Original subtitles

[Rick] I tried.

Please know I tried.

[newscaster on TV] ...the city's outer walls

falling to incursion, to countermeasures,

to six-hour periods of neighborhoods falling,

to the whole of the city.

There were two incursion points, two collapses,

or possible detonations,

which effectively trapped the city's population.

It appears that one building, where hundreds of people gathered,

was last to fall, and CRM intelligence states that,

though its doors held,

something occurred inside the building itself,

leading to some initial deaths, reanimations, and the whole...

[scoffs]

[sighs]

[♪ theme music playing]

[choppers roaring]

[man 1 over radio] Consignee Grimes is tethered. Inbound.

[woman over PA system] Consignees,

the Civic Republic Military thanks you

for signing up for this voluntary assignment.

This is a level-three hazardous event.

Eliminating the advance of ignited delts,

you are protecting crops and food stores

for over 200,000 people.

You are now speeding up your path to citizenship.

[man 2 over radio] Base, this is Alpha.

All consignees are in place, ready to execute.

[man 3 over radio] Copy. Execute clearing protocol.

Go, consignees!

[walkers growling]

[Rick grunts]

[man 4] Coming thick and fast over here!

[walkers growling]

[man 4] Another one over here!

[man 5] Grimes. Grimes!

[Rick grunts]

-[man 5] Consignee Grimes! -Sorry. [pants]

Trying to find my axe.

[latch clicks]

[consignees shouting indistinctly]

[groaning]

[man 5] Consignee Grimes.

This is how.

This is how.

[yells]

[whimpering in pain]

[man 6] Consignee Grimes is breaking protocol.

[man 5] I've got eyes on him!

[walkers snarling]

[man 5] Consignee Grimes, stop where you are!

Consignee Grimes!

[man 5 grunts]

[panting]

[man 5 grunting in distance]

[walker snarling]

[Rick panting]

[groaning]

[shouts in pain]

[man 5] Where the hell are you?

Grimes, freeze!

[Taser cackling]

[man 6 over radio] Down to one, down to one. Close circle. No kill.

[shrieking]

-[Rick] Michonne! -[Michonne] Rick!

[Rick] Oh, shit.

[Michonne] Excuse me?

I mean...

You mean something else.

[sighs] I'm not from around here. I'm lost, and I'm late for work.

Do you know, uh,

cartography?

I don't. I just know where things are.

Um, that's where I need to be,

but I don't know where I am.

That way.

Pass the big blue building.

You'll get there.

I believe in you.

Do you mind if I just...

I don't mind.

I don't mean to interrupt your lunch.

You work around here?

I do.

You like it?

It's not where I want to be.

Are you where you want to be?

Yeah.

[chuckles]

[Rick] I always thought I would wait to tell you everything

when we were finally back together,

that it would just be a story on the porch

after the sun went down,

when we could barely see each other.

But I have to tell you now.

Not everything.

I can't face everything.

This is most of it, but all of it,

it was always about getting back to you.

What happened on the bridge, I didn't think I'd survive.

And I woke up

in a military hospital.

An army found me, a force of thousands,

protecting a working, hidden city of hundreds of thousands.

Security and secrecy above all, that's the army's code,

so no one can leave, ever.

The city governs itself,

completely separate from the military,

but it follows that one rule, that law from outside the walls.

The people they rescue, they work in the outskirts,

killing walkers for energy,

or growing food, or managing the water, the waste.

[walkers growling in distance]

[Rick] After six years of it, they get into the city,

away from the army, from the outskirts.

They're called consignees.

I was one of them, but I was never gonna go in.

I was gonna get away.

I was gonna get back to you. God damn it, I was.

[Rick grunts]

[man 1 over radio] Copy that...

[walker growling]

[Rick] God damn it.

[man 2] Could have used the other hand, huh?

I came down here because I spoke with Major General Beale.

-About me? -Yeah.

You are lucky you got a friend in high places.

You're my friend, huh?

[man 2] Rick, I lobby the head

of what is likely the most powerful military on the planet,

on your behalf.

I am possibly the best friend you ever had.

What happened to your forehead?

Someone like you happened.

Someone who may be better for my program.

You think that staying out here gives you a better chance at getting away.

It doesn't.

It just gives you another chance to die.

You may have noticed, I don't want to see that happen.

I'm going back to work.

-Rick, did you hear what I... -You don't have to do this anymore.

First time I tried,

the army didn't know what to do with me.

Because no one tries to escape. No one wants to.

Would they put me in jail? Kill me?

A Lieutenant Colonel named Okafor,

he convinced them to keep me a consignee,

and I kept trying to escape.

But I couldn't.

I couldn't get back to you.

I kept trying to get away,

so they put me on a leash when we went out into the world.

I couldn't get away. I couldn't get back to you.

I was trapped.

[walkers snarling]

[grunts]

[yells]

Okafor protected me because he said he saw something in me.

He wanted me to join his program,

to join their army, to use my life for them.

He put it this way.

I keep on telling you.

For people like us...

there's no escape for the living.

I left a uniform in your apartment.

It's time to accept things for what they are.

It cost your hand last time. Next time, it's your life.

Do something with it.

[Rick panting]

[radio chattering indistinctly]

[chopper hovering]

I should thank you instead of throwing glasses at you. [chuckles]

Why?

You showed me I can't get away.

[man chattering indistinctly]

[sighing]

[chuckles softly]

[grunts]

[birds chirping]

[man] Shit, man.

I heard about it, but damn.

You really did that shit for real, huh?

Hey, Esteban.

Yeah.

Can I touch it?

Nah, just playing. Jokes, man.

Okay, so, for two years, you didn't even talk to me.

Or anybody.

But I kept talking to you.

Took a while, but we got something now.

We got something, man, so...

That hidden city?

The only thing you probably see is, like, Alcatraz.

For us consignees, though, we see that good life, man.

You know, they got air-conditioning, man. Air-conditioning.

-I mean, no more swamp ass. You feel me? -[chuckles softly]

[sighs] I mean, look, Rick, it's a big day, man.

I'm telling you this shit because this is my last day working utilities.

As of tomorrow, I'm gonna be in there.

Deputy Manager of Water and Power of Ward Three.

After six long years, man,

my consignment is over.

I'm about to be inside the walls, bitch!

A citizen.

-I should have got you a gift. -Come on, Rick.

What the hell are you gonna get me? A scowl?

[both laugh]

-[sighs] -Thank you,

for whatever the hell this is.

Yeah, well...

It's life, man.

Hey, at least this Okafor dude's gonna stop trying to make you

into a soldier and shit.

For real?

Still?

I mean, even after you...

Shit, man, you might as well sign up just to get him off your back.

Then make your next move

when you're out scavenging for twine or some shit.

Hey, one thing I haven't told you, though.

I got a girl, man, on the inside.

She's a journalist.

Yeah, she was doing a story on, like, water management...

[voice fades]

[tags clinking]

[Okafor] Never seen you here before.

You joined.

[grunts]

I did.

This...

is millet.

Isn't exactly millet country,

but if I can find the right one...

-[man] Again! -.[Okafor] ...it could change things.

[all grunt]

[soldiers] Sir, yes, sir!

Is that your choice?

[chopper blades whirring]

[Okafor] Is this the end of it

and the start of something else?

It's the end.

And the start.

[blade swooshes]

[Okafor] Welcome to the CRM.

[Michonne] I thought you were late.

[both chuckle]

Yep. I am.

Uh, well, I can't be.

But...

I do eat here every day.

Around this time?

You're pretty eager, aren't you?

Maybe you are, too.

Oh...

I'm not.

Can I at least...

[pounding at door]

Coming.

-[pounding continues] -Coming!

[Okafor] Come on, Rick. Class is in session.

[walkers snarling]

[walker groans]

[female soldier] It was a soldier?

Yeah. He was.

I was gonna hold this in the briefing room, but...

for what we're going to talk about, that would be neither safe

nor appropriate.

What the hell is this?

[Okafor] You both have been training for a year.

You're both soldiers now, but you don't actually think

all of this was about you two just becoming soldiers?

It's about you two becoming leaders.

I am gonna help you become part of force command within the CRM.

I tried to escape four times.

I did this.

I tried to kill you.

[Okafor] Yes, but the two of you can help me

change things from the inside.

Sit.

You both possess something I believe the CRM needs

to become what it needs to be.

Why does it need to be anything else?

The city lives, it runs itself, the CRM runs the world outside.

Everything is working when nothing else has.

[Rick] People can't leave.

They're not free.

No one's free.

Not in this world. But we're alive.

You are, and you're not supposed to be.

The CRM designates people they find as A's and B's.

A's have a strength.

A's will die for what they believe in.

People follow A's.

The people we cross in the world, the few we bring in,

they're classified as B's.

Everyday people who are just trying to survive.

B's get in.

A's are sent away and killed,

except you two.

-Why? -Me.

The CRM needs to change.

The CRM needs strong leaders to change them.

Being the monster to...

fight the monsters.

That can't last.

And this is why I need the two of you.

All the other secrets you'll receive when you move up the ranks,

and you'll receive the Echelon Briefing.

Move up the ranks.

The Echelon Briefing?

That's when you get all the info, the whys,

the things 90% of our force doesn't know about

and 100% of our city doesn't.

[Rick] Do they want us to be leaders?

Do they even know about this? Here? Tonight?

Telling us about A's and B's and secret briefings?

[Okafor] No. This is just me.

I believe that A's who become soldiers, become leaders,

are the only thing that could possibly change the CRM.

Huh.

So, if we share with the higher-ups that you're saying these things...

Mmm-mmm. Don't say "we," Grimes.

If I'm an A,

if I think for myself,

why do you even think I'm gonna go along with all of this?

Because I believe if either one of you had a chance to save the world,

you would.

You'd have to.

That book, open it. Let's talk about the Cold War.

[Rick] He wanted to change things,

change the army without them even knowing it.

And he wanted my help to do it.

I'd play along, but it wasn't my fight.

Look here.

You're obviously looking at this different than I am.

I hear you throw this "we" shit around again, I'll end you.

Were you the one?

The one who cut him up here?

I shot at him, just missed.

Guess I didn't.

-You gonna shoot me, too, Thorne? -Hey.

I was in the South African Navy. Served on submarines.

Used to play poker on the subs.

I was good. No.

I was great.

I wanted to see how great.

They have the best tournaments in Las Vegas,

so I went there to try my luck.

I didn't play a single hand before the lights went out,

which tells me my luck is apparently shit.

He found me in the Atlantic Ocean.

I was half dead.

I tried to kill him so I could stay there.

It was my fourth time trying to get back since the start.

Or the end.

I know why you've done what you've done.

Trying to escape. Taking your hand off.

Same reason I had.

[radio chattering indistinctly]

There's someone you love out there.

Yeah.

I've accepted that I'm not gonna see my someone again,

because I know that person doesn't want me to die,

and that is probably why I just grazed Okafor's face.

Somewhere deep inside,

I knew I wasn't making it back to Cape Town alive.

If I shoot at you, Grimes, I won't miss.

I won't graze you, either.

I don't give a shit about what game you're playing.

You heard what he said should have happened to us.

This is all I have left.

The rest? The life before? It's all gone.

This is all you have left, too.

-The person you are trying to get... -Hey, she's not gone.

They're not gone.

She isn't. They aren't. We are.

If you want my help, just ask.

Come on.

Let's go have a drink before we kill each other.

[all chattering indistinctly]

[Rick] Early on, the army had found two other cities,

Portland and Omaha.

Not as big, not as sophisticated, and not keeping themselves secret.

All three cities became an alliance,

even though two don't know where the third is.

The world is so much bigger than we knew, Michonne,

so much better, and so much worse.

[man] Life surrounded by death, all in one view.

Isn't that right?

Major General Beale. [panting]

Yes, sir. It is.

Have a seat, Grimes.

Another thing we have over Portland and Omaha

in our alliance of three is, unlike them,

we're fairly well-hidden without much effort.

I saw what federal forces did to Atlanta.

They used napalm, sir.

Monsters. Worse than the delts.

But this force,

as the Pennsylvania National Guard, at the time,

we stopped them.

How, sir?

Sacrifice.

Luck.

Calm.

And Okafor.

Okafor, sir?

He was with their Air Force.

He was supposed to bomb the city, but instead,

he bombed 4,000 Marines staging at Lincoln Financial Field.

He switched sides.

Well, I did, too. In a way.

You and Thorne never would have been allowed into the CRM.

You wouldn't even have been let into consignment,

but Okafor made a compelling argument.

Let me ask you a question, Grimes.

I don't expect you to answer, and you don't have to.

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

Yes, sir.

Is Okafor up to anything I should know about?

[both] No.

No.

Good, Rick.

You asked me how we won, how we survived.

How did you survive?

Sacrifice.

You tried to escape four times.

Why are you here?

Do you want to kill? To die?

Or is all this just another attempt to escape?

Look in my eyes, sir.

You tell me.

I'm just gonna share the view with you for a while, Grimes.

[Rick] Everything was about secrets.

The army kept the city a secret at all costs.

Everything the army did was secret to the city.

And then there were the soldiers with those blood-red stripes,

keeping what they did a secret to the whole force.

Secrets on secrets.

And the only thing I cared about was holding onto mine.

Our latest modeling shows a tipping point.

There's a reckoning coming.

[panting]

[Okafor] And it's coming soon.

Maybe you're asking,

"Why can't you just turn away?"

Sometimes one person, sometimes two...

They have the power, they have a responsibility

to change everything.

You'll see it,

you'll face it,

and I know...

you'll make the right choice.

In that defining moment,

you'll make the right choice.

[people chattering indistinctly]

[Esteban] Oh, shit.

Rick Grimes.

Shit. Esteban Garcia.

Wait, is it Ward Three Deputy Water Manager Esteban Garcia?

Hey, hey, it's Ward Three Water Manager now, right?

Hey. Where's your consignment jacket?

And how the hell are you even here if it's not a furlough day?

Oh, shit.

You joined the CRM.

What the fuck?

The tunnel under this manhole,

I need you to tell me where it goes.

[sighs] Dude, I am senior level water and power now, okay?

-I can't just... -I have to keep trying.

I won't stop. I'm getting there. I'm getting home.

Or I'm dying. That's it.

Look, Rick, you know you're my guy, man,

but I can't tell you shit, all right?

Even if I did tell you shit,

you know, the shit I would tell you would definitely not be that...

this tunnel

would take you due east

to a junction about a mile out.

And if there happened to be a padlocked grate there,

I 100% wouldn't tell you

that the code to open it's 4-3-9-9.

And another thing I'd tell your ass is that...

Is that I get it, all right?

But you don't have to die, man.

So don't fucking die, okay?

[chopper blades whirring]

[man 1 over radio] Base, this is Black Hawk 3.

We have tally on Gen-Klor.

Wheels down in five.

[man 2] Copy, Black Hawk 3.

[Rick] After all the years of training and the talks with Okafor,

playing the good soldier,

-I found a way back to you. -[soldier] Go, go, go.

-[Rick] It was a faraway mission. -[man over radio] Breaching facility.

[Rick] A resource run to an abandoned chemical plant.

I got a walker body,

cut off its hand,

left it with my dog tags.

The corpse would burn.

There's no escape for the living,

so I had to make sure they thought I was dead.

[walkers snarling]

[grunting]

[walker growling]

-[screams] -No, no, no!

God damn it.

[exploding]

[walkers snarling]

Wait. Get back.

[walker snarling]

[blade plunging]

[gun firing]

[Thorne] I saw the whole thing.

Come on.

It's okay.

[man over radio] Copy. Resource extraction complete.

Tablets are loaded.

[panting]

Call it in.

Evacuee located.

A child.

-Escorting her to extraction point. -[man] Copy.

[girl] He killed my mommy.

He's a good man,

and we're from a good place.

And we are all gonna go back there.

All of us.

We can't be out here.

You said to ask for help. I'm asking.

I am helping you.

He would have found you, and whoever you're running to.

He knows about you, Grimes.

Now, come on.

Wake up.

You forgot to salute, soldier.

What the hell do you know about me?

[Okafor] "I think of the dead all the time."

Her name, back of the note,

your message in a bottle from escape number three.

I went to Rat Island

and found the bottle.

That was her on the phones?

Yeah. I looked through those, too.

The child, though, was your daughter, right?

[Okafor grunts]

Who fucking knows?

Michonne is an unusual name.

Not many people out there,

but if you start the search around where we picked you up...

That's potent information.

[grunts]

So, I suppose killing me helps your chances.

You know, maybe I shouldn't have told Thorne I know things about you,

but she tells me things.

[Rick grunts]

They would have sent me to find you,

clean up my mess, and finally erase you.

You are my charge.

I'm the one who'd have to kill you, and Michonne,

and anyone else you ran to out there.

Just knowing about...

I don't care why you're covered in blood,

why the bombs go out, and why they don't come back.

[Okafor] Yes, you do.

This isn't my city. Those aren't my people.

Everyone are your people. Everyone alive.

[Rick] This isn't everything!

You don't get to choose for the world!

You don't get to choose for me.

[Okafor] I don't. You did.

You made the choice.

My wife is my choice.

My daughter, my life is my choice.

You think I went what I went through,

did what I did,

to let anyone choose anything for me?

You made the choice.

You live for those people in that city

because you got nothing else but your duty.

Percentages and yields, A's and fucking B's.

Some goddamn good soldier

with nothing!

[grunts]

I lost everything!

I bombed Atlanta, and I bombed Los Angeles,

and I was en route to do the same to Philadelphia!

Estelle, a Marine named Estelle, that was my wife,

and she didn't want to go in

to liquidate all the people I didn't manage to liquidate.

We didn't want to see, Rick,

another city die for nothing!

And I had power and I had a choice.

And I killed my wife.

And 4,000 other people.

And we saved hundreds of thousands,

maybe the whole world, with her choice.

I tried with you, Rick.

I tried.

I'm sorry.

What are you apologizing for?

[gun clicks]

Just let me go.

No.

Do it.

Please.

I won't.

They're still with you.

But you fight here now.

You fight for them.

You already made the choice.

I'm moving you to Logistics with Thorne.

You're gonna help convert a college in the Cascades

to a forward-operating base over the next 12 months,

battle-ready for the Frontliners.

All top CRM commanders will convene a summit there

in one year to open the base.

You and Thorne will be project leads

on the conversion team.

This is you getting in.

This is the start of your path to the higher echelons of power.

I don't want power.

That's the thing.

You already have it.

[chopper blades whirring]

You have to see this. Look.

[newscaster on TV] ...scheduled rendezvous between alliance partners

Portland and the Civic Republic,

Major General Beale initiated a CRM reconnaissance mission

to ascertain the status of Omaha,

and they have learned that we are now an alliance of two.

The city of Omaha,

one of the three surviving cities on the continent, has fallen,

and with it, nearly 90,000 souls.

Initial survey shows

a collapsed section of the city's perimeter barrier.

In the coming weeks,

the CRM will investigate the collapse

to determine if this was pressure from a dead mass...

They should have seen it coming.

Omaha let people know where they were, and they died.

-You think people did this? -I don't know who did this.

I know the Civic Republic is alive and Omaha is dead.

I know that secrets work. I know this is the answer.

This is the place that will create the future,

and Portland needs to follow our lead.

[Thorne breathing heavily]

That girl that you saved,

those delts you killed at the manhole?

That was her mother and father.

They had lived in a museum.

Her group, they...

hunted, and grew mushrooms, built fences.

And then the girl said that, one day, the dead was inside,

and then everyone was dead.

Except her.

She hid in this giant sculpture.

Said it was a grasshopper with these sharp spines.

She crawled under there, and the delts...

The people she knew,

they tore themselves up trying to get to her.

She wound up covered in their blood and their organs.

After two days, when she couldn't take it anymore,

she finally stepped out to die.

They didn't attack her...

[sniffles] ...but she had nothing left, and nowhere to go.

So she just walked,

and tried not to make a noise so she could hide.

You, and me, and that girl...

We all want to be somewhere else with someone else,

but we got stuck in the right place.

We did.

And you are gonna see that someday.

I'm not sorry I stopped you.

I'm not sorry I saved your life,

even when you didn't want it to be saved.

You didn't save my life.

Yes, I did.

I wouldn't have missed, Grimes.

[Thorne sighs]

[glass shatters]

At least there's one more good man in this world. Hmm?

One more good man to try and save the world.

Whether he wants to or not.

[door closes]

[newscaster on TV] ...the city's outer walls falling

to incursion, to countermeasures,

to six-hour periods of neighborhoods falling,

to the whole of the city.

There were two incursion points, two collapses,

or possible detonations,

which effectively trapped the city's population.

It appears that one building, where hundreds of people gathered,

was last to fall, and CRM intelligence states that,

though its doors held,

something occurred inside the building itself,

leading to some initial deaths, reanimations, and the whole...

[scoffs]

[sighs]

I thought about ending it, just stopping it all.

But then...

Then it would just be nothing, wouldn't it?

All of it, for nothing.

I couldn't do it,

but I still decided to die.

I've been writing you letters the whole time,

reaching out, to feel something,

writing just to imagine you could read them.

This is my last one,

the last letter I write to you that you'll never see.

I love you.

I don't see the dead anymore,

or the ones I lost,

or the sun, the sky, or the water.

I don't see you anymore.

I just see what's ahead.

Metal rotors and gun oil and blood.

What I have to do, what I can do to help save the world,

even if you don't know I ever did that.

I love you so much.

I love you so, so much.

I tried. Please just know I tried.

I tried.

But I failed.

[footsteps approach]

[Rick] This is a pretty bold move,

but you said you believed in me.

So, if you want this bench to yourself,

I can take this large pizza

past the big blue building,

and eat it alone at my miserable desk at my miserable job.

I do believe in you.

And I do like pizza.

But shut up about your misery.

You're not stuck anywhere.

You said you're not where you want to be.

I'm not.

But I'm not stuck, either.

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

[chuckles]

What if I came here one day...

Mmm-hmm.

-...with five pizzas? -[chuckles]

And a wedding ring.

I think you should do that.

I think...

[Michonne] I believe in you.

I think...

[walkers snarling]

[Michonne] Rick!

[chopper blades whirring]

[Okafor] Thanks for taking us up the coast.

I like the way you fly.

Hard to tell if there's anything on your mind.

You rarely say shit these days, Rick.

I've been thinking about this night, when I was a kid.

Seven-years-old.

I was thirsty, couldn't sleep, so I went to get some water.

Old house,

squeaky floorboards, trying not to wake my family.

I was on the stairs,

and I saw a light in the kitchen.

It was orange.

The crops were burning.

I was so scared, I couldn't move.

Then my dad was there.

He looked like a monster.

Half his body was burnt,

but he was there to get me out.

He said I didn't need to be scared,

that it was just the burning,

that the flames were protecting the plants for the next harvest.

He said, "It may look like the end of the world,

"but it's only just the beginning."

He was so certain,

so steady, and he...

It made me calm.

I believed him.

Did he survive?

Yeah, he was okay.

And it was okay. We got a new barn, new house.

Next year, the harvest was the best it ever was.

Years later, after my dad died,

my mother told me...

that it wasn't lightning.

That he lit the fire.

That the farm was gonna fail.

And what he did saved it.

He saved us.

And... And it just rocked me.

I thought he was the most honest man I knew.

My mother said what he did wasn't right.

She said that the scars and the pain,

it just reminded him...

that he saved us.

I'm in.

[Okafor] It's been a good year.

I know you're the right thing for this force, Rick.

I know you're the right thing for this plan.

No more A's and B's.

No more Omahas.

I'm gonna be honest,

I still don't know how it's all gonna work out, so...

I'll tell you one more secret.

When you get to that point...

swear on the sword.

Don't hesitate.

You'll know.

Trust me, you'll know.

[chopper rumbles]

We're hit! Protocol three! Protocol three!

[man over radio] Protocol three, copy.

[alarms beeping]

[mumbling indistinctly]

[man over radio] Report!

Okafor, KIA.

Right seat down! Defending west!

[munition exploding]

We're taking fire!

Oh, God.

We're taking fire!

[missile whizzing]

[exploding]

Ten miles. Ten miles south of C-126, C-126.

We're going down.

Brace, brace, brace!

[grunting]

[crashes]

[soldiers groaning]

[door thuds]

Prepare to engage.

-Let's go! -[man 1 over radio] Force 6, three points.

Starting at left exit. Hit your PRBs.

[man 2] Copy.

[missile whizzing]

[exploding]

[Rick] Free fire to the line, now!

Move!

[missile whizzing]

[exploding]

[soldier 1] Move! [groans]

[soldier 2 choking]

[Rick grunts]

[sword thuds]

[gasping]

[♪ theme music playing]