The Walking Dead – “No Sanctuary”

Season Five, Episode One

Grade: A-

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Last season provided us with a cliffhanger unlike any other we’ve experienced with The Walking Dead. That’s mainly good, since the last few seasons of this wildly popular show has been mediocre at best. So after Rick and company seek out Terminus as a sanctuary, they realize it’s everything they feared. So the final moments of season four had our characters locked in a train car at Terminus, but we all know that our heroes are going to break out of it somehow, right?

First and foremost, the most surprising thing about the season premiere is how quickly Rick and company are able to escape Terminus. This is coming from a show that dedicated way too much time to Woodbury and particularly The Governor. I expected this story-line to be dragged out for at least half a season, but instead we witness the fall of Terminus in what felt like a blink of an eye.

While the sequences were quite engaging, it still had the Walking Dead tactics I’m getting tired of. Like when the two men are killing off people from the train car and we see our main characters at the end of the line. As each man falls we get closer and closer to Glen’s turn to be knocked out by a baseball bat and then cut open (which arguably is The Walking Dead’s most violent scene ever). But mid-windup, there is always another distraction that keeps Glen’s head intact. Come on now, even if someone was talking to them they could’ve kept slaughtering the group.

There’s an explosion, and we take a step back to follow Carol, Tyreese, and Baby Judith as they’re the only ones from the group who aren’t trapped in Terminus. They bump into a Terminus citizen, tie him up, and receive information that his people have at least some of their friends captive. Carol goes camouflage style with a herd of zombies and sees the horror of Rick, Daryl, Bob, and Glen tied up and dragged away. For a while now, Carol has been as cool as a cucumber in tough situations. She took it among herself to eliminate the spreading disease. She barely flinched when Rick sent her off on her own. And now Cool Carol caused the explosion that had the citizens of Terminus running right into the herd of zombies. Carol rules!

So as expected, everyone gets out of the hell hole that was Terminus (and without a single death!). They meet up in the woods to an emotional reunion with Carol. Daryl and Carol forever! They make their way back to Tyreese and Baby Judith (Tyreese ends up killing the guy captive) and there’s another emotional reunion with Judith, Rick and Carl. Hooray for the good guys! But what’s next? That’s what we’ll have an entire season to discover.

In a way, I’m slightly disappointed we didn’t get more development from the people who were a part of Terminus. If it really was once a sanctuary but then turned into a slaughter-house, that’s a story I would’ve liked to know more about. But this does put the show where it’s most comfortable, on the road with all sort of unknown dangers lurking around every corner. And the whole gang (minus Beth) are back, assuming they’re headed to Washington D.C. so the scientist can spill his knowledge on the zombie-virus that everyone’s infected with. It’s just episode one into the new season, but I’m already excited for things to come.