The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 6 "Consumed"

"Everything now consumes you." 

Flashback of what happened to Carol after Rick told her she had to leave the group back in season 4. She sits in her car crying. She yells at a zombie to go away and then drives off. She holes up in an old police station and lights a candle. She looks out the window and sees smoke. She drives to the prison and sees the destruction the Governor left. Now we see Carol and Tyreese burying Lizzie and Mika. Carol burning Karen and Dave's bodies at the prison. Now we see Carol as she leaves Terminus after helping Rick and the gang escape. She is walking away through the woods alone. She wipes off the zombie blood and grabs her things as smoke billows through the trees.

Daryl and Carol are in the car following the car with the crosses on the back windshield. Daryl tells Carol about what happened to Beth the night she was taken. Daryl wants to follow the other car and see what kind of people they are. They are heading north on I-85 towards Atlanta. They drive down the same highway that Rick rode his horse through in the pilot. The car stops, someone gets out (they are wearing a police uniform) they grab what looks like a bicycle and some other object. The man looks over to Daryl's car because a zombie is banging on the window. He gets back into his car and they drive away. Daryl's car is out of gas. Carol says she knows a place where they can stay until sun up. They break into the building as zombies make their way towards them.

They push furniture against the door and use the keys they got off of a dead body to make their way deeper into the building. Carol tells Daryl the place is temporary housing. We see a book titled "Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse" on a desk. Carol came with Sophia but never stayed. She offers to keep first watch while Daryl sleeps. He says the place is locked up tight so they can both sleep. She brings up the conversation they had a couple of episodes back where Daryl says they get to start over. She asks if he has started over. He says he is trying. He asks her what's on her mind and she says that they don't get to save people anymore. Then why is she here? She's trying. He asks her what she would have done if he hadn't shown up (when she was getting ready to leave two episodes back). They hear a noise and go to investigate. They see two zombies, one is a child, scratching at a door. Carol goes to kill them but Daryl tells her she doesn't have to. The next morning Carol wakes up to see smoke outside of the window. She goes outside and sees that Daryl is burning the bodies of the two zombies they found the previous night. He carries the child's wrapped body and places it in the fire. Carol thanks him.

Carol is packing her bag and we see she is still carrying the copy of Tom Sawyer that she was reading with Lizzie and Mika. They decide to find a tall building to see who is out there. Daryl sets a legal pad on fire to distract the zombies. They run up a parking garage into the building. We see someone in the garage following them. They stumble upon a camp site in the building. Walkers are trapped in their sleeping bags and tents. Daryl kills the walkers in sleeping bags but leave the tent walkers alone. They are still being followed by someone. They find an empty office. They look out the window into a desolate waste land that is now Atlanta. Carol asks, "How did we get here?" Daryl's response, "We just did." Carol wonders why he never asked her about what happened to the girls. He says he knows what happened, they're not there (it's obvious to him they died). Carol says it was worse than that. He looks at her and tells her, "The reason I said we needed to start over is because we gotta." He spots something out the window. He uses the scope on the rifle to look out and we see a van with the same crosses on the windows on a bridge. They are going to investigate it since it is their only lead. As they leave they encounter Noah who has Carol's gun (since she decided to push it out the door before she walks backwards out of it, rookie move, Carol). He tells Daryl to give him his crossbow. He orders them to back up and then takes their weapons, apologizes to them for stealing their stuff, rationalizes his actions by saying they look tough, and then slices open a zombie filled tent so he can get away. Daryl and Carol kill the zombies. Carol aims her hand gun at Noah but Daryl stops her from shooting. She says she was not going to kill Noah but rather was aiming for his leg. He says that Noah was just a kid and they can find more weapons. Carol says that she doesn't want to see him die, or Beth, or anyone at the church but she can't stand by and watch it happen. That is why she left. Daryl gets mad and says, "You ain't somewhere else. You're here. Tryin'." Carol responds, "You're not who you were and neither am I." She grabs his bag and the book about childhood abuse falls out of it.

They arrive at the van on the bridge. It looks like it's been there for awhile. They climb in the back to investigate. Zombies slowly make their way towards them. They look through papers trying to get clues as more zombies come towards them. Daryl finds the letters GH on a gurney and Carol says it might be Grady Memorial Hospital. As they get out of the van they are overrun by zombies. They climb back in, get in the seats, and fasten the seat belts. They lean forward and cause the van to go over the edge. They survive the fall. Several zombies fall on the top of the van. I guess they tried to follow their food source over the edge. Carol's arm is injured. They walk back towards the city.

Carol shows him her injury and says she has had worse. He says that was stupid. She mentions they are only three blocks away from the hospital. They are going to find a place nearby to see what they can see. They walk into a building and Daryl takes a machete from a zombie and uses it to kill it. They look out the window to the hospital. He says that earlier she mentioned that he is different now than how he was before. He asks her, "How was I?" She says, "It's like you were a kid. Now you are a man." He asks, "What about you?" She says that she and Sophia stayed at that shelter but went back home after a day and a half. She kept praying for something to happen. But she didn't do anything. Who she was with Ed got burned away (the image of fire used again in this episode) and she was happy about it. At the prison she got to be who she always wanted to be and should have been but that person was also burnt away. "Everything now consumes you." "Well hey, we ain't ashes" responds Daryl. They hear a sound and go to investigate. They find a zombie with one of Daryl's arrow through its throat. They find Noah pushing a large bookcase against a door. Daryl run at him and they fall. The bookcase falls on Noah. A zombie starts to make its way out of the door Noah was trying to barricade. Noah tells them he was trying to protects himself and that he wasn't following them. Daryl grabs a pack of cigarettes and lights one. Noah begs for their help but Daryl says they already helped him once so they won't be helping him again. Daryl walks away but Carol wants to help. Daryl says they almost died because of him and walks away. The zombie makes it through the door and is on top of Noah when an arrow slices through its head. Daryl wasn't going to let Noah died. He just wanted Carol to decide that she wanted to help. The arrow was already making its way to the zombie as Carol turned one last time to get Daryl to help Noah.

Daryl and Carol lift the bookcase off of Noah and he thanks them. Daryl asks if Carol is okay and she says, "I'm still here." Noah keeps saying they are going to come. He says the people at the hospital are going to come looking for him. Daryl asks if he has seen a blond girl and Noah tells him he knows Beth and that she helped him escape but she is still at the hospital. Carol says they are coming. Noah leads them to another wing. Carol walks out the door and is hit by a car driven by the hospital police. Daryl wants to get her but Noah stops him. He tells him that the hospital has a doctor and medicine and that they can help her. Noah says they can get her back. Daryl asks what is it going to take. Noah responds they have a lot of guns and people. Daryl says, "So do we." Daryl starts another fire to distract some zombies. The two of them make their way to a large truck and drive away back to the church. So now we know for sure that Noah is the one in the woods with Daryl.

Compare how much Atlanta has deteriorated since the pilot. Welcome to Deadlanta.

Final thoughts
- A lot of fire/smoke in this episode. The imagery is used several times throughout. Yvette Nicole Brown mentioned on the Talking Dead how Carol sees a lot of the fire and Daryl lights a lot of fires. Fire at the shelter, the legal pad, and the cigarette. Carol keeps mentioning that several versions of herself have burnt away. Daryl says that they are not ashes.
- Even now Daryl is still trying to deal with the abuse from his childhood. I think it is a good thing that he took that book. Maybe it will help him heal.
- "What are you waiting for and what are you fighting for? These real world challenges and mental challenges still exist. They always will in that world. I especially like the teetering of the van. I took that as very symbolic of the teetering of the mental states of these characters sort of teetering." from an interview with Melissa McBride for Entertainment Weekly.