A

"A" is the sixteenth and final episode of Season 4 of AMC's The Walking Dead. It aired on March 30, 2014 at 9/8c on AMC, and on March 31, 2014 at 9pm on Fox.

Plot Synopsis
Rick is having a flashback about Hershel's instructions during a much happier time back at the Prison. In a flash-forward right afterwards, Rick is seen sitting outside by a car, his face and hands both bloody and trembling.

Rick, Carl and Michonne are camping out in the woods, sitting by a charming fire before going to check one of their recently installed snare traps for animals. They ultimately find a small rabbit and, after Rick thoroughly explains how it was caught to Carl, the latter hears a cry for help and takes off running further into the woods. Rick and Michonne must give chase. They all find a man in a big forest clearing and he is struggling to fend off a herd of walkers. Carl quickly raises his gun, but Rick stops him, seeing as though they are clearly outnumbered and it is too late for the man, as the walkers cave in, first ripping out his right eye. A few walkers then notice the three as they make an escape. Rick, Carl and Michonne then pass a railway crossing and fight a few walkers in the way before continuing their retreat. The group eventually finds an abandoned pick-up and settle on camping near it for the night.

Later, Rick and Michonne are discussing matters, while Carl is resting in the pick-up. All of a sudden, Joe and his group show up to ambush Rick and Michonne. Meanwhile, Carl is ambushed by Dan at the car. Tony immediately recognizes Rick and the group realizes that they have successfully found their man - he is none other than the one who killed Lou. After a tense countdown, Daryl appears and tries to put an end to the scene. Daryl says his piece, claiming that they are good people, but Joe responds by telling Daryl that Rick killed their friend. Joe snickers and calls Daryl a liar before making a call for the group to beat him to a pulp. Joe then informs Rick that they are going to beat Daryl to death, rape Carl, then Michonne, and finally solve everything by killing Rick.

While Dan starts trying to rape Carl, Rick does a backwards headbutt that hits Joe in the face, who was pointing the gun on him. Joe fires on reflex (and misses), which momentarily defeans Rick. Rick then punches Joe, who counters back with a punch of his own, knocking Rick to the ground. As Rick easily gets up, Joe locks Rick in place by grabbing him, pinning his arms and holding him still. Joe then asks, "What the hell are you gonna do now, sport?" Rick answers by biting into the villain's carotid artery, killing him. Michonne then takes advantage of the situation to kill Tony and Harley with gunshots to the head, as they looked on in horror when they saw their leader be murdered in the most cruel of fashions. Daryl then uses the pause to knock Billy to the ground and maliciously curb stomp him to death. With all of his group members dead, Dan is still holding Carl hostage and tells them to stay back or else he will not hesitate to kill Carl. Rick, his face splattered in blood, grabs hold of Joe's knife before marching right over to Dan and saying, "he's mine." Dan releases Carl and the man is so stunned by Rick's previous actions that he too freezes in terror, allowing Rick to stab him multiple times through the chest. After both witnessing and perceiving this, Carl narrows his eyes while he's in Michonne's embrace.

Catching up with the flash-forward, Daryl hands Rick a rag and washes it in water for Rick to clean himself up with. Daryl begins scolding himself for having even the slightest bit of trust and faith in his erstwhile comrades, but Rick says that it wasn't on him and that he is Rick's brother. After their eventual discovery of Terminus, the group then decides to momentarily split up and sneak inside, just in case Terminus isn't exactly the sanctuary that it's believed to be. Carl and Michonne then head off together, where they have a relatively bonding moment, with Carl saying that Rick thinks that he's proud of him, but feels that, because of all of the thoughts in his head, he doesn't deserve it and that he's just a "little monster". Meanwhile, Rick puts his Colt Python into a duffel bag full of guns and buries it in the woods outside Terminus as an apparent contingency (just if they happened to be escaping in that direction). The four then sneak inside through one of the fences, and they enter a room where a whole bunch of people are, including the characters Gareth, Alex, and a woman repeating the "sanctuary for all" line into a radio transmitter system. This is presumably the same radio station that Daryl, Michonne, Tyreese, and Bob heard while in the car on a medicine run much earlier in the season. Gareth has them put down their weapons and frisks them, welcoming them to Terminus and warning them not to try anything stupid as Alex shows them around.

While meeting Mary and being offered food, Rick takes notice of numerous items in the Terminus survivors' possession, such as Glenn's riot gear, Daryl's poncho that Maggie was wearing, the Hitchhiker's orange backpack (that Glenn took from the Prison) and even Hershel's distinctive pocketwatch. Realizing that something is up, he angrily slaps down a plate of food Alex is offering, grabs Alex and holds him at gunpoint, demanding to know where their people are and why their group has the pocket watch, riot gear and poncho. Alex lies and claims that he found the pocket watch on a dead policeman, and Gareth also covers for the lie, claiming that the riot gear was found on a dead cop and that the poncho on a clothesline.

Alex is then accidentally shot and killed by one of his own, which causes a large shootout, with Rick, Michonne, Carl and Daryl fleeing. They are being forced down an alley way that is riddled with bullets, indicating that the Terminus survivors have treated many other newcomers the same way. During the chase, the team briefly turns to his left as they are running and we see some decayed bodies scattered over a blue tarp in the background -- and muffled cries for help can be heard from nearby railway containers, which raises even more questions.....They soon make it to the back entrance of Terminus, but are outnumbered, as Terminus residents line up on the surrounding fences with guns that are aimed at them. Once again, Gareth orders the four of them to lower their own weapons. After this, Gareth calls them by specific codenames to walk towards the boxcar towards their right: Rick (Ringleader), Daryl (Archer), Michonne (Samurai) and Carl (the Kid) in that order. Inside, they end up finding Bob, Maggie, Sasha, Glenn, Tara, Abraham, Rosita, and Eugene. Abraham remarks that they won't be there for long, to which Rick remarks "No". He then walks over to an opening in the side of the train car and remarks. "They're gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out..." Abraham then questions Rick's assumption, to which Rick then responds with the very last line in the season: "...They're screwing with the wrong people."

Co-Stars

 * Keith Brooks as Dan.
 * JD Evermore as Harley.
 * Davi Jay as Tony.
 * Eric Mendenhall as Billy.
 * Irene Ziegler as "Broadcasting Woman".

Uncredited

 * Tinsley and Anniston Price as Judith Grimes.
 * Jilian McLendon as Chloe.
 * James Michael Keats as Henry.
 * Kyle Gallner as Zach.
 * Melissa Ponzio as Karen.
 * Adam Daniels as "Prison Survivor"
 * Anissa Matlock as "Terminus Resident".
 * Keith Matlock as "Terminus Resident".
 * Brialynn Massie as "Terminus Scientist".
 * Darien Johnson as Walker.
 * Unknown as Albert.

Viewership
Upon airing, the episode was watched by 15.68 million American viewers, and received an 18-49 rating of 8.0. This marks a rise in total viewers and ratings from the previous episode, which received an 18-49 rating of 6.7 and 13.47 million viewers. This rating represents the season finale high to date, but below the all-time high of the season 4 premiere episode. Overall, season 4's average viewership of 13.3 million viewers was an increase of 20% over season 3. This episode has the third-highest number of viewers following "30 Days Without An Accident" (16.11) and "After" (15.76)

Critical Reception
Forbes  stated, "This episode, directed masterfully by Michelle McLaren of Breaking Bad fame, puts The Walking Dead in an interesting place. The story line takes our heroes into a dark place—and what can be darker than a locked railroad car?"

The Wall Street Journal stated, "As far as cliffhangers go, “The Walking Dead” gets an “A”".

IGN's Roth Cornet rated the episode a "Great" 8.0, writing, "The Walking Dead Season 4 finale served as a response to a question Rick has been asking himself nearly since the start of the series: What kind of man am I? The answer, at least to some degree, is whatever kind of man the moment demands of him; which is exactly what he’d need to be in order to make a strong and viable leader in this world. While I do feel that the conclusion could have been stronger, this was one of the most well-directed and executed episodes of the latter half of this season."

The Daily Beast wrote: "“A” was a deftly executed game of suspense. Whatever half-answers we got about Terminus raised ten times more questions, luring us deeper...The episode was also unprecedentedly dark—even for this show."

On the other hand, TV.com wrote: "The Season 4 finale had the chance to be something great; instead, "A" was an okay middle-of-the-season installment but a pretty crummy season-ender".

Deaths

 * Unnamed Man
 * Joe
 * Tony
 * Harley
 * Billy
 * Dan
 * Alex

Trivia

 * First appearance of Gareth.
 * First appearance of Albert.
 * First (and last) appearance of Alex.
 * First (and last) appearance of the Unnamed Man.
 * Last appearance of Joe.
 * Last appearance of Tony.
 * Last appearance of Harley.
 * Last appearance of Dan.
 * Last appearance of Billy.
 * Last appearance of Hershel Greene. (Flashback)
 * Last appearance of Karen. (Flashback)
 * Last appearance of Patrick. (Flashback)
 * Last appearance of Zach. (Flashback)
 * Last appearance of Henry. (Flashback)
 * Last appearance of Chloe. (Flashback)
 * This is the only episode of the second half of season 4 where all of the credited main cast appear.
 * This episode has the shortest title in the series, simply being the letter "A".
 * The letter "A" is seen everywhere in Terminus, and is painted along doorways and on canisters found throughout the location.
 * Robert Kirkman stated: [The A refers to] Train Car A. They were put in Train Car A.
 * This is the first season finale that did not receive more U.S. viewers than the season premiere.
 * Scott Wilson (Hershel Greene) is listed in the opening sequence for the first time since "After". He returned to film this episode.
 * This is the first time that a main cast member has been removed from the opening credits and re-added in the same season.
 * Carl's attempts to save the unnamed man from getting eaten alive was almost identical to a scene taken from Issue 51 of the comics.
 * In the comic it was just Rick and Carl that witnessed it. In the episode Michonne was also present.
 * Also, in the comics, it was implied (and even stated by Rick) that this man ran into the Walkers intentionally as an act of suicide; however, the man's reasons for ending up in the herd are more ambiguous.
 * The scene where Rick, Daryl, Michonne and Carl fight off Joe's gang was very similar to the fight against The Marauders in Issue 57 of the Comic Series.
 * There were five members in Joe's group in this episode, while there were only three marauders in the comics.
 * In the comics it was Rick, Carl, and Abraham that fought off the marauders, while in this episode it was Rick, Carl, Michonne, and Daryl.
 * In the episode Rick and Daryl also talk about the events of the previous night after Joe's gang is killed, similar to Rick and Abraham's conversation in Issue 57.
 * Joe also says the line "You done screwed up, asshole." which is a variation of a line repeated by one of the marauders with screwed replacing the word "fucked".
 * This is the first episode in which we see Michonne kill a living person with a firearm.
 * The ringing in Rick's ear and his zoning out after forcing Joe to fire his gun near Rick's ear is similar to Rick shooting a walker in the tank at close range in "Days Gone Bye".
 * The group is officially reunited in this episode with the exception of Tyreese, Carol, Beth and Judith.
 * The other members of the group only appear via flashback in this episode.
 * This is the second season finale with a cliffhanger ending, the other being Season 2.
 * When Rick teaches Carl about the rabbit snare it was a foreshadowing of Terminus. Rick explains that the snare is set among a frequently used path (Railroad Tracks) and when the rabbit follows the path (the shoot out that forced Rick's group through a certain path through Terminus), then the snare captures the rabbit (The Box Car).
 * Rick's line "They're screwing with the wrong people" that he tells the group inside of the boxcar in Terminus is a variation of the same line Rick said regarding The Hunters in Issue 64, with the word screwing replacing the word "fucking". This is what the line originally was in the script.
 * People can be heard screaming "HELP!!", "Help Me!", "Hey over here!", "Get them off me", "Over here" and "Help us!" when Rick, Daryl, Carl and Michonne are being fired upon by the Terminants.
 * The umbrellas in the Terminus courtyard appears to be the same exact one on the picnic table as seen in "Dead Weight" with The Governor.
 * Hollywood Reporter explains, "If you research how cattle are killed, the optimum approach is to have them take a series of corner turns before getting close -- if they see they’re being led to slaughter, chaos ensues. The camera follows Rick and company in a circular route through Terminus until they get out into the clearing. Cattle are also, as they near slaughter, guided in single file -- something Gareth did meticulously with each character, leading them to the railroad/cattle car in the short distance. There is also a “correct handler position for driving cattle” -- and director Michelle MacLaren set up the final scene by positioning Gareth in a perfect, textbook handler position... She also created maximum tension by showing the distance between Carl... Proper handling procedures also indicate that calves go last (or, if you will, parents go first -- reversing it causes panic and a chance the cattle will disperse)...cattle go forward in a single-file line but shouldn’t actually see livestock in front of them -- which is why Glenn and Maggie and the others were shunted to the rear of the car."
 * The prison flashback was the last scene shot in Season 4. This was because the actors' hair had to be cut shorter to match the earlier period.
 * "A" currently has the most flashbacks used within the whole TV Series and is one of the episodes to feature a flashback.
 * The others being "TS-19", "Bloodletting", "Chupacabra ", "Prey" and "Alone".
 * In "Claimed", Carl states that he would rather have powdered milk than soy milk. Ironically, empty powdered milk cartons are found outside the boxcar, which have seemingly been fed to the survivors inside, meaning Carl will likely be fed this himself, thus fulfilling what he said before.

Goofs/Errors

 * When Albert begins shooting at the group, his gun is a black AK-47. However, when the group nears the box cars, it is a normal color.
 * Due to the climate problems during filming of this episode, it appeared to be late autumn, despite the fact that it couldn't have been more than a few weeks after the prison was overrun.