Start to Finish

"Start to Finish" is the eighth episode and mid-season finale of Season 6 of AMC's The Walking Dead. It aired on November 29, 2015 at 9/8c on AMC, and on November 30, 2015 at 9pm on Fox.

Plot Synopsis
Sam leaves an empty lunch plate outside his room then retreats back inside, where he draws a picture of a little boy tied to a tree with walkers surrounding him.

Outside, the watchtower collapses, knocking down a panel from Alexandria's perimeter wall. As walkers swarm through the gaping hole, Rick orders everyone to run to their homes. Deanna and Rick open fire on the walkers and Deanna is injured by a saw blade.

Meanwhile, Carol trips while running down the street and hits her head. Morgan helps her up and they dash into the townhouse with the makeshift jail cell.

Maggie scrambles to the lookout post, narrowly escaping walkers as they grab at her feet.

Eugene cowers against a wall and spots Rick's talkie on the ground. He hears Daryl call Rick's name and picks up the walkie. "Help," he cries as a walker comes at him. Rosita and Tara rescue Eugene and they flee to a nearby garage.

Rick helps Deanna limp down the street, where they're joined by Michonne, Gabriel, Carl and Ron. Jessie shoots at incoming walkers and ushers the group into her house.

Enid and Glenn watch in shock from the perimeter. Despite Enid's pessimism, Glenn insists on helping Maggie and his friends.

Inside Jessie's house, Rick carries Deanna to an upstairs bedroom. Sam watches, paralyzed with fear. Jessie urges him to be brave.

On the main floor of the townhouse, Carol refuses Morgan's offer to examine her head. One floor below, Denise sits opposite the W Man and asks to see his wound. He removes the bandage, revealing a badly infected gash. Denise cautiously removes a bag of IV fluid from her pack.

Back at Jessie's house, Michonne and Rick tend to Deanna and discover a bite mark on her side. "Well, shit." Deanna says.

Rick confers with Jessie and comes up with a plan to run to the armory and draw the walkers away from Alexandria with flares.

Michonne, meanwhile, tells Deanna that she believes in Alexandria and Deanna's plans to expand it. Deanna asks what Michonne wants for herself. "I don't know," Michonne admits.

Down in Jessie's garage, Carl checks on Ron, who's upset and brooding about his father. They argue, then Ron locks the door and takes out his gun, but Carl knocks it out of Ron's hand before he can use it. As they fight, Ron swings a shovel at Carl, but accidentally breaks a window instead. Walkers immediately flock to the sound of the breaking glass.

Rick and Jessie hear the commotion and race to the garage. Rick breaks the door open with an axe. Ron and Carl run inside the house as walkers stream into the garage. Rick and Jessie shove a couch against the door. Carl covers for Ron and says they accidentally knocked over a shelf.

In private, Carl holds Ron at gunpoint and demands he hand over his gun. Ron does, and apologizes for attacking Carl. Carl empathizes with Ron for losing his father, but points out that Pete was "an asshole."

Rick hears Judith crying and runs upstairs. He sees Deanna leaning into Judith's crib and moves in to kill her, thinking she's turned. "It's still me!" Deanna calls out. Seeing how weak she is now, Rick gently lays Deanna in a bed. She gives him farewell notes for Spencer and Maggie and asks him to look after Spencer as he would his own people. "They're all your people, Rick," she tells him.

Meanwhile, as Carol pretends to rest, Morgan peers down toward the makeshift jail cell. Carol shoves him aside and runs downstairs, where Denise is tending to the W Man's wound. Wielding a knife, Carol orders Denise to back away from him. Then Morgan arrives with his staff in hand.

Back at Jessie's house, walkers break through their makeshift defenses and start flooding inside. Rick blocks the stairs with a sofa as the group retreats upstairs. Then he tells Michonne they're going to need two walkers.

Morgan tries to dissuade Carol from killing the W Man. Carol threatens to kill Morgan if he gets in the way. Morgan knocks the knife out of Carol's hand and slams her to the ground, knocking her unconscious. While he's distracted, the W Man grabs Morgan's staff and strikes him unconscious, then takes Carol's knife and points it at Denise.

Michonne tells Deanna that they're leaving the house and starts to offer to kill Deanna before she turns. But Deanna insists she will shoot herself when the time comes.

Rick's group slathers themselves in guts. Sam opens his door and recoils from the gruesome scene. "Pretend you're brave," Jessie says. Sam tearfully nods.

The W Man cuts his bonds and holds Denise at knife point just as Rosita, Tara and Eugene charge into the room. The W Man forces them to lower their weapons, then takes a gun and escapes with Denise as his hostage.

Rick's group, each member now covered in guts, goes downstairs and slowly, calmly walks into the herd unnoticed.

Glenn and Enid climb a tree to gain a better vantage point. Glenn sees Maggie on top of the lookout post.

Deanna holds a gun to her head but stops from pulling the trigger when she hears walkers in the hallway. She flings the door open and fires at the herd.

Rick's group stands on Jessie's front porch, looking out at the sea of walkers. They hold hands and make their way into the herd, however, as they try to walk among the herd, Sam calls out to Jessie multiple times, which then seems to gain the attention of the walkers around them as the screen goes black at the sound of the walkers now becoming attracted to them.

Elsewhere, Daryl, Abraham and Sasha are still headed back to Alexandria, but are stopped by a group of bikers. One of the bikers demands all their supplies and the truck, and as Daryl asks why should they, he says that all of it now belongs to Negan.

Co-Stars

 * Mandi Christine Kerr as Barbara (does not appear in episode)
 * Katelyn Nacon as Enid
 * David Marshall Silverman as Kent (does not appear in episode)

Uncredited

 * Chloe & Sophia Garcia-Frizzi as Judith Grimes

Deaths

 * Deanna Monroe

Trivia

 * Last appearance of Deanna Monroe.
 * The title of this episode comes from Deanna's final words to Michonne.
 * With Deanna's death, Spencer is the last surviving member of the Monroe family.
 * Deanna also references what she said to Rick after he saved Spencer in "Heads Up", when Rick states he helped to save Spencer because he was Deanna's son. She says she saved Rick because he was "one of them", hinting that this was the "right answer" to the question she asked Rick.
 * In Sam's room there are figures that resemble characters from Robert Kirkman's Invincible comic.
 * Sam's drawing, a kid tied to a tree with walkers coming for him, is a reference to Carol's threat to him back in "Forget".
 * Two versions of the song "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" were played in the episode. Nick Lucas' version played in the beginning and Tiny Tim's version played at the ending.
 * This episode takes place the same day as second day in "Always Accountable".
 * It is also revealed that the person who said "help" at the end of "Always Accountable" was Eugene.
 * This episode has the second fewest living character deaths of any mid-season finale with only one confirmed death, just behind exception of "Pretty Much Dead Already" from Season 2, which had no living characters die.
 * Despite appearing in promotional photography and being credited, Heath, Spencer, and Aaron do not appear in this episode. Additionally, despite being credited, Barbara and Kent do not appear in the episode as well.
 * Despite only being a guest star, Corey Hawkins (Heath) is credited even though he does not appear.
 * First mention of Negan.
 * A Reference is made back in Guts when Rick cuts open the walkers to make his scent like the walkers saying "I've done it before."