by Aitch Cee

**THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. STOP READING IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED YET**

For the first five minutes of last night’s mid-season premier I almost wasn’t sure of what show I was watching. Of course it wound up making sense at the end but this episode was probably one of the most heartbreaking in years.   It begins a bit disjointed and of course there is a burial and we are lead to believe that it’s all for Beth but…then it’s not. The way this was done was tranquil yet sad and then once the show begins, you almost see it coming but when the chips fall you almost can’t believe it.

To recap briefly, Rick, Michonne, Tyreese, Glen and Noah heads to Noah’s hometown in Richmond VA in hopes of finding a place to settle for a little while. What I did like about this episode was that with all of the debates about what to do next, it’s Michonne who breaks down by telling the group to push for Washington DC in hopes of finding not only answers but safety. It’s a bit different for Michonne who almost seemed content on just wandering and letting the chips fall where they may but eventually the strongest people tend to crack under pressure. But I am getting ahead of myself.   The group eventually makes it to Noah’s home area only to find it abandoned and destroyed; the inhabitants either dead or gone. Noah makes a run for his house and Tyrese stops him first to go check the house to spare Noah from the inevitable.

One Tyreese gives the ok for Noah to enter; they find Noah’s family dead or gone. Tyreese goes to check the rest of the house, gets distracted oddly by a picture and is bitten by a zombie that he somehow didn’t hear.   The rest of the episode works beautifully. To say that one’s life flashes before their eyes is an understatement. Tyreese has the hallucination of a lifetime as he sees everyone whose lives he touched (and taken) within recent times. Notably he didn’t hallucinate about Karen. He also during this time is tormented by the Terminus guy who threatened to kill Judith as well as the Governor and even as he slowly bleeds out, I am still rooting for him to live. I mean, come on Herschel made it, right?

This episode has a more introspective feel to it as if this story was to make viewers wonder, “What have you really done up to now?”, “Since you are close to death, do you really appreciate the life you have lived?” as well as “Are you really remorseful about the lives you took?”  Even when Rick and company come to rescue Tyreese you know that he somehow will make it…until at last you realize that funeral you saw at the beginning was for him.  At the end of all things I feel sorriest most for both Sasha and Maggie having lost so much in such a short time and it speaks volumes that they didn’t appear this episode. We will have to wait until next week to see how they react to another member taken from them too soon.