
Because
after this next moment,
everything will change.
♪
What was the worst thing you did
to make sure someone else survived?
[GRUNTS]
[GUNSHOT]
No!
♪
Aah!
[GURGLES]
♪
I killed someone with my teeth.
Like they do.
I'm sorry you had to do that.
Oh, you don't have to be.
Still, it's a damn thing, isn't it?
Yes. Yes, it is, sir.
You've made some
extraordinary choices, Grimes.
I've given this briefing,
the Echelon Briefing, 2,533 times.
Just me and the elite
soldier in question.
And the soldier in question
has never been someone like you.
Never.
♪
This is the first.
It's the start of what's next.
And that couldn't be
more appropriate for today.
A day completely about
tomorrow.
♪
I missed you so much.
Words can't even say it right.
You don't have to.
I know.
Are we crazy?
Certifiable.
♪
I grew up in Pittsburgh.
The same day my alcoholic
father broke my jaw,
I left home and landed
a job at a VFW hall.
Barback.
I was 15.
And those men and women at the VFW,
they became my real parents.
They were who formed me.
So when I was 18, I signed up to fight.
I went to Vietnam.
Twice.
But there was a whole journey
beyond that.
Fort Benning, officer training.
Then the journey led me
back to Pennsylvania,
to its National Guard,
and through its command,
thank God.
I went away.
I had to.
I could've let the world take me away.
But I came back
like you.
♪
♪
WOMAN: Copy that, sir.
♪
♪
♪
♪
You said you saw what the federal forces
did at the beginning.
I did.
They bombed the cities.
Okafor said that they called it
"clearing disease vectors".
"Vectors", yeah. Their word.
I made the decision
to take them on ourselves.
Second Civil War fought
on good Pennsylvania ground.
There were two fronts
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
And we were losing.
We couldn't sustain
two theaters of battle.
In my hometown, we had
an opportunity of terrain,
tactics, and a massive
incoming dead mass
that the federal forces were unaware of.
So, uh, I evacuated our forces
under the cover of night
and let the dead overwhelm their troops.
♪
And that whole city.
♪
I saved Philadelphia
by sacrificing Pittsburgh.
My enemies, my friends
my home.
♪
It's not exactly tearing into
a person with your canines,
but it's not nothing. Isn't that right?
No, it's not nothing, sir.
My dad taught me, for better or worse
sometimes things have to burn
to bring things back.
It was that.
The sword that kills is
the sword that gives life.
I killed my past and a whole city
so another could live.
♪
Let me tell you
the first secret, Grimes.
The first one that I share
with each Frontliner
I've briefed.
The most likely outcome after
all the fighting and killing,
all the plans and sacrifices, we lose.
Most likely outcome
is that we're all gonna die.
♪
MAN: The CEP overview
will begin imminently.
This is a mandatory briefing.
Please sign for review.
♪
MAN #2: Heads up, everyone. Eyes front.
♪
MAN #3: One of the most
sensitive aspects
to Operation N1W is
the Child Evacuation Protocol.
So, we were born this way.
- Aah!
- Aah!
Aah!
I guess so.
We've discovered million-strong
dead masses out there.
Our modeling shows that
non-necrotic human life
people now have 14 or so
years left on this planet.
Could be quicker.
And it isn't just the delts.
It's starvation the tenuous balance
between population and yield.
Disease, with a billion petri dishes
out there stumbling
and cooking in the sun,
waiting to transmit God knows what to us
while it transforms into God knows what.
And in the end, the most likely outcome
is that this rock will be
cluttered with corpses
to eventually rot
into food for the trees.
And it all becomes
a strange temporary museum
to an even stranger species
that conquered it
and marked it for a
blink of its existence.
This is why we do what we do.
♪
What do you do, sir?
We're trying to beat the odds, Grimes.
♪
Aah! [GROANS]
MAN #3: Through CRM Frontliner
embeds living in Portland
under false identities,
we have, over years,
had operatives enmeshed
in the Portland school system
to facilitate an evacuation
of selected children.
The CRM destroys communities
for resources,
for strategic superiority,
and to ensure the city's secrecy
and security above all.
Once the operation on Portland begins,
children will be airlifted away
from three school sites.
It will result in an evacuation
of possibly 10% of the children
in the city before the area is gassed
and its population is liquidated.
We have embeds spies
in selected communities
throughout the continent
and the world to monitor them,
to potentially sabotage them,
to influence their politics
and approaches.
Up until recently,
we supplied test subjects
for scientific experiments
to CRM-run labs.
[GROWLING]
Omaha didn't just die.
We destroyed it, along
with its Campus Colony.
And in 18 hours, we will
take our final action
to leave us as the supreme
force on this continent,
maybe the world.
We will destroy Portland.
We tell the Civic Republic
what the CRM does.
Like the bombing, whatever else they do.
If we don't, who will?
No one.
You don't leave people behind.
♪
This is the shit we do.
In response to the loss of Portland,
our last alliance partner
which we will report as another
tragic, mysterious,
shocking incident
the Civic Republic Military
will declare martial law on the city,
doing away with the Council.
Stakes are too high for freedom.
With the city under CRM control
and our Alliance partners dead,
we will march across this country
and further eliminate
any growing competition.
We will take their resources
and ensure supremacy.
And maybe
Maybe we get to survive.
♪
MAN #3: Bubble windows
will be in blackout.
The children will not see or hear
what is happening to the city.
It is critical to remain even,
to be steady,
to not give in to the trauma
the children will experience
or that the participating forces
will experience.
[WALKIE-TALKIE CLICKING]
We'll get back to the Civic
Republic in Jadis's helicopter.
I'll fly us to jump points for
the refuels they won't expect.
Anything changes on base,
key the walkie.
I'll get back to you when I can.
If I can be gotten back to.
[STATIC ON WALKIE-TALKIE]
[DIAL CLICKING]
You expecting a call?
That was Thorne.
She went through this.
Thought it would be good to talk it out.
MAN #3: Soldiers should put
the children's focus
on the comfort items
we'll furnish them with.
[SLIDE PROJECTOR CLICKS]
Avoid saying, "It's going to be okay".
Just say "they" will be okay.
Any one of them could prove
to be the difference
in our civilization's survival.
We will, in many ways, scavenge
♪
After everything,
after all the escape attempts
to right here, now
I think that the next leader
in the next decade,
that might be you.
After trying to get away so many times,
after so many years, you found
yourself free, dead to us.
You could've gone wherever
it was you wanted to go.
And you came back.
You've become a powerful story.
A powerful symbol, one the CRM
may need to tell to win
the hearts of the people
who will see some of their
freedoms delayed yet again.
I sacrificed. Okafor sacrificed.
I would expect the same for you.
But you said it you already have.
♪
Who's the person closest to you
who's died in all of this?
♪
My son.
He's who I saved tearing out
that man's throat.
But you couldn't save him in the end?
♪
No.
What if I told you you would
never have to suffer
that kind of loss again,
that wherever you were running to,
whoever you were running to
you could keep them safe,
you could bring them to us?
♪
Family, friends, a lov
I don't give a damn.
They will be spared from our march,
whenever we would have found them.
I'll take that chance.
I'm taking that chance on you.
♪
♪
Portland will die,
and this force will take
over the Civic Republic.
We will begin our march
on the countryside.
The Next World will begin,
and through that, somehow,
some way, we will survive.
We will burn things
to bring things back.
The sword that kills is
the sword that brings life.
♪
♪
Swear on the sword.
Let me ask you a question, Grimes.
I'm just gonna ask it
and look in your eyes.
♪
Swear on the sword.
Don't let it take.
♪
♪
No.
♪
Why did you come back?! Aah!
You were gone! You were dead!
You could've saved whoever you wanted to
and then saved the world. Why?
The world isn't gonna end!
It is! I'm trying to make sure we don't!
♪
- [GRUNTS]
- [GROANS]
Goddamn Okafor!
[GROANS]
I never lost my son.
I lost myself.
He brought me back.
My wife brought me back.
♪
We're the sword that kills.
We're the sword that gives life.
One life. One unstoppable life.
We're not dead.
Aah!
[GROANS]
You are.
♪
[BODY THUDS]
♪
[SWORD CLATTERS]
♪
♪
Thorne? It's Grimes, over.
THORNE: Copy. Over.
I got the briefing. We'll talk later.
Beale went to the woods to be on his own
before the all-hands, over.
Do you want to meet now? Over.
No.
Beale gave me something to do already.
Over.
♪
♪
♪
♪
[ELEVATOR DOORS CLOSING]
♪
[BUZZER]
♪
♪
[BEEP]
♪
♪
[ELEVATOR BEEPS]
♪
♪
Damn it.
Got to do it.
♪
♪
[BEEP]
♪
[BUZZER]
♪
♪
♪
♪
♪
[SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY]
♪
♪
[HELMET CRACKING]
♪
Rick!
We can't go home. Not yet.
- No.
- Do you know what they're gonna do?
I got the Echelon. How did you
They have an entire tent
of bombs out there.
They're evacuating the kids,
then it's a whole city of people, Rick.
This is happening now.
We can still get home, but not yet.
We have to stop them,
because we can stop them.
♪
- Is this yours?
- Yeah.
What's in it?
[EXHALES DEEPLY]
[WALKERS GROWLING]
THORNE: What are you up to, Grimes?
♪
How'd you come up with this?
Took some inspiration from
the genius known as Nat.
You know, Beale said I could
lead the CRM one day.
[SCOFFS] Shit.
Guess you were right.
You could do this all by yourself.
We could just go.
This is
What we have to do.
What sort of world are
we making for them
if we walk away from
something like this?
You know
I'm mad at the time I missed.
Not seeing our kids growing up.
[EXHALES SHARPLY]
I know we can't, but I just
I think about that time and
I just want to go back.
♪
♪
We are back.
[SCOFFS]
And this is the shit we do.
Yes, it is.
♪
THORNE: Grimes?
♪
♪
MAN: All-hands briefing in 10.
Squad assignments posted.
All-hands briefing in 10.
Squad assignments posted.
♪
♪
♪
[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY
OVER LOUDSPEAKER]
♪
♪
after final intelligence
[CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
♪
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie
[CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
♪
confirmed at squad level.
Confirmed at squad level.
[CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
- This is it.
- Yeah.
This is the last we're apart.
I should be scared.
Just standing here, I should
be scared, but I'm not.
Because of you.
I forgot.
I have something for you.
♪
♪
[WALKER SNARLING]
♪
But if I argue for her, they'll
think I'm emotional, indebted.
You gotta make sure she stays.
I put my neck out for her. For you.
♪
We need to take care of this.
♪
She's not gone.
♪
[WALKERS GROWLING]
[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY
OVER LOUDSPEAKER]
♪
♪
♪
♪
♪
Hey!
Hands!
Hands!
[MAN CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY
OVER LOUDSPEAKER]
Where's Beale?
I know you lied to me.
What did you do?
Rick.
Dana.
Thorne.
Take off your helmets.
♪
[HELMETS CLATTER]
♪
Put your bag down.
♪
♪
You are going to turn around,
you are going to go back inside,
and you are going to undo
whatever you did.
♪
And when I find Beale,
you're going to regret this.
♪
♪
Keep going!
[BREATHING RAGGEDLY]
You're going to fix this.
[GROWLING]
It never died.
It won't stop. It can't stop.
[GROWLING]
♪
This way!
[GROWLING]
♪
Pull the flag down over us!
♪
♪
[GROWLING]
♪
[BOTH GASPING]
Just a little longer.
It breaks up quick.
THORNE: Grimes!
♪
There's Thorne.
She's got a mask.
I'll rush her. You get the other mask.
Why you?
You got the sword. We go?
We go.
♪
[RICK COUGHING]
[THORNE SHOUTS]
♪
You You destroyed our chance!
You destroyed the whole world!
♪
♪
[WALKERS SNARLING]
♪
[SHOUTING]
♪
♪
[SWORD CLATTERS]
♪
You were the one he was
always trying to get to.
How did you get to him?
I didn't give up.
I didn't give me up like you did!
Where is he?!
♪
Where is he?!
Turn around.
♪
♪
[GASPING]
You don't understand.
In a dead world, love is dead!
Love doesn't die.
Watch.
♪
[GROANS]
Love
doesn't
die!
[WALKERS SNARLING]
♪
♪
[GASPS]
[SWORD CLATTERS]
[MICHONNE GASPS]
♪
♪
[BOTH PANTING]
♪
[GASPS]
[WHIMPERS]
Okafor was right.
He was right.
You just have to hope Beale was wrong.
[COUGHS]
[WALKERS SNARLING]
♪
♪
♪
MICHONNE: Come on! Come on!
♪
[SNARLING]
♪
[BOTH PANTING]
♪
WOMAN: N1W.
With the CRM's Frontliner force
and the CRM Force Command
including Major General
Johnathan Beale
all casualties of the incident connected
with the shocking revelations
regarding all their operations
and activities,
the CRC voted unanimously
for emergency oversight
over the remaining forces of the CRM.
MAN: Command hierarchies and
layers of operational secrecy
indicate infantry units
did not participate
in the atrocities perpetrated by
these highest levels of the CRM,
thus presenting hope
for immediate reform.
And in another stunning,
unanimous vote by the CRC,
overturning CRM guidance,
free movement has been
established for the Republic.
Citizens are now free to leave at will,
and the city will now
welcome new citizens,
as they may arrive.
With oversight of the military
now in the council's hands,
the CRM's priority has shifted
beyond the CR's defense
to now engage with,
assist, and even airlift
any survivor or community
they may encounter.
MICHONNE: Shoto? It's Daito.
♪
♪
♪
[ALL SOBBING]
♪
♪
- Hi.
- Hi.
Hi. Hi.
How are you doing?
Oh, my. You're so big.
[LAUGHS]
♪
Hi there.
♪
I knew it, Dad.
I knew you were still out there.
♪
I just never wanted you to feel alone.
I thought I was.
Then I realized
♪
I wasn't.
[SOBBING]
♪
You got him back.
You told me to.
♪
♪
You're the brave man?
♪
I am.
♪
He is.
♪
But maybe you can call me Dad.
♪
I knew you'd come back.
How?
I believed.
♪
♪
♪
♪
♪
RICK: We tell the Civic Republic
what the CRM does,
like the bombing, whatever else they do.
If we don't, who will?
MICHONNE: No one.
SCOTT: At the start of this episode,
Rick and Michonne couldn't be closer,
and it's just everything coming together
towards a final reckoning.
ANDREW: What we need to do is find out
what the CRM have been doing,
and also destroy the information
that Jadis has 'bout Alexandria.
So there are these two
conflicting plot lines
that are happening simultaneously.
SCOTT: The world that we were
finding ourselves in
has been hinted at.
We're talking five, six years
of leaving breadcrumbs
to see it all come together like this.
It's incredibly satisfying. It's crazy.
BEALE: I saved Philadelphia
by sacrificing Pittsburgh.
My enemies, my friends,
my home.
SCOTT: Beale made his own sacrifice.
That, I think, instilled
a real pragmatism to Beale,
to do what he had to do
to bring the world back.
ANDREW: And this is where we find out
that one man's vision for the future
is despotic and wrong.
What they're about to do at Portland
is to pretty much gas everybody
and most of the children as well.
And it's born out of an idea
that happened in season two with Shane.
I'm sorry.
Basically, it's about pruning the weak.
This is the only way that
you survive in this world.
It's not natural selection,
it's artificial selection.
I think that the next leader
in the next decade, that might be you.
SCOTT: Beale detects that Rick
can't go along with him
before Rick says anything.
We're not dead.
Agh!
You are.
ANDREW: The architect of this
appalling dictatorship is dead.
There's a power vacuum now,
and Thorne will take it.
Unless Rick deals with this thing.
And then also the front liners,
they have to get rid
of this army of 3,000.
We can still get home, but not yet.
We have to stop them.
They both have the same instincts
in that last episode.
DANAI: They're both, like,
right on par with each other.
If they look to the left or the right,
they're right next to each other.
They just have this compatibility,
and they both fit into this realm
where they are driven
in the exact same way
and will go the exact same lengths
that most people would not go.
THORNE: Hands!
SCOTT: Rick and Thorne
are kind of mirror images of each other.
They've had a similar journey,
but Thorne and Michonne are,
you know, even more mirror images
'cause Thorne gave up,
Michonne never gave up.
In a dead world, love is dead.
Maybe in another life they
would maybe have been friends.
But in terms of
Michonne's state of mind,
Thorne is just a part of something
that Michonne wants removed.
[BOTH BREATHING HEAVILY]
SCOTT: These are two people
that were separated by time
and space and circumstance
in a world where it's impossible
to go a few miles
without experiencing danger.
And they found each other.
DANAI: She knew, she said,
"I just kept feeling
that you were still out there
needing help, needing me".
And he was. That type of connection
that just never died
between them is epic.
MICHONNE: You're not stuck anywhere.
I'm not stuck either.
We can make this whole
damn world ours if we want to.
ANDREW: What Danai and myself and Scott
and all the people involved
in the writers room
wanted to do is to give a story
that felt complete,
that was heightened,
that each episode felt
like its own kind of film.
When I woke up in the hospital bed
all those years ago.
It's one continuous story
that began with a man waking up
three weeks into the apocalypse,
half dead, looking for his family.
And his family obviously became
this apocalyptic family,
the people that they collect
along the way.
And I wanted the reunion.
And then I love a
"Shawshank Redemption" finish,
which is get them together,
see the emotion,
and then pull away
into a God's eye view.
SCOTT: That last image is
the visual expression of them
making the whole world
theirs if they want to.
And they did.
JUDITH: I knew it, Dad.
I knew you were still out there.
♪
♪
♪
♪