The Walking Dead S5E16: Conquer
Original Airdate: March 29, 2015
Recap by Sarabeth Pollock
It’s the last episode of Season 5, fellow Walkers! Who will live, and who will die tonight?
Morgan wakes up in the back of a burned out car in the woods. He smiles when he sees the rabbit’s foot dangling from the rear-view mirror. He makes breakfast. Suddenly a man pops out of the woods with a gun pointed at Morgan and he sits on a rock. Morgan asks what the W on the man’s forehead is for. The man says that the original settlement of native people wore wolf heads until they defeated the invaders. Morgan laughs and says that all will return to normal. The W man laughs and says it’s nice to talk. His group invades camps and takes over other groups. He misses movies. He tells Morgan to put his coffee cup down because he wants it, and he wants Morgan, too, but Morgan won’t be alive. Morgan smiles at him and says that he won’t allow the man to take him away. He won’t allow it. Suddenly another man jumps out of the bushes and Morgan takes him out with a stick. Morgan tells them to go, but they keep coming at him so he takes them out with a stick. The gun, evidently, was empty. Morgan puts the men in the back of the car and honks the horn. He grabs the rabbit’s foot and takes off.
Yay, Morgan is back!!
Daryl flies down the road on his motorcycle. Aaron follows behind him. They stop off the road and head into the woods.
Rick wakes up. His face has been tended to and he’s in a room on a mattress on the ground. Michonne asks why he’s laughing. He says that it’s like the train car, that after the whole situation he is still there. Michonne explains that Deanna wanted him to be there. Rosita cleaned him up, and Carl visited. She asks him what he’s doing. He stays silent. She says that they have Pete in another house. Rick says that he had to act quickly, and that he didn’t tell her about the gun because she wanted to be there. “Well, we’re here,” he says. Glenn and Carol arrive with Abraham. They want to know where he got the gun. Carol says it was stupid and wants to know why he did it. Glenn says that Deanna is having a meeting about his fate. Carol tells Rick to tell them a story about taking the gun to make sure Jesse was ok. Carol says they’re children and they like stories. Rick has a plan to take out the group if things go south at the meeting. Glenn wants to know if Rick wanted to be there, and he confesses that he didn’t. He tells them to leave so he can sleep.
Maggie goes to meet with Deanna to find out what is going on at the meeting. She says that Rick was invited in with everyone else. Deanna says that Rick had a gun and he pointed it at them, and even though Michonne stopped him, they don’t know what he would have done. Deanna says that she will do what’s necessary. Maggie leaves, and Reg goes after her and tells her that the cavemen were a tribe and they came together when they stopped casting people out. He’s going to talk to Deanna and explain that to her.
Sasha patrols the wall and carries bodies away from the fence. She has a huge grave for the bodies and she’s keeping house. She stumbles into the grave and ends up lying down with the corpses, closing her eyes.
Daryl says that someone came through the path earlier. Daryl wants to know about the people who had been sent away from Alexandria before. Davidson was their leader, two men and a woman. He brought them in and eventually had to cast them out with a day’s worth of food. Aaron can’t make that mistake again.
Carol wakes Rick up and tells him that it’s good what happened. She thinks that he did a good job of making a scene. She hands him a gun and says that she didn’t tell Glenn and Michonne about the extra guns. When Rick says he doesn’t want to lie anymore, and he doesn’t want to take the place, she shakes her head at him. “Sunshine, you don’t get both.”
Carol has gotten really dark lately, hasn’t she?
Daryl and Aaron watch a man in a red coat as he walks through a field.
Rick goes outside and walks past three men who greet him. He passes Deanna’s house and gives her a look.
Glenn is sitting on the porch when Maggie arrives. Nicholas is watching them from around the corner. She tells Glenn that she talked to Deanna and she’s going to talk to people to get them to see the truth. Glenn tells her that he loves her, and she reassures him that they will work everything out. Glenn looks up to see Nicholas scaling the wall.
Gabriel is off for a walk outside the walls. He has God to protect him and he doesn’t need a gun.
Rick returns to his house and sees Carl. Carl wants to know if this is home, and Rick says it is, but he doesn’t want Carl there because he might have to kill someone. Carl says he has to make these people hear what Rick has to say. He has to make them listen.
Aaron and Daryl scout the town and don’t find the man in red. They find a group of Walkers in a fence. Aaron says they’re fifty miles from home and there are bad people out. Daryl says that’s all the more reason to find the good ones. Aaron agrees but says they will need help and they’ll need food to feed the newcomers. They kill the Walkers in the fenced-in area and approach the warehouse. Aaron pries an Alaska license plate from a truck and says that the man in got away, but finding the cans was a good thing. Suddenly the trucks open up and they’re full of Walkers with Ws carved into their foreheads. Daryl and Aaron are quickly surrounded by Walkers, and they flee to a nearby car, where they are engulfed by Walkers.
Who put the Walkers in the truck!?
Daryl and Aaron are stuck in the car. Aaron finds a note: “Trap. Bad people are coming. Stay away.” Aw, crap.
There’s a knock at the door and Pete answers it. It’s Carol. She says that he needs to check on Tara, and he tells her to get out. Carol pulls out a knife and says she could kill him and she could tell people he tried to hurt her. Everyone would believe it. “Come at me,” she taunts. He holds his ground. She says he has a chance. He’s here, his wife is ok. “You’re a small, weak nothing.” She says that he might not have to die. She hands him a dish of food and she tells him that she wants her dish back clean when he’s done. She leaves, and he drops the dish and yells that it isn’t his house.
Glenn follows Nicholas into the woods. As he’s looking around, he’s shot in the shoulder. Nicholas runs out and looks around to see that no one followed him.
Rick goes to Jesse’s house. He sees her black eye and she assures him that he didn’t do it. Jesse says that people shouldn’t see them talking, but she does tell him that he was right. Across the way, Pete watches furiously from his prison house.
The van is still surrounded and Daryl laughs to himself. He says he came out because he felt closed up back in Alexandria and now he’s stuck in a car. Aaron says he was trying to fit in. Aaron had been watching Daryl and how he led the group to safety. That’s how he knew that the group needed to come with him. Daryl says he’s going to make a break for it and lead them away from the van. He lights a cigarette. Aaron says that they will fight together. They have to. They’re about to go when one of the Walkers is stabbed. Aaron and Daryl jump out to find Morgan outside. Once they’re safely on the other side of the gate, Aaron tells Morgan that they have a compound and he’d be welcome there. They need to leave because that was a trap and the others will no doubt be on the way. Daryl asks why he saved them and Morgan says all life is precious. Morgan says he’s on his way somewhere but he’s lost. He hands Daryl a map—and it’s the one from the church. Daryl sees Abraham’s message to Rick and stares at Morgan in awe.
Gabriel walks down the road, whistling. He finds a Walker and says he’s ready…. Gabriel holds out his hands as the Walker approaches. He decapitates the Walker with the noose around its neck and smashes its head. He then kills the Walker on the ground nearby. He breaks down into tears and cries on the ground.
Abraham arrives at the infirmary and Rosita says that Eugene is asleep at Tara’s bedside. He creeps to the bed and she knocks over a pan to wake up Eugene, who looks at Abraham and says “good afternoon.” Eugene looks at Tara and says that she saved his life. She also got him thinking about how Eugene’s lie spurred Abraham into action and put his talent into motion. That’s what saved them. He thanks Abraham for saving them. Abraham apologizes for almost killing him. “Yes, there’s that.”
Spencer welcomes Gabriel back and asks him if he can talk to him later. He needs to talk about Aidan’s death. He needs to rush off to the meeting, and he asks Gabriel to close the gate. Gabriel nods and shuts it carelessly, leaving it open.
In the woods, Nicholas kills a Walker and then Glenn jumps him. They fight, and then two Walkers rush up and it looks like they are on top of Glenn.
Michonne asks Rick if he’s ready for the meeting. He tells her that he, Carol and Daryl have guns from the armory. They lied to her because they didn’t know how she’d take it. Michonne says she hit him for his own good, not theirs. She says they don’t need weapons there, and that they can find a way there, and if they don’t, she’s still with them. She knows that something is about to happen, but Rick shouldn’t make something happen. She leaves Rick and he grabs a knife and his gun and hears voices in his head about how nightmares end. Rick looks out the window to see that the gate has been left open. He hurries outside and sees that there is fresh blood on the gate, with a trail of blood leading inside.
Rick runs along the wall.
Gabriel walks into the church and finds Sasha inside. She says she doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know what’s in her head and she asks for his help. “No,” he says.
The townspeople gather at the meeting. Deanna wants to start even though Maggie points out that Rick and Glenn aren’t there. Deanna wants to talk about how he has a gun he stole and pointed at people. Carol says she’s sure they can work this all out.
Nicholas is wandering in the woods.
Rick is out running between the houses.
Sasha says that she wants to die. Gabriel says she doesn’t deserve to live after what she did. He says that Bob was mutilated because of her sins. Tyreese died because of his sins. She screams and lunges at him.
Rick finds Walkers in the streets.
Michonne tells the group that they will learn to be like Rick if they’re lucky.
Sasha and Gabriel fight. The gun goes off.
Glenn tackles Nicholas and knocks him out.
Carol says that people like her are alive because of people like Rick and that although it was scary last night, they need him.
Rick kills the Walker with his bare hands.
Abraham gets up and says that Rick knows everything about the shit that’s out there, and then some. Deanna’s people don’t know anything.
The men who attacked Morgan bring the man in the red coat to the gates of their trap. They slit his throat and then watch as the Walkers line up at the fence.
Maggie tells the group about her father and how he respected Rick. Rick knows what he has to do. They’re all family now, and Rick was the one who started it. She tells the group that they will want to be a part of it, too. Deanna says that she would like to share something in the spirit of transparency. She says that Gabriel told her that the new group was dangerous and a day later the shit hits the fan. Jesse says that Gabriel isn’t there, and she asks if Deanna taped it. She says that Rick isn’t there either.
The two men use music to lure the Walkers back into the van.
Rick drops a Walker at Deanna’s feet. The group stares at him.
Glenn decides not to kill Nicholas.
Maggie finds Sasha with a gun pointed at Gabriel. He says his people died because of him.
Rick says that there were no guards at the gate. Spencer says he asked Gabriel to close it. Deanna sends him off to watch it. He tells everyone that the Dead and the Living will always try to get in because they’re inside. Rick says he isn’t going to kill anyone to save their lives. The people inside the walls need to change. They aren’t ready, and they have to be. Luck will run out. Pete runs in and screams that he isn’t one of them. He has a knife, and he slices Reg’s throat open. Abraham tackles him. Reg dies in Deanna’s arms. She looks at Rick and says “do it.” Rick shoots Pete without hesitation.
Of course, Rick looks up to see Morgan standing there with Daryl and Aaron. Morgan stares at Rick as Rick stares at Morgan in shock.
Michonne sheaths her sword.
The man in the red coat is now a Walker, and he’s wandering inside the trap. On the van is a message: “Wolves no fear.”
And that’s it, ladies and gentlemen. Tune in this summer for full Walking Dead coverage from San Diego Comic Con! See you in October!
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