Original subtitles

Thorne, I need to speak with you privately.

- Let's take a ride. - Yes, sir.

He told me everything, gave me the full briefing.

The Echelon Briefing?

The CRM will bring the world back.

Tell me you won't come after them.

No. Because we are coming for them.

We're gonna get the dossier.

He's gonna get the Echelon Briefing

and find out everything that they do

that the city doesn't know about.

We're gonna help the city stop them.

I remember it all.

What it was like.

Who we were. Who we are now.

My name is Michonne.

I lost someone.

Years ago.

Both of them have something I believe the CRM

needs to become what it needs to be.

People are a resource.

I know how to build things,

and I know how to burn things,

but it takes more than that at the end of the world.

You tried to escape four times.

Why are you here?

There's someone you love out there.

Do you still love me?

Always.

It sounds simple, right?

We each go in. You get the briefing,

I get the dossier she left behind.

We bring what we know to the city, then go home.

Together.

It's never that simple.

I'm Sergeant Major Rick Grimes.

You probably think I'm dead.

He said I didn't need to be scared,

that it was just "the burning."

You're really here.

Yeah.

You gave them the debrief. Now tell me what happened.

Well, there was turbulence.

We-- We went low to get out of it.

- We were struck by lightning. - Yeah.

We were going down over water, and Bethune shoved me out.

She saved my life.

Not hers, mine.

So thank you for bringing her in.

No, you brought her in.

Why don't we just say it was Okafor?

That we were just keeping his thing going.

I used to think that giving up

meant a lack of character

and a-- a weak will.

But you and I, we gave up so much to be here.

And now I realize that giving up can be a sign of strength.

A commitment to something bigger than oneself.

Giving up made me understand what we're really doing here.

Hopefully, you will understand, too.

I want to.

I'm glad you made it, Rick.

You are needed.

It is up to us, but not like

Okafor said.

Okafor, he...

He was never really here, not in the way he should have been.

That's why he died.

But you lived. I lived.

We are meant to be a part of this.

It's time to let go of his bullshit.

Well, show me the other way.

Threat neutralized.

I'm gonna take a sweep of the perimeter.

He wants to talk to you.

Rick.

This is it.

I never had to do this.

I never had to do my six for citizenship because I--

I never really became a citizen.

The end of the world and the beginning of the world.

And we're the dead ones, Rick.

We're kind of like them.

But they only kill for food or out of compulsion.

Isn't that right? It is.

Our scientists haven't figured it out.

Maybe they never will.

But us, the other kind of dead ones,

we have this.

The sword that kills is the sword that gives life.

And that's us. We're the sword.

I have my aides and lieutenants leave me in solitude

the day before an operation.

I don't like distractions.

I alone decided the path ahead,

and I alone want to feel the weight of it.

I never interrupt that time.

But you are here.

After everything.

And I am humbled by that.

So, I'll share some time with you,

maybe even ask you to carry some of that weight.

Officer Stokes? Are you in there?

Put your gun on the table.

That prosthetic with the blade.

In front of me. Away from you.

I want you to reflect on your life.

On all your lives before and after.

All the before and afters.

All the things you did before this moment.

Because...

after this next moment,

everything will change.

What was the worst thing you did

to make sure someone else survived?

No!

Aah!

I killed someone with my teeth.

Like they do.

I'm sorry you had to do that.

Oh, you don't have to be.

Still, it's a damn thing, isn't it?

Yes. Yes, it is, sir.

You've made some extraordinary choices, Grimes.

I've given this briefing,

the Echelon Briefing, 2,533 times.

Just me and the elite soldier in question.

And the soldier in question

has never been someone like you.

Never.

This is the first.

It's the start of what's next.

And that couldn't be more appropriate for today.

A day completely about...

tomorrow.

I missed you so much.

Words can't even say it right.

You don't have to.

I know.

Are we crazy?

Certifiable.

I grew up in Pittsburgh.

The same day my alcoholic father broke my jaw,

I left home and landed a job at a VFW hall.

Barback.

I was 15.

And those men and women at the VFW,

they became my real parents.

They were who formed me.

So when I was 18, I signed up to fight.

I went to Vietnam.

Twice.

But there was a whole journey beyond that.

Fort Benning, officer training.

Then the journey led me back to Pennsylvania,

to its National Guard, and through its command,

thank God.

I went away.

I had to.

I could've let the world take me away.

But I came back...

like you.

Copy that, sir.

You said you saw what the federal forces

did at the beginning.

I did.

They bombed the cities.

Okafor said that they called it "clearing disease vectors."

"Vectors," yeah. Their word.

I made the decision to take them on ourselves.

Second Civil War fought on good Pennsylvania ground.

There were two fronts-- Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

And we were losing.

We couldn't sustain two theaters of battle.

In my hometown, we had an opportunity of terrain,

tactics, and a massive incoming dead mass

that the federal forces were unaware of.

So, uh, I evacuated our forces under the cover of night

and let the dead overwhelm their troops.

And that whole city.

I saved Philadelphia by sacrificing Pittsburgh.

My enemies, my friends...

my home.

It's not exactly tearing into a person with your canines,

but it's not nothing. Isn't that right?

No, it's not nothing, sir.

My dad taught me, for better or worse...

...sometimes things have to burn to bring things back.

It was that.

The sword that kills is the sword that gives life.

I killed my past and a whole city

so another could live.

Let me tell you the first secret, Grimes.

The first one that I share with each Frontliner

I've briefed.

The most likely outcome after all the fighting and killing,

all the plans and sacrifices, we lose.

Most likely outcome is that we're all gonna die.

The CEP overview will begin imminently.

This is a mandatory briefing.

Please sign for review.

Man #2: Heads up, everyone. Eyes front.

Man #3: One of the most sensitive aspects

to Operation N1W is the Child Evacuation Protocol.

So, we were born this way.

- Aah! - Aah!

Aah!

I guess so.

We've discovered million-strong dead masses out there.

Our modeling shows that non-necrotic human life--

people-- now have 14 or so years left on this planet.

Could be quicker.

And it isn't just the delts.

It's starvation-- the tenuous balance

between population and yield.

Disease, with a billion petri dishes

out there stumbling and cooking in the sun,

waiting to transmit God knows what to us

while it transforms into God knows what.

And in the end, the most likely outcome

is that this rock will be cluttered with corpses

to eventually rot into food for the trees.

And it all becomes a strange temporary museum

to an even stranger species that conquered it

and marked it for a blink of its existence.

This is why we do what we do.

What do you do, sir?

We're trying to beat the odds, Grimes.

Aah!

Man #3: Through CRM Frontliner embeds living in Portland

under false identities, we have, over years,

had operatives enmeshed in the Portland school system

to facilitate an evacuation of selected children.

The CRM destroys communities for resources,

for strategic superiority,

and to ensure the city's secrecy and security above all.

Once the operation on Portland begins,

children will be airlifted away from three school sites.

It will result in an evacuation of possibly 10% of the children

in the city before the area is gassed

and its population is liquidated.

We have embeds--spies--

in selected communities throughout the continent

and the world to monitor them, to potentially sabotage them,

to influence their politics and approaches.

Up until recently, we supplied test subjects

for scientific experiments to CRM-run labs.

Omaha didn't just die.

We destroyed it, along with its Campus Colony.

And in 18 hours, we will take our final action

to leave us as the supreme force on this continent,

maybe the world.

We will destroy Portland.

We tell the Civic Republic what the CRM does.

Like the bombing, whatever else they do.

If we don't, who will?

No one.

You don't leave people behind.

This is the shit we do.

In response to the loss of Portland,

our last alliance partner--

which we will report as another tragic, mysterious,

shocking incident-- the Civic Republic Military

will declare martial law on the city,

doing away with the Council.

Stakes are too high for freedom.

With the city under CRM control and our Alliance partners dead,

we will march across this country

and further eliminate any growing competition.

We will take their resources and ensure supremacy.

And maybe...

Maybe we get to survive.

Man #3: Bubble windows will be in blackout.

The children will not see or hear

what is happening to the city.

It is critical to remain even, to be steady,

to not give in to the trauma the children will experience--

or that the participating forces will experience.

We'll get back to the Civic Republic in Jadis's helicopter.

I'll fly us to jump points for the refuels they won't expect.

Anything changes on base, key the walkie.

I'll get back to you when I can.

If I can be gotten back to.

You expecting a call?

That was Thorne.

She went through this.

Thought it would be good to talk it out.

Man #3: Soldiers should put the children's focus

on the comfort items we'll furnish them with.

Avoid saying, "It's going to be okay."

Just say "they" will be okay.

Any one of them could prove to be the difference

in our civilization's survival.

We will, in many ways, scavenge...

After everything,

after all the escape attempts to right here, now...

I think that the next leader in the next decade,

that might be you.

After trying to get away so many times,

after so many years, you found yourself free, dead to us.

You could've gone wherever it was you wanted to go.

And you came back.

You've become a powerful story.

A powerful symbol, one the CRM

may need to tell to win the hearts of the people

who will see some of their freedoms delayed yet again.

I sacrificed. Okafor sacrificed.

I would expect the same for you.

But you said it-- you already have.

Who's the person closest to you who's died in all of this?

My son.

He's who I saved tearing out that man's throat.

But you couldn't save him in the end?

No.

What if I told you you would never have to suffer

that kind of loss again,

that wherever you were running to,

whoever you were running to...

you could keep them safe, you could bring them to us?

Family, friends, a lov-- I don't give a damn.

They will be spared from our march,

whenever we would have found them.

I'll take that chance.

I'm taking that chance on you.

Portland will die,

and this force will take over the Civic Republic.

We will begin our march on the countryside.

The Next World will begin,

and through that, somehow, some way, we will survive.

We will burn things to bring things back.

The sword that kills is the sword that brings life.

Swear on the sword.

Let me ask you a question, Grimes.

I'm just gonna ask it and look in your eyes.

Swear on the sword.

Don't let it take.

No.

Why did you come back?! Aah!

You were gone! You were dead!

You could've saved whoever you wanted to

and then saved the world. Why?

The world isn't gonna end!

It is! I'm trying to make sure we don't!

Goddamn Okafor!

I never lost my son.

I lost myself.

He brought me back. My wife brought me back.

We're the sword that kills.

We're the sword that gives life.

One life. One unstoppable life.

We're not dead.

Aah!

You are.

Thorne? It's Grimes, over.

Copy. Over.

I got the briefing. We'll talk later.

Beale went to the woods to be on his own

before the all-hands, over.

Do you want to meet now? Over.

No.

Beale gave me something to do already.

Over.

Damn it.

Got to do it.

Rick!

- We can't go home. - Not yet.

No. Do you know what they're gonna do?

I got the Echelon. How did you--

They have an entire tent of bombs out there.

They're evacuating the kids,

then it's a whole city of people, Rick.

This is happening now.

We can still get home, but not yet.

We have to stop them, because we can stop them.

Is this yours? Yeah.

What's in it?

What are you up to, Grimes?

How'd you come up with this?

Took some inspiration from the genius known as Nat.

You know, Beale said I could lead the CRM one day.

Shit.

Guess you were right.

You could do this all by yourself.

We could just go.

This is--

What we have to do.

What sort of world are we making for them

if we walk away from something like this?

You know...

I'm mad at the time I missed.

Not seeing our kids growing up.

I know we can't, but I just...

I think about that time and...

I just want to go back.

We are back.

And this is the shit we do.

Yes, it is.

Grimes?

All-hands briefing in 10. Squad assignments posted.

All-hands briefing in 10. Squad assignments posted.

...after final intelligence...

...Alpha, Bravo, Charlie...

...confirmed at squad level.

Confirmed at squad level.

This is it. Yeah.

This is the last we're apart.

I should be scared.

Just standing here, I should scared, but I'm not.

Because of you.

I forgot.

I have something for you.

But if I argue for her, they'll think I'm emotional, indebted.

You gotta make sure she stays.

I put my neck out for her. For you.

We need to take care of this.

She's not gone.

Hey!

Hands!

Hands!

Where's Beale?

I know you lied to me.

What did you do?

Rick.

Dana.

Thorne.

Take off your helmets.

Put your bag down.

You are going to turn around, you are going to go back inside,

and you are going to undo whatever you did.

And when I find Beale, you're going to regret this.

Keep going!

You're going to fix this.

It never died.

It won't stop. It can't stop.

This way!

Pull the flag down over us!

Just a little longer.

It breaks up quick.

Grimes!

There's Thorne.

She's got a mask.

I'll rush her. You get the other mask.

Why you?

- You got the sword. - We go?

We go.

You-- You destroyed our chance!

You destroyed the whole world!

You were the one he was always trying to get to.

How did you get to him?

I didn't give up.

I didn't give me up like you did!

Where is he?!

Where is he?!

Turn around.

You don't understand.

In a dead world, love is dead!

Love doesn't die.

Watch.

Love...

doesn't...

die!

Okafor was right.

He was right.

You just have to hope Beale was wrong.

Come on! Come on!

...N1W.

With the CRM's Frontliner force and the CRM Force Command--

including Major General Johnathan Beale--

all casualties of the incident connected

with the shocking revelations

regarding all their operations and activities,

the CRC voted unanimously for emergency oversight

over the remaining forces of the CRM.

Command hierarchies and layers of operational secrecy

indicate infantry and enhanced infantry units

were unaware of and did not participate in the atrocities

perpetrated by these highest levels of the CRM,

thus presenting hope for immediate reform.

And in another stunning, unanimous vote by the CRC,

overturning more than a decade of CRM guidance,

free movement has been established for the Republic.

Citizens are now free to leave at will,

and the city will now welcome new citizens,

as they may arrive.

A historic day to begin a new chapter for the Republic.

Shoto? It's Daito.

- Hi. - Hi.

Hi. Hi.

How are you doing? Oh, my. You're so big.

Hi there.

I knew it, Dad.

I knew you were still out there.

I just never wanted you to feel alone.

I thought I was.

Then I realized...

...I wasn't.

You got him back.

You told me to.

You're the brave man?

I am.

He is.

But maybe you can call me Dad.

I knew you'd come back.

How?

I believed.

We tell the Civic Republic

what the CRM does,

like the bombing, whatever else they do.

If we don't, who will?

No one.

At the start of this episode,

Rick and Michonne couldn't be closer,

and it's just everything coming together

towards a final reckoning.

What we need to do is find out

what the CRM have been doing,

and also destroy the information

that Jadis has by Alexandria.

So there are these two conflicting plot lines

that are happening simultaneously.

The world that we were finding ourselves in

has been hinted at.

We're talking five, six years

of leaving breadcrumbs

to see it all come together like this.

It's incredibly satisfying. It's crazy.

I saved Philadelphia

by sacrificing Pittsburgh.

My enemies, my friends,

my home.

Beale made his own sacrifice.

That, I think, instilled a real pragmatism to Beale,

to do what he had to do to bring the world back.

And this is where we find out

that one man's vision for the future

is despotic and wrong.

What they're about to do at Portland

is to pretty much gas everybody

and most of the children as well.

And it's born out of an idea

that happened in season two with Shane.

I'm sorry.

Basically, it's about pruning the weak.

This is the only way that you survive in this world.

It's not natural selection, it's artificial selection.

I think that the next leader

in the next decade, that might be you.

Beale detects that Rick can't go along with him

before Rick says anything.

We're not dead.

Agh!

You are.

The architect of this appalling dictatorship is dead.

There's a power vacuum now, and Thorne will take it.

Unless Rick deals with this thing.

And then also the front liners,

they have to get rid of this army of 3,000.

We can still get home, but not yet.

We have to stop them.

They both have the same instincts

in that last episode.

They're both, like,

right on par with each other.

If they look to the left or the right,

they're right next to each other.

They just have this compatibility,

and they both fit into this realm

where they are driven in the exact same way

and will go the exact same lengths

that most people would not go.

Hands!

Rick and Thorne

are kind of mirror images of each other.

They've had a similar journey,

but Thorne and Michonne are,

you know, even more mirror images

'cause Thorne gave up, Michonne never gave up.

In a dead world, love is dead.

Maybe in another life they would maybe have been friends.

But in terms of Michonne's state of mind,

Thorne is just a part of something

that Michonne wants removed.

These are two people that were separated by time

and space and circumstance

in a world where it's impossible to go a few miles

without experiencing danger.

And they found each other.

She knew, she said, "I just kept feeling

that you were still out there needing help, needing me."

And he was. That type of connection

that just never died between them is epic.

You're not stuck anywhere.

I'm not stuck either.

We can make this whole damn world ours if we want to.

What Danai and myself and Scott

and all the people involved in the writers room

wanted to do is to give a story that felt complete,

that was heightened,

that each episode felt like its own kind of film.

When I woke up in the hospital bed

all those years ago.

It's one continuous story

that began with a man waking up

three weeks into the apocalypse,

half dead, looking for his family.

And his family obviously became this apocalyptic family,

the people that they collect along the way.

And I wanted the reunion.

And then I love a "Shawshank Redemption" finish,

which is get them together, see the emotion,

and then pull away into a God's eye view.

That last image is the visual expression of them

making the whole world theirs if they want to.

And they did.

I knew it, Dad.

I knew you were still out there.