Walking Dead Recap S1E6: TS-19

The CDC looked like salvation. After some testing to make sure none was affected, the group got to forget for a time everything they’d lost. Little things taken forgranted for so long, like a hot shower or a glass of wine became the ultimate luxuries.

This storyline, greatly departed from the comics, but it really did a great job of stripping down every character’s emotions to the core, and created a greater bond within the group.

But the happiness could not last. Shane tries to reconnect with Lori, who wants nothing to do with him. He really did think Rick was dead. As the zombies closed in, and the military began to kill the patients, Shane protected Rick, but when he put his ear to his chest he heard nothing. Between the fear and the chaos, it was an honest mistake, but he did truly believe he’d lost Rick, and he truly felt that loss.

They soon learn that the doors are locked, and they cannot be reopened. In fact, Jenner had activated the CDC fail safes, and when he let them in, he knew the doors would never reopen once they closed. He was saving them, in his own way, because he hadn’t been able to save his wife.

She had been far more brilliant than he, and she’d run the CDC until she became infected. The group saw video of the electrical impulses of the brain as it changes over to zombie mode. She became Test Subject 19, and as he revealed that Andrea felt the loss of her sister all over. As the count down to the destruction of the entire facility continued, the others looked for a way to escape.

Andrea and Jacqui had no desire to make it out as the group looked for any way out. Luckily Carol had a grenade that Rick had on him when he first joined the camp. They used it to blow a hole out of the side of the CDC, but Dale refused to leave Andrea’s side, and ultimately his loyalty saved her. And as the CDC blew up only Jacqui and Jenner remained inside, thus ending the first season.

I’ve been pretty blown away by the level of acting and the high caliber of writing throughout the season. I expected action, but never the raw emotion that has been so beautifully done. And the fact that next season is so wide open is a definite plus. The writers have gone so far off the comics that they really open the story to a plethora of paths they can go down from here, and maybe even rebuild some of the lost hope.