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 and 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 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 talking with Carl in the car. 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 just 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), temporarily deafening 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 brutally biting a huge chunk out of the villain's neck, eventually killing him. Everyone pauses in shock and looks over to Rick. Michonne then takes advantage of the situation to kill Tony and Harley with shots to the head, as they looked on with horror when they saw their leader be murdered in the most cruel fashion. Daryl then uses the pause to knock Billy to the ground and maliciously curb stomp him to death. With all his group members dead, Dan is still holding Carl hostage and tells them to stay back or else he won't 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 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 chastising 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 a sanctuary as believed. 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 (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 assuming the same radio station Daryl, Michonne, Tyreese, and Bob heard while in the car on a medicine run 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 pocketwatch. Realizing that something is up, he angrily slaps down a plate of food Alex was 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 person, 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 accidentally shot and killed by one of his own causing a shootout with Rick, Michonne, Carl and Daryl fleeing, 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, very briefly Rick turns to his left as he is running and sees some decayed bodies scattered all over a blue tarp in the background, 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 (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". Abraham asks what the Terminus group is going to find out and Rick responds with: "They're gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out..." Abraham then question's 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"
 * Darien Johnson as Walker.

Deaths

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

Trivia

 * See also Terminus


 * 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.
 * 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.
 * The scene where Rick teaches Carl about the rabbit snare shares similarities to 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.
 * With 15.67 million viewers, this episode has the third-highest number of viewers following "30 Days Without An Accident" (16.11) and "After" (15.76)
 * The umbrellas in the Terminus courtyard appears to be the same exact one on the picnic table as seen in Season 4, Episode 7 Dead Weight with The Governor.
 * Talking Dead - Inside the Dead
 * 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.
 * 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.