The Book of Job is rumored to be the oldest book of the Bible. It was certainly written long before the idea that Yahweh is merciful and benevolent. The Walking Dead assumes that Yahweh either doesn't exist, or is the same callous deity Job worshipped. Father Gabriel's prayer, both at the beginning and at the end, is just window-dressing for a deity who has let the humans of the world die slowly in blood and pain. In a world run by a cruel god, what can anyone hope for?
Like Season 4's "The Grove", the episode starts with a montage that will happen during the course of the episode. The images, of grave digging, of faces of the dead, of burial, of blood on a picture, remind one of a "Previously, on the Walking Dead" bit plus Beth's funeral. And, despite showing Maggie having a breakdown to finish the last episode last December, this episode is completely without her. Glenn is her stand-in, somehow not spending a road trip with his grieving wife.
Ah, a road trip. The message of this show is that no trip is easy, every trip has repeated stops and deaths and problems. But Carol, via walkie-talkie to Rick, confirms that Team Carol has, indeed, traveled 500 miles without problems, via at least two cars. Rick, Tyrese, Michonne, Noah, and Glenn are today's scout team, approaching a gated community outside Richmond, Virginia. Noah was last there months ago. It was his home, and he claims the place has walls and is secure and might be a good place for Carol's group to immigrate to. Noah is still reeling from Beth's senseless death in Atlanta, repeating that she meant to come with him, get him home. No one has much comfort for him. After all, he's about to arrive home and see his family.
Before we can see the scout team actually scout, we have to listen to Tyrese unload some of his childhood memories on Noah. Which, really, should have been the tip off that he is Job. Especially after the nugget of memory he shares: his father expected him to listen to news broadcasts of the world's ugliness. All the way through. The goal was that Tyrese would be able to handle the evil of the world without losing his own soul. Like Job had to endure Satan destroying his family, his ranch, and his health. And, like Job, Tyrese will soon collapse in his own pile of ashes to be counseled.
We follow the scout team in minute detail for their trip from a concealed clearing in the woods to Shirewilt, which is a mixing up of the name of place in the graphic novel. It's obviously a stand-in for Wiltshire, right down to the abandoned homes with lots of supplies. And surprise zombies. Wiltshire was where Team Rick originally went after abandoning the quarry at the very beginning. There is no trip to the CDC in the graphic novel, only a temporary stay at Wiltshire that ends with a quick retreat. But, thinking about the arc of the first season and the show, the CDC is a good add and early substitute for Wiltshire. Team Rick needed to learn that the Zombiepocalypse was permanent. The government had no cure, could no longer work on a cure and wasn't even functioning enough to kill zombies anymore. At the CDC, Team Rick learned they were on their own. Permanently. In a world of the dead.
The present's scout team treks through woods, and sharp wire barriers, meant to tie up zombies long enough for humans to get through to safety. They arrive at Shirewilt's gate, and Glenn's peek over gets only a dejected look back at the team. Noah immediately races over the wall to see for himself, leading the others to do the same. It's an open air graveyard. Homes are burned out. Bodies lie in the street, in decay after being eaten. A few zombie stragglers wander around. The team quickly agrees to down the zombies, gather supplies, and get back on the road. Tyrese is responsible for making sure Noah doesn't get himself killed today.
Rick and Glenn will go back and forth comparing their grief. Glenn is still grieving Maggie's sister. He thought his life and family were coming back together, only to see them torn apart again. He's never been this apathetic. He's legitimately wondering what the point of survival is at this point. Rick is beating himself up for shooting Dawn, who shot Beth after Beth's really pitiful attempt to kill Dawn. Rick admits that Dawn looked like she immediately regretted shooting Beth, that he knew Beth's death was really more of a split-second defense gone horribly wrong. But he just can't get over the feeling that Dawn deserved to die. He felt it then, and he still feels it. Michonne wants them to get to work already.
Noah quickly realizes that he's been in limping distance from his own house the whole time, and leaps up to stumble into something stupid. Tyrese tries to remind Noah the first rule of surviving horror shows: don't go where you know there are zombies. But Noah doesn't stop until he's at his own front door. So, Tyrese accompanies him inside, where Noah covers the body of what was probably his mother, Tyrese takes it upon himself to walk right past the door with the active zombie so he can stare in wonder at a body that is no threat. This enables him to get lost in the pictures in the room, until said zombie manages to emerge and surprise Tyrese, chomping on his forearm before Tyrese can hammer it. It's a kid. Tyrese, despite his strength and endurance and amazing hammer, is killed by a kid zombie. Noah manages to quickly kill the kid with a model airplane, spending no time grieving at having to kill what was probably his own brother. Once Sasha's over her own grief, she's going to be so embarrassed.
Maybe it's embarrassment that sends Tyrese under the little kiddie desk for the rest of their stay in Shirewilt while Noah leaves to get cornered by zombies himself on the porch. And Noah picks the worst possible moment to need a rescue, just as Michonne is trying to pitch fixing the breach in the wall, cleaning the place up, and re-establishing a refuge for themselves. Glenn doesn't seem to care either way; Rick nixes it, correctly noting that the forest gives cover for anything that would want to attack them. And they, while surveying the damaged fencing, get an inkling of what did in Shirewilt. Someone managed to cut a lot of bodies in half, leaving lower bodies and severed arms. There are no torsos, and no heads. And they are scattered outside the fence. As if something was waiting for the few who managed to escape Shirewilt alive.
Their horror at wondering what, exactly, happened to Shirewilt, is interrupted by Noah screaming for help, cornered by zombies on his own front porch. Michonne actually has a weak moment, almost losing to a zombie before Glenn can assist, as Noah leads them inside to where Tyrese has been left to his own devices.
Oh, Tyrese. Was it easier to listen to radio broadcast after broadcast of the world's atrocities because they weren't happening in your life? Because, you somehow fulfilled your dad's dream of a son who could look into the abyss without blinking. How is it to try to face evil with compassion in a world where you are surrounded either by evil or uncaring danger? Baseball Cap Guy, with Sasha's gaping wound in his neck, appears first. Like one of Job's companions, he tries to convince Tyrese that his own compassion got him bit today. That, somewhere in the long chain of events, his not killing Baseball Cap Guy led to today's fun. We quickly hear that this is bulllshiiiitt, as we pan to Bob, good ol' Bob, sitting on the bed, with the window light framing him as a vision. Bob reminds Tyrese, and us, that he was bitten hours before Gareth kidnapped him for eating. The Hunters were going to chase them even if Tyrese had killed Baseball Cap Guy himself in that shack.
Baseball Cap Guy spends his time bleeding out onto the wall behind him, while Bob reassures Tyrese that Que Sera, Sera. But Tyrese isn't done re-visiting the evil in his own life; The Governor makes what will hopefully be his last appearance in the show, to remind Tyrese that he failed Phil. He promised Phil that he'd do whatever it took to stay in Woodbury. And Tyrese turns around and surrenders the town and evacuates the inhabitants to become Rick, Carol, and Hershel's newest members. He didn't pay the bill, and we start to hear zombie slurping sounds as Phil reaches for Tyrese, ostensibly to get his money. Instead, the Governor instantly becomes a blood-soaked zombie, with loudly snapping teeth, which Tyrese barely manages to down. The zombie collapses, dead over a chair, while Tyrese retreats back under the desk, blood spreading all over the carpet now. He's lost enough blood to hallucinate, which means he's been bitten long enough that the infection is already spreading within him. All while a radio in the room broadcasts tale after tale, via a polished British accent, of horrible war crimes and genocide.
His next visions are of Beth, stitches and all, who now has a guitar and is gently singing to him about letting go. About how his struggles are done. Beth is backed up by Lizzy and Mika, smiling together while telling Tyrese that things are better on the other side, and we realize, that the montage at the show's beginning is for Tyrese's end, not Beth's. We see the black blood on the house painting. Phil tries to make another appearance, and he almost succeeds in making Tyrese admit that he's not fit for this world, that because he spends his days finding compassion for everyone, he's weak and now he's paying for his weakness. Baseball Cap Guy backs Phil up, telling Tyrese that he should have killed the guy who was going to kill a baby. Bob repeats that everything happened as it should have. Beth, Lizzy and Mika just want Tyrese to know he's going to be okay, even dead.
It's vision-Beth who manages to hold on to Tyrese, comforting him and his bloody arm as we instantly cut to Rick and Glenn holding Tyrese's arm out, calling for Michonne to amputate, and the awful slicing through that leaves Tyrese in even more pain and blood loss. They barely have time to wrap the stump, while Rick supports Tyrese as they stumble along, just as the opening montage showed, through Shirewilt. Past old cars, to the front gate, where about ten zombies wait for them. Noah is now left to tend to Tyrese while Rick, Glenn and Michonne bring the obstacles to freedom down. One manages to sneak up on Noah, in slow motion while Noah is busy looking at Tyrese for no good reason except that maybe a zombie will sneak up on him now. Rick manages to shoot it's head out before it can attack, but leaving Shirewilt isn't the end. The team still must muddle back through the wire barrier in the woods, now with a 200 lb injured man. Rick and Glenn can barely move him, and his foot trapped in wire almost gets Glenn in trouble, but they do arrive back at the truck, with Rick calling Carol for assistance, like a paramedic calling ahead to the ER.
Before they can leave, they've got to get their van unstuck, which happens only so they can crash into the truck ahead of them, part of a long-abandoned accident. What should come pouring out, but those missing torsos and heads? Left unanswered, perhaps for the best, is how this happened, how the owner of that truck and body parts didn't make off with his booty, and why this was something somebody wanted to do anyway. Tyrese doesn't need answers anymore. His faith in compassion was answered by his friends coming back to save him at all costs, despite the dangers and despite the horrible odds of him surviving more than a few minutes. He's not the only person who can look into the abyss without falling in. And maybe that's what comforts him as he leans against the window in the van, seeing Bob in shot gun, Lizzy and Mika next to him in the back, and Beth driving. Perhaps Beth can drive without looking at the road once because she's a ghost. It doesn't matter. They're all so happy Tyrese is with them. Tyrese, maybe feeling that his battles are done, asks for someone, finally, to turn that radio off. He fades out in all the silence.
For a second, at Tyrese's funeral, we think we're going to see Bob again. But it's only his jacket, and we remember he gave it to Sasha. She holds it together, as Father Gabriel reads out that what we can see is only temporary. That permanence is reserved for what we cannot see. It certainly seems that life has nothing permanent now. As Michonne pointed out, they go from one horrific fight to another. They need something permanent, something to reward them at the end of the day. Something to build, instead of the constant traveling. For now, all anyone can hope for in this world is to die on his or her own terms. At least Tyrese got to.
Job, in the Bible, got all his shit back and a new family after enduring Yahweh's wager (literally) with Satan over Job's faithfulfulness. At the end of the book, Yahweh appears to tell Job and his friends, that Yahweh will do whatever he fucking wants because it's his universe and humanity is his bitch. There's no such grand plan in The Walking Dead. The zombies rule this world despite their complete apathy to anything they can't eat. Or maybe, because of it. Unlike Job, the Walking Dead's characters can't wait for Yahweh to scold them and then make things back to normal. They're stuck enduring.
A viewer, on the Talking Dead show, asked showrunner Greg Nicotero: with Tyrese dead, who will be the group's moral compass? Chris Hardwick stated that considering the fate of past moral compasses: Dale, Bob, Lori (such as she was), and Hershel, that no one should ever want that role. It was Chad Coleman, the actor playing Tyrese for two seasons, who decided that the group's moral center will now have to be the responsibility of them all. It's a nice sentiment, what Tyrese would have wanted, but it's bullshit. My money's on Michonne. After all, Rick's already decided that getting to Washington D.C., might give them the best chance of finding a true safe haven.
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