The Walking Dead Judgment: On the Cross Roads of Terminus

Episode 413 opens with  a flashback of Bob dazed and destitute.

Bob Stookey’s isolation is palpable.  He blindly trusts then strangers Glen and Daryl because no fate could be worse than his lonely existence.

This opening sequence frames “Alone’s” theme. Each character’s judgment is shaped by previous experience and all are making the best decisions they can.

Bob’s lonely past prompts him to follow Maggie when she abandons him and Sasha in the middle of the episode. His empathy is a contrast to Daryl’s statement that good people did not survive.

After a failed tracking lesson, Daryl has to give injured Beth a piggy back. There is a sprawling mortuary in the distance, but he’s wary of an encounter with its occupants. He is skeptical that “good ones survive.”

An anonymous father’s grave reminds the two of Hershel and shows the situation is not entirely hopeless. Good people exist.

Daryl shows he is one of them when he refuses to loot the mortuary’s pantry. His tracking expertise tell him the owners may be back.

Daryl and Beth’s interdependence and friendship is clear, which is why Beth’s disappearance after a zombie attack is especially harrowing.

A car peels away from the scene of the attack, presumably with Beth inside. He desperately chases the car and collapses at a cross roads just off the tracks leading to Terminus.

There he is accosted by Joe and his gang. Daryl’s fate and potential gang affiliation remain uncertain.

Sasha shares Daryl’s skepticism when she, Bob, and Maggie first stumbled across signs for Terminus. She doubts Terminus’s “sanctuary” and cautions them against things that seem too good to be true.  She learned that lesson at Woodberry.

Sasha abandons hope in favor of survival and parts ways with Bob, who continues toward Terminus to find Maggie.

Ironically, Sasha finds Maggie. After another near death encounter with zombies and a heart-to-heart, the two agree to rejoin Bob and continue to Terminus.

The episode ends with Sasha, Maggie, and Bob’s happy reunion, and Glenn staring at the map to Terminus. Maggie’s earlier judgment that Glenn would go to Terminus seems correct. Hopefully he sees Maggie’s bloody message, “Glenn, go to Terminus – Maggie.”

The Walking Dead’s tension mounts with only three episodes of season four left and three factions of Rick’s group on the tracks to Terminus. Previews for episode 414 are grim.

Will they all make it? Which faction is least likely to survive? Will Daryl join Joe’s gang, or is he using his tracking savvy? Post your predictions in the comment section.

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