The Walking Dead Season 5 episode 10 "Them"

We are the walking dead

Close up of Maggie's face.  She is crying.  She is sitting in the woods by herself.  A zombie approaches her but she doesn't move. It gets stuck on the tree behind and and she slowly gets up and stabs it in the head. She sits back down and cries.  Daryl is digging in the dirt. He pulls out a worm and eats it.  He is also by himself in the woods. Sasha walks through the woods following what looks like the trail of a dried stream. She sees dead frogs up ahead. Maggie and Daryl join her. She shakes her head no.  There is no water. They make their way to the road.  Maggie mentions it has been a day and a half and they haven't found water. Maggie asks how much longer do they have? Sasha says 60 miles.  Maggie wasn't talking about that. You can't survive very long in the Georgia heat without water.

The group walks down a deserted road. Some zombies follow them.  Rick and Daryl look back at the zombies and Rick says they will kill the zombies later, maybe when they get to high ground since they are not at their strongest. No use in wasting what little energy they have on killing zombies that are not an imminent threat. It's been three weeks since Atlanta. He tells Daryl he knows he lost something out there. Daryl responds that Judith is hungry. Rick says she is going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay. Daryl insists that they need water and food. Rick says it will rain sooner or later. Daryl heads out on his own. Carol goes with him even though he says he is fine on his own.

Carl gives Maggie a broken music box that he found. He thought she might like it. Gabriel pulls at his collar. He starts to tell Maggie about hair shirts. She interrupts him and tells him her dad used to be religious. She once was too. He offers to talk to her about losing her dad and Beth. He knows that she is in pain. She gets mad and tells him he doesn't know anything. He had a flock and didn't help them. He hid. "Don't act like that didn't happen." As they walk down the road more zombies appear. The sun beats down on them. Sasha tells Michonne they can kill the zombies. Michonne agrees with Rick. Sasha insists that she can take them. Michonne tells her that Tyreese was pissed too after losing Karen and it made him stupid. Sasha says she is not like him or ever was.

Carol and Daryl make their way through the woods. Carol suggests they go back. Daryl tells her she can go. Carol tells him that Beth saved her life. "She saved your life too right?" She gives him Beth's knife. "Were not dead. That's what you said. I know you. You have to let yourself feel it." She kisses him on the forehead and walks back to the road.

Rick stands by a bridge. He waits for a zombie to approach and the gang (who is lined up along the road) take turns pushing the zombies down the side of the road. Everything is going well until Sasha walks up to a zombie and stabs it in the head. The rest of the group go to help her before she is surrounded. Sasha almost stabs Michonne. Michonne tells her they need to get out of there. The group struggles to fight the zombies. Rick almost gets bitten but is saved by Daryl who walked out of the woods at that moment. As Sasha is killing one of the zombies she accidentally slashes Abraham's arm with her knife. Michonne gets mad at Sasha. "I told you to stop." she says. Sasha just gives her a dirty look in return.

Carl sees something on the road. It is a bunch of cars. Daryl goes back into the woods to by himself.Maggie looks through one of the cars. She grabs t he keys from the ignition and opens the trunk. Inside she finds a zombie of a woman that has been tied up. She looks like she was tied before she died. She appears to have been kidnapped. Maggie shuts the trunk lid and starts to walk away but comes back as the zombie thumps in the trunk. She tries to open the trunk again but the keys are stuck. She pulls out her gun to shoot the lock but Glenn stops her. He jiggles the keys and is able to open the trunk. He grabs his knife and kills the zombie. Maggie looks upset.

Daryl makes his way through the woods and comes upon the carcass of an animal. He looks to his left and sees a zombie that has been shot in the head. Thunder rumbles in the sky overhead.  Daryl joins the group on the side of the road. Abraham found a bottle of booze and drinks it even though it will make the dehydration worse. Eugene says he doesn't think things can get any worse. Rosita thinks things can definitely get worse.  Just then out of the woods come a pack of wild dogs ready to attack. Sasha shoots all of them before anyone else in the group can do anything. Rick collects some wood. Dog is what's for dinner tonight. Everyone sits around eating their dog. Noah stares at a bloody dog collar on the road. Noah tells Sasha that her brother tried to help him. He says he doesn't know if he is going to make it. Her reply, "Then you won't. Don't think. Just eat." You gotta do what you gotta do to survive. Gabriel takes his collar off and throws it in the fire.

As they walk down the road Glenn offers Maggie a drink. She rejects it. He wants her to talk to him. She never thought Beth was alive and after talking to Daryl and learning Beth had been with him she started to hope that Beth was alive. And then she found out on the same day that Beth was alive and then she wasn't. "Seeing her like that, made it feel like none of it was really there. Before this was just the dark part. I don't know if I want to fight it anymore." Glenn tells her she does want to fight. It is who she is. They have to keep fighting. She nods her head. He offers her the water again and she accepts it this time and has a drink. Sasha tells Abraham that drinking booze is going to make things worse. Abraham tells Sasha the way she is going she is going to make things worse. He tells her that she is with friends and she says they are not friends. Glenn offers Daryl some water but Daryl rejects it. Glenn tells him they can make it together. They can only make it together. Daryl goes off to look for water by himself again. As he walks through the woods he stumbles upon a barn. He sits on the ground nearby and pulls out a cigarette. He smokes and stares at the barn. He takes the cigarette and burns his hand with it. He lets the cigarette fall to the ground. He cries. He finally let himself feel the loss of Beth.

When Daryl rejoins the group Rick walks up to him and hands him a note that says, "From A Friend." It was left with some water bottles on the road. Rick does not anyone to drink it. Eugene says if it is a trap they are already in it and would like to think it is from a friend. Michonne thinks whoever left it might have put something in it. Eugene grabs a bottle and says it is quality assurance and goes to drink it but Abraham knocks it out of his hand. Rick says they can't. Rumbling thunder can be heard and then it begins to rain. They begin to laugh. They open up their mouths. Maggie and Daryl look sad. Sasha looks pissed. Gabriel says, "I'm sorry my Lord." They begin to fill their bottles and any containers that they have with water. A dark cloud with lightning is fast approaching. Daryl mentions the barn he found.

The group carefully enter the barn.  They check for zombies. Maggie finds a Bible on top of several books. In a stall she finds a zombie. She stabs it in the head as it crawls towards her. Carol notices the zombie had a gun. Maggie says the zombie should have used to to shoot herself. Carol points out that some people can't give up. Like them. Maggie doesn't respond. Rick, Glenn, Daryl, Michonne, and Carol sit around a small fire that they built. Carl sleeps nearby with Judith in his arms. Carol tells Rick that Carl will be just fine. Rick says he used to feel sorry for kids who had to grow up in the zombiepocalypse. But not now. He got it wrong. "Growing up is getting used to the world. This is easier for them." Michonne says this isn't the world. Glenn says it might be. Michonne says that that is giving up. Rick says this is their reality. "This is what we have to live with." When he was a kid he asked his grandfather if he had killed any Germans in the war but his grandfather refused to answer. When he asked if any Germans tried to kill him he got really quiet. "He said he was dead the minute he stepped into enemy territory. Everyday he woke and told himself, rest in peace. Now get up and go to war. And then after a few years of pretending he was dead he made it out alive. And that's the trick of it I think. We do what need to do and then we get to live. . . Because this is how we survive. We tell ourselves that we are the walking dead." Daryl finally speaks up.  He says, "We ain't them." Rick assures Daryl that they are not them. Daryl repeats, "We ain't them." and walks away.

Daryl walks to the front of the barn. The storm is howling outside. He looks out the door and sees a giant group of zombies headed their way. He closes the door but they are many.  Maggie looks up and sees Daryl pushing against the door and goes to help. Then Sasha sees and joins them. Eventually the rest of the group realizes what is going on and they all stand against the door to stop the zombies from coming in.

The next morning Maggie wakes up and looks straight at super cute Judith who is asleep in Rick's arms. She gets up and sees Daryl sitting by himself. She sits next to him and tells him he should get some sleep. "It's okay to rest now." They talk about how Tyreese was tough. Daryl says that Beth was also tough. She didn't know it but she was. He hands Maggie the music box that he fixed. Maggie thanks him and he lies down to sleep. She wakes Sasha up and they go outside. The storm had knocked down a bunch of trees that either killed or trapped the zombies. Sasha mentions the storm should have torn them apart.  Maggie and Sasha sit on a log and look at the sunrise. Sasha tells her that Noah told her he didn't think he could make it and that is how she feels. Maggie tells her she is going to make it, both of them will, and that's the hard part. Maggie opens the music box but it won't work. They laugh. Out of nowhere a man shows up. He tells them his name is Aaron. He says he is a friend. He wants to talk to the person in charge. Rick, right?  He has good news. The music box begins to play.

Final Thoughts
- I loved the speech that Rick gave about how they are the walking dead. The comic book is called the walking dead not because it refers to the zombies but because the survivors are the walking dead. This is the first time the characters and the writers are acknowledging that fact.
- Why didn't Daryl call out for help when he saw all the zombies coming towards the barn?
- The kidnapped zombie in the trunk of the car has got to be the saddest zombie in the history of zombies. First, she's kidnapped, then she dies, and finally she becomes a zombie? Talk about bad luck.
- I would not trust Aaron. He is too clean and knows too much. How does he know Rick's name? He is coming off like the people at Terminus.  Clean and friendly and then they eat you.