And by the way, I've LOVED this second half of the season. It was summed up perfectly by last night's "this is what we are" theme. This is not some random zombie movie where we watch the characters slowly get whittled down over the course of 120 minutes, with no more than a sentence or two for character development. We know who these characters are. We know their insides. We know who Carol is. We know who Tyrese is after he forgave Carol. We learned all about what drives Daryl and Beth. Hell, we even learned who Bob is.
For me the theme was more about "what do you want your life to be" or "what kind of person do you want to be"? Therefore the flashbacks were about how Rick's group tried to live more peacefully while they were at the prison. With Hershel's guidance Rick walked away from a darker and more dangerous path. Now he is back on this path. It isn't entirely his fault, but there was a huge contrast between "Prison"-Rick and the Rick who was fighting with Joe's group. When Rick killed Joe and the man who attacked Carl, he litarelly butchered them. To say "this is what we are" sounds almost like a justification. I think it was once more about the question of how human the survivors still are.
This! It was such a perfect analogy when Rick was explaining...set the snare along a trail already being used and then use the animals own momentum to trigger it. The minute he's done with his explanation you know that is exactly what Terminus is doing and that it's bad news bears.
‘The Walking Dead’ Hits Another Season Finale Record With 15.7M Viewers Andrew J, West, Alanna Masterson and Christian Serratos upped to series regulars
Maybe everyone is crazy at Terminus because they're cannibals. Upon death, people slowly turn to zombies and they're eating them. They're probably all sorts of messed up.
Seriously though, if this doesn't once & for all finish the notion that anybody promising safety is full of shit, then, we're never going to get there, & we need to. On a production note, we spent a lot of time at that prison. They even went back for some flashback stuff in the finale. It truly was a glorious location find, that they wanted to get as much mileage out of as possible Now look at Terminus. It's just a piece of shit building complex much like thousands of others. I'm wagering that by the time the S5 mid-season finale comes up, we will be finished with that shithole
So based on that, you'd assume Tara will make it past the season premiere. You never know though, they do like to surprise people, and that may be a little red herring. You'd also assume that we'll see Terminus for more than just one epsiode next season. The jailbreak won't be in the first episode. And to be fair, consider that the show hasn't even fully revealed that Terminus is full of cannibals yet (though the pile of bones was meant to be a hint/clue for viewers). They still have to establish that next season.
Yeah, they will use this plot for the 1st half of the season, revealing the cannibalism, maybe some deaths & nastiness, but by the end of the 1st half, it will be rubble. lol
And there it is, the real story of The Walking Dead, Rick Grimes bumbling around the Zombie Apocalypse and leaving every group or community he comes in contact with utterly destroyed by his passing. The man's a force of nature. I'm guessing Beth already is or will be cannibal chow, which will lead to Spoiler: Comic spoiler Maggie's failed suicide attempt early next season.
So about Beth, I'm now wondering if she was taken by someone other than a Termite. Consider that these Termites seem to be trappers rather than hunters. At least from what little we've seen of them so far. These people lay traps for people, and just snatch them as they walk into their web. That seems so much easier than going out and actively hunting for people. Hell, if they really were hunters, they'd be eating a lot more deer than people. I suppose it's still possible that they go out and grab people, but that seemed like an awful lot of trouble to get Daryl and Beth in the funeral home. And if they were the ones keeping the funeral home clean, then why would they want to send a horde of zombies inside after Daryl and Beth? Wouldn't it be awesome if Beth had to be the big action hero to save everyone at Terminus? That would be a huge change for her character.
This makes a lot of sense. Spoiler: another comics storyline Perhaps Beth was taken by Father Gabriel from the comics. And I can see the writers making him less benign than in the comics. Perhaps a preacher with his own cult and Beth is converted.
I can't believe the Terminus leader is being made a series regular. This feels like a story that shouldn't take that long. They're going to eat them, after all. They should get rescued by the free guys in the opener and that's about it...
Yeah, that probably doesn't speak well to the pace of the next season if the Terminus storyline is going to take long enough to make their leader a regular. I had hoped this story would take a few episodes before moving on to the trek to DC. It brings up the question of how long could the Termjnus people contain our groups, or not just find them more trouble than they're worth and just kill them. Also how much character interaction can we get with them contained in such manner? Particularly between the new characters and the old? I guess right now we're only assuming they're the cannibals. On the question of why they went cannibal, if I understand correctly from the comics it was just easier for them to lure in and trap humans and harvest the meat than it was for animals. Not to mention more plentiful meat you can lure right to you. On why so soon? Consider the infamous Donner Party went cannibal pretty quickly when traditional sources of meat weren't as easy to get to as the guy sitting right next to you. Considering the harshness of TWD world, seems to me the choice would be quick for some to make. I also suspect that if you kill the person with head shot you wouldn't need to worry about reanimation tainting the meat. (Everyone is already infected anyway.)
IIRC, JMS once explained a SAG rule in one of his posts, that if an Actor is offered 50% of the episodes (They don't necesarily need to actually appear in a full half, as long as the Contract offers them half), they must get the Perks, etc of a Regular, which includes not being listed as Guest Starring. [This is from memory, so, I may have some of that mixed up. Does anyone recall this that can posts the verified facts?] Not sure if these half Seasons these days are contracted separately, or if it's done for the full 16 in one shot (With their pension for killing anyone at any time and wanting to keep it quiet until airing, I'd imagine each half is contracted separately) So, a Regular, could possibly mean as few as 4 episodes.
The Governor was a regular for season 4, and he only appeared in four episodes, which included his laying on the ground dead for the first episode of the second half of the season. It's more paying you to be available, not necessarily appear.
<<I guess right now we're only assuming they're the cannibals.>> I feel like I'm the only one who saw this When Rick and company are running through the buildings, they run right past a massive pile of skeletons with the meat stripped off them. It's in a big open fenced area in the foreground while they're running the background behind it.
While that would be a gruesome shock to start the season (assuming season 5 is supposed to be darker than ever before), I think Beth is the "beacon" that will lead our heroes to the next chapter of the series. It would too much of a cheap shock to do that to her. Clear thinking. Yes, they would not damage such a well maintained place just to trap or smoke out two victims. I think Terminus is not connected to the funeral home (and the kidnapper-mobile) whatsoever. I would LOVE that! Imagine Beth convincing her kidnapper's group to find Daryl, only to run into Tyreese, Carol and Judith--already spying on Terminus and learning their family is being held. From there, chaos flattens Terminus, but the group end up facing something else among their rescue party.
That would stretch credulity just a tad. Daryl's a good teacher, but 3 days with him in a cabin isn't going to transform someone to that degree. I'm thinking Tyrese and Carol are a bit better suited for the physical aspect of rescue duty.