"The Walking Dead:" Tombstone

I’m so not ready for this season to be over. And this episode was intense. And rough. If you missed it and you don’t want to be spoiled, do NOT continue reading because MAJOR spoilers lie ahead.
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The episode opens the same way the premiere episode did–with the close up of an eye. This time it’s the governor’s. He’s beating someone, and telling them that he’s impressed that the person got their hands dirty. It’s Milton. “I kept you safe. Kept you fed.” Milton says only as he looked the other way. “It’s time for you to graduate,” the governor tells him. “I’m gonna tell you a secret. If there’s a threat, you end it, and you don’t feel ashamed about enjoying it.” He tells Milton it means he’s alive, that he’s won. “You kill or you die.” Milton shakes his head. “What would your daughter think about what you are?” he asks. The governor says she’d be afraid of him; but if he’d been like this from the start, she’d still be alive today. “Did you kill Andrea?” Milton asks.
The governor throws him into the same room with the blonde, revealing she is indeed alive. He says he’s going to need her. And that she and Milton are going to help him kill all the people at the prison. He makes Milton collect all the tools of torture. He accidentally drops everything on the floor, but he spots something and pauses (maybe a way to help free Andrea?), then picks up the rest of tools and takes them to the governor. The governor stops him and holds out a knife and tells him he’s not leaving the room unless he kills Andrea. Instead, he turns the knife on the governor and tries to stab him. The governor stabs Milton repeatedly. “I told you you were going to do it. But now you’re gonna die. And you’re gonna turn. And then you’re gonna tear the flesh from her bones.” He lets Milton’s body drop to the floor, and he looks at Andrea and says in this life now you kill or you die. Or you die and you kill. Then he shuts the door, leaving her alone with the body.
At the prison, Carl is packing things in his cell. He pauses and looks at the photograph of him, his mom, and Rick. He places it in the sack he is collecting, and places the sack in his duffle bag. Carol and Hershel are also packing things. They appear to be getting ready to leave the prison. Rick tries to stop Carl as he goes to put things in the car trunk, but he pulls away angrily. Glenn comments he’s never seen Carl this mad, even after Lori. Rick says it’s easy to forget he’s still a kid. Then he looks up, spotting Lori.
“Merle never did nothing like that his whole life.” Daryl tells Carol. She says he gave them a chance.
Michonne tells Rick they’re ready. “The deal the governor offered about me? You had to think about it. You had to. I get it,” she tells him. He tells her he’s sorry, because he came real close. “But you didn’t.” She says she never thanked him for helping her out that first day outside the prison. He says if she hadn’t had the formula, he wouldn’t have. She points out he could have just taken the formula. He says it was Carl who made the call. That she’s one of them.
The governor is ranting and raving about the people at the prison killed eight of their people. Tyreese speaks up and says he and his sister aren’t interested in participating in the fight. They’ll fight against the biters, and they’ll stay and defend the children, and then if the governor wants them gone, they’ll leave. The governor hands Tyreese a large gun and tells him thank you. Then he climbs into a truck and yells, “Let’s roll!”
The Woodbury people pull up to the prison firing shots and killing walkers all over the place. They blow up the guard tower. They clear the whole yard until there are no walkers left. Then they get out of the vehicles and begin to proceed closer to the prison. One of the vehicles mows down the main fence and they invade the property. Everything at the prison is silent and the people look around. They bust down another fence, and then head inside the prison. The place is completely empty, no sign of Rick and the others, but the governor and his men proceed anyway, looking in each cell until Martinez emerges shaking his head. The governor looks annoyed, then he moves back to one of the cells. A Bible has been left open to a verse, which he reads. Then he throws the book. There’s a noise in prison, and the governor asks for a flashlight. He opens another gate, shining the light inside.
Milton isn’t dead. He tells Andrea that when the tools fell, he left a pair or pliers on the floor and if she moves her foot back, she can get them. “When you get free, you are going to find something very sharp and you are going to stab me in the head,” he tells her. She can’t quite reach the tool. “Keep trying,” Milton says, fading fast.
The governor’s men are still searching the prison. They are down in the tombs. There are a lot of strange sounds. The governor shushes the men, and leads them farther into the tombs.
Tyreese tells his sister that everything is quiet other than a few biters outside the south wall. She asks what they’ll have to do when the others come back. He says they may have to slip out. Then he tells her he’ll be back.
Andrea has managed to get the pliers closer and is struggling to pick them up when she realizes that Milton has died. He suddenly gasps. “Why did you stay? After you found out your friends are out there?” he asks. She tells him she wanted to save everyone, even the governor for awhile. She says she had a chance to kill him before, when the other man was asleep and she had a knife. She tells him she tried to stop it another way, “Because I didn’t want anyone to die.” He tells her he’s still there, still alive. “Yeah, you are,” she agrees. He tells her she needs to hurry. Andrea slips her boots off and begins trying to pick up the pliers.
The people from Woodbury are in the tombs when a flash grenade is thrown. It sets off smoke, and the alarm goes off, sending them running out. Glenn and Maggie are in guard uniforms firing at the Woodbury people, including the governor, who have made it outside. They take off in their vehicles, appearing to be gone. Carl, Hershel, and Beth are hiding in the woods. A young man from Woodbury runs upon them and they hold their guns on them. He offers Carl his weapon and Carl shoots him point blank.
“We did it, we drove ‘em out,” Rick announces as the rest of the group gathers at the entrance of the prison. They argue whether or not to follow them and kill them or to stay back. Inside the prison, Rick is happy to see Beth carrying baby Judith safely in her arms. He hugs Carl and Carl pushes Rick away. He tells Rick he’s going with them to Woodbury. That he took out one of the governor’s soldiers. He storms away. Hershel says it was a kid running away. “The kid was scared. He was handing his gun over,” Hershel tells him. Rick is defensive and says that Carl said the kid drew on them. “I’m telling you. He gunned that kid down.”
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The governor and his men pull over on the road. He isn’t pleased they are running away. They aren’t cool with going back to kill Rick and his men. He begins killing his own people, gunning them down. Martinez stares at him in shock. Every one of them is dead but Martinez, another man, and the governor. He starts shooting the victims in the head to make sure they don’t turn into biters. One young woman is huddled under another body, alive. He doesn’t shoot her.
Andrea is still trying to maneuever the pliers with her feet. “Are you still here? Are you still alive?” she whispers. This time Milton doesn’t respond. She almost grasps the pliers in her hand but drops them, looking nervously at Milton, and then trying again. This time she manages to grab them. Milton’s bloody fingers begin to move.
Rick, Michonne, Daryl and Carl are preparing to leave. Rick kneels down in front of his son. “Hershel told me about the boy you shot.” Carl says the boy had a gun. “Was he handing it over?” Carl says the boy had just attacked them. “Yes he had,” he agrees. “Was he handing it over?” Carl won’t look at him for a moment. He says he couldn’t take the chance. He didn’t kill the walker who killed Dale. And Rick didn’t kill Andrew, who came back and killed his mom. And he was in a room with the governor, and the governor killed Merle. “I did what I had to do.” He drops the badge on the ground and tells him to go, before the governor kills anymore of them.
Glenn tells Rick that he and Maggie are staying, and if the governor comes back, they’ll hold him off. Daryl leads the way with Michonne and Rick following in the truck. Daryl stops his motorcycle in the middle of the road as they come along all the Woodbury people who are dead, and those who have become walkers. They kill the walkers, looking around in shock. The woman who was hiding shows herself in the truck and raises her hands above her head as they let her out.
Andrea realizes that Milton is starting to come back to life. She quickly works with the pliers, trying to get the handcuffs off. He lumbers toward her as she manages to get one of her hands free. She screams as the camera closes in on the door trapping her inside with him.
Rick, Michonne and Daryl are creeping up on Woodbury with Karen in tow. They exchange gunfire with Tyreese and another. Karen yells that the governor killed everyone. “We’re coming out,” Rick yells, putting his weapon away and holding his hands up. Daryl holds his hands up, too, approaching Tyreese and his sister. “What are you doing here?” Tyreese asks. “We were coming to finish this. Until we saw what the governor did,” Rick explains. “He killed them?” Tyreese asks. Rick tells him Karen said that Andrea hopped the wall, but she never found her way back to the prison.
Rick leads the way to the same place the governor had been holding Glenn and Maggie. They open the door. Michonne rushes in. Andrea is on the floor beside the door. Milton is dead, but Andrea has been bitten on the shoulder. She asks about Carl and the others, if they’re alive. “It’s good you found them,” Andrea tells Michonne, who is crying. “No one can make it alone now,” Andrea says. “We never could,” Daryl tells her. “I didn’t want anyone else to die,” Andrea says, then says she can do it herself. Michonne protests, but Andrea insists. “I know how the safety works,” she tells Rick jokingly. “I’m not going anywhere,” Michonne informs her, still crying. Andrea looks up at Daryl, then back at Rick. “I tried,” she whispers. “Yeah, you did,” he whispers back. Daryl leaves the room, and so do Rick and Tyreese. Michonne remains at Andrea’s side, tears trailing down her cheeks. The camera focuses outside on Rick and Tyreese and Daryl as a single gunshot is fired. They all look down.
Daryl  leads the way back into the prison, with the truck and now a bus following behind.Carl and Beth and Carol come outside as the bus slowly unloads the rest of Woodbury. “What is this?” Carl asks his dad. “They’re going to join us,” he tells his son. Carl heads away. The Woodbury survivors head into the prison, leaving the rest of the group outside. Rick looks up at the bridge over the prison, but doesn’t see Lori this time. The end shot focuses on the cross on her grave.
My thoughts are scattered and emotionally I am all over the map. Did you watch the episode? What did you think? Leave me  a comment here, or tweet me at @WalkinDeadAngie!
“The Walking Dead” (2010)
Starring: Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Laurie Holden
Creator: Frank Darabont

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