The Walking Dead Recap Season 5 Premiere “No Sanctuary”: In Carol We Trust

The fate of Rick and his survivors is revealed as they battle to escape Terminus and receive support from a one-woman wrecking machine on the outside…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

The final eight episodes of The Walking Dead season 4 spent a great amount of time teasing a town called Terminus where all that arrive, survive. Signs were planted all along a railroad track nearby to the prison where Rick and his group of survivors had made a home for several months until the Governor resurfaced and tore the place apart before getting himself and everyone who followed him killed. Maps showed the way and the message was clear — if you make it to Terminus you’ll find sanctuary.

The closing moments of season 4 showed a much different story, however, as Rick and his group were all captured (minus Carol and Tyreese) by the people living in Terminus. As they tried to escape before being rounded up, they found Terminus to be a very scary place complete with a ‘worship’ room where candles stay lit and messages scrawled all over the walls to trust no one and the only people that matter are the ones who are already there. When Terminus leader Gareth put the final bolt on the train car where he locked Rick and the others, it appeared as if The Walking Dead season 5 would be at least a few episodes of psychological and physical torture being enacted on the group before they somehow made their escape.

Each season of The Walking Dead had actually managed to not have a whole lot of walking when it comes to the participants on the show, so it seemed as if Terminus would be home base for the first chunk of season 5, but in a somewhat pleasant surprise the entire town got blown to smithereens (for the most part) in the season debut on Sunday night. It was unexpected yet kind of welcomed as the series took a decided turn away from what was supposed to happen and almost got us back to square one with a few caveats still lingering overhead.

Overall, an extremely satisfying premiere and one of the best debuts in the history of The Walking Dead — action packed but not without the right layer of emotion. With that, let’s get into the recap.

The Genesis of Terminus

Before we get to the journey of Rick and his people escaping, let’s first talk about what precipitated Terminus becoming the place it is today. It seems Gareth and his people first built Terminus to be the safe haven it was always advertised to be, but when the wrong people started showing up and they got ousted, the motto of kill or be killed had to be adapted. It was better explained by Tasha Yar when she explained that at some point you have to decide if you’re the cattle or you’re the butcher. The original Termites opted to be the butchers and found a way to overrun their new warlords and took the town back for themselves. But by this point their humanity had been soiled following who knows how long being held captive, beaten and the women raped, so when Terminus was re-established there were a lot of new rules as well.

Us not them being the central theme.

So now when Gareth and his people find newbies trying to get adopted into Terminus, they opt for an approach where they capture, imprison and eventually line up in front of a trough where they bash their heads in with a baseball bat before slitting their throats. An awfully graphic, yet probably realistic, depiction of the atrocities that would be committed in this kind of world. The bodies are then chopped up and cooked for dinner. It seems all the rumors about this being a cannibal camp were true, although we never see anyone actually chowing down on a Man-wich, but it’s pretty clear what was happening inside the walls of Terminus.

It’s here that we are finally reunited with Rick, Glenn, Bob and Daryl after they are gassed and brought into the butcher room where they are supposed to be killed and chopped up into little bitty pieces and served up for dinner.

All About Timing

As Gareth ordered the bat and slash duo to off eight prisoners (because a big barbecue was in order I guess?), some gun shots were heard from outside before a huge explosion rocked the warehouse inside to the point where the walls shook. Gareth took off to see what the commotion was about and in the confusion no one bothered to notice Rick was sawing his way out of the rope tying his hands behind his back. Rick gets loose and kills the bat-man and his knife wielding partner before freeing Daryl, Bob and Glenn. They grab anything sharp not nailed to the table and head off into the bowels of Terminus looking for a way to escape.

The team makes it out into the yard where they find walkers have invaded the Terminus compound and what fortuitous timing so the survivors have a chance to take advantage and make a getaway during the mayhem. Before finding the card holding Maggie and the rest of the group, Glenn implores Rick to help the other ‘prisoners’ escape because that’s still ‘who we are’ but when Rick Rubin pops out of the first train car with some Charlie Manson type insignias scribbled on his head, it’s clear that was a bad idea. Rick finally wrangles a machine gun from one of the Termites as they battle back a horde of walkers, and he mows them down without a second thought.

Rick closed last season telling his team that the Termites were fucking (I’m not censored like TV) with the wrong people and he certainly backed up that ominous warning within 20 minutes of the opening credits.

The Cure

The rest of the survivors including Michonne, Carl, Abraham, Sasha, and Maggie are gearing up and waiting to ambush whoever might come near their train car in the middle of the ruckus that’s going on outside. In the midst of this battle, Sasha has finally had enough of Kenny Powers — excuse me, Eugene — claiming to have the cure to this whole zombie apocalypse madness and she wants some evidence. Not sure why this was the time to have that conversation, but hey, why the hell not.

Eugene talks in a lot of circles telling them that even if he did explain, they’d never be able to actually do what he can do, but he finally gets around to the point of explaining that he worked on the Human Genome project but what people didn’t know was at the same time the government was preparing a microbiotic war to combat the other scientific psychos doing the same thing. Fight fire with fire he said. Obviously something went horribly wrong, and now that black plague 2.0 has wiped out most of the population on Earth.

His secret is that he believes he can alter the genetic code used for the weapon ever so slightly and turn it around the other way — to kill the dead who don’t die and save the world once and for all (also one side note — Eugene already looks enough like Kenny Powers but adding in the Southern accent certainly isn’t helping matters much)

Abraham is ready to build a statue in Eugene’s honor already and Rosita doesn’t seem too far behind. Sasha looks skeptical and Michonne just wants to stab somebody cause Michonne stabs people.

Thankfully before Sasha decides to grill Maggie on how to milk a cow, Rick shows up guns blazing to help them all escape the hellhole that is Terminus.

On the way out, Rick tags Gareth with a shot in the shoulder — which means he lives, which means he will be back — and they all get out of Terminus over a fence and back into the woods.

In Carol We Trust

So how did Rick and his group end up with a distraction big enough to allow them to escape? What caused that explosion to disrupt the bat and slash gang from killing them all in the first place.

Carol ‘Freaking’ Peleteir — that’s how.

The savior of the day was one of the only people who hadn’t made it to Terminus already because Carol was playing house for at least a few days with Tyreese, baby Judith, Lizzie and Mika after escaping the prison. Unfortunately, Lizzie got a little kill crazy and had to smell the damn flowers and after suburban bliss was ruined, Carol packed up Tyreese and Judith and headed towards Terminus.

When they arrived at a cabin just outside Terminus town limits, Carol and Tyreese stumbled upon a witless soldier setting up fireworks while speaking to someone on a walkie talkie. Unfortunately for him he made reference to Michonne’s sword and Carl’s hat when talking to somebody on the other end of communications so Carol didn’t hesitate one bit to take him hostage, tie him up and go looking for answers of her own.

Tyreese, still traumatized from the whole Lizzie wanting to make them all into zombies thing, is shaken and can’t kill anymore. He only wants to take care of Judith so Carol leaves him behind as she scouts out Terminus to find a way in and track down her people. Their hostage, let’s just call him Mr. Detroit (he was wearing a Tigers hat after all and I know it wasn’t Eminem), decides to taunt Tyreese about how he’s a nice guy and that’s why he’ll die today.

Meanwhile, Carol gets to the Terminus city limits and decides to attack Rambo style to get her people out of there. She first covers herself in zombie much to walk through the hordes undetected and then fires at a propane tank first with a gun and then a bottle rocket to set off the explosion that caused the distraction that saved Rick and his boys. While the walkers all storm the camp after the explosion sounded, Carol makes her way into town to find whoever she can that’s still alive.

In the process she runs into Tasha Yar, who explains why Terminus is the town it is today because they took it back from murderers and rapists and now instead of offering a helping hand they just cook up the visitors and eat them as snacks. Carol shoots her in the leg before offering her up to some nearby walkers because why waste a bullet when you can just let the zombies do the work for you?

While Carol single handedly dismantles Terminus, Tyreese gets his strength to kill back after Mr. Detroit pops free and threatens to snap little Judith’s neck. It takes Tyreese a few minutes to dispatch of some walkers outside before he pummels Mr. Detroit into hamburger while saving Judith in the process.

Reunited and It Feels So Good

Outside of Terminus, Rick leads his people into the woods where he instructs them to get ready to head back and kill everybody that’s still roaming around. The people who built Terminus don’t deserve to live anymore, but Glenn talks him out of it. Something tells me he should have listened to Rick.

While the survivors regroup, Carol finally happens upon her former prison-mates and when Darryl spots her he nearly jumps out of his leather vest. He runs to hug her and after they embrace even Rick has to pull her close knowing that without Carol he’d be a red stain at the bottom of a steel trough right now. Carol has even more good news when she leads them back to the cabin and they find Tyreese holding baby Judith. The little girl has a touching moment back with her dad and brother as the smallest spark of hope get some tinder to hopefully burn new life into this tired bunch of survivors.

Rick and company head off into the woods but not before he alters the last sign pointing to Terminus while writing ‘No Sanctuary’ to keep anybody else wandering by as far away as possible (although the town is in ruins so not sure what’s left anyways).

Who Is that Masked Man?

Following the preview for next week’s episode, a masked man arrives on the train tracks in front of Rick’s ‘No Sanctuary’ sign. When the man removes his protective covering it’s revealed to be Morgan! He apparently found enough strength to get out of his compound in Atlanta and decided to find Rick and his group. He sees the sign Rick left and the markers nearby and he starts off to find a new home.

All in all, one of the most satisfying hours of The Walking Dead since the mid-season finale last year. Terminus was teased for months, revealed to be a horror pit of cannibalism and torture, and with less than one hour it was destroyed and up in flames. I can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed this episode and the complete switch from what most everybody thought was coming next. Of course, Gareth is still out there and he’s destined to appear again, but it was a great hour, an action packed hour, and definitely a thrilling debut for the show. Welcome back to The Walking Dead.

Small Bites

— Remember Sam? When Rick and Carol left the prison last year to go look for antibiotics, they ran into a couple living in a house together — Sam and Ana. Rick hands Sam his watch so they can gather up supplies and meet back at a certain time so they can all head back together. Unfortunately, Ana gets turned into a walker and we never see Sam alive again…until tonight!

He was the first poor bastard held up at Terminus who has his head bashed in and throat slit — you might have noticed he makes eye contact with Rick just before he gets killed. Also, when Carol is roaming through Terminus she finds a watch sitting on a table amongst a huge pile of valuables that had been stolen from the people being held captive. It was Rick’s watch that he gave to Sam and Sam had taken from him when he arrived at Terminus Similar Easter egg to the pocket watch Rick spotted last season when they first got to Terminus and he knew it was Glenn’s present from Hershel. Oh yeah and the actor who played Sam? Robin Lord Taylor aka The Penguin from ‘Gotham’

— For the comic book readers, did anyone else cringe when Glenn was tied up and the man behind him kept getting ready to smack him with a baseball bat? No spoilers for those of you that haven’t read the comics, but it was a memorable scene nearly duplicated although under much, much different circumstances.

— Where is Beth? The only person still unaccounted for at this point is Beth, although we know she survived at least based on the brief glimpse of her in the trailers that debuted before the season. She was the one person from the survivors who didn’t get mentioned in the premiere but given all the other action happening, it’s understandable that there was no time for an update on Beth.

Make sure to come back next Sunday for a new episode of The Walking Dead when Rick and his group happen upon a church and a rather interesting survivor….