Wildfire

"Wildfire" is the fifth episode of Season 1 of The Walking Dead (TV Series). It originally aired on November 28, 2010 at 10/9c on AMC.

Synopsis
The morning after the massarce at camp, Rick stares at sunrise over Atlanta as he tries to reach Morgan on the walkie-talkie for the first time. "Atlanta isn't what we thought," he warns. "It belongs to the dead now." He tells theem to come find him on the mountain, and promises he'll try him again tomorrow at dawn.

Andrea cradles Amy's body next to the RV. Lori tries to comfort her but has no success convincing her to let them "take" Amy, though she promises to be "as gentle as we can." Nearby, Daryl swings at dead walkers' heads with a pickaxe as Glenn and T-Dog throw bodies in a fire.

Rick, Lori and Shane discuss how to handle Andrea, who hasn't moved from Amy's side all night. Amy needs to be dealt with, Shane says — "the same as the others." Rick tries to approach Andrea but she pulls a gun on him. "I know how the safety works," she says, and Rick backs off, apologizing. Daryl tells Rick to deal with Amy, calling her a "time bomb" as she could turn at any moment. "Take the shot," he says. "Clean, from here."

Morales and Daryl meanwhile drag the body of a dead camper toward the fire, but Glenn stops them. "We don't burn" our people, Glenn screams. "We bury them." Daryl lashes out, accusing the group of reaping what they sow for leaving his brother for dead and storming off.

Jacqui and Jim pile up bodies, and she notices blood on his shirt. He tries to convince her he just got some blood on him moving bodies but she presses him. "Please don't tell," he begs her, but Jacqui's too terrified not to. "A walker bit Jim," she announces. "I'm okay!" Jim insists, but he grabs a shovel to press the group away from him as they demand to see his stomach. T-Dog runs up behind him and grabs his arms as Daryl runs in and lifts his shirt, revealing a bite wound. "I'm okay," Jim says, with far less conviction.

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head," Daryl offers, stating the obvious: "The line's pretty clear; zero tolerance for walkers." The group is discussing what to do with Jim, but Rick refuses to kill the living. Rick thinks the Center for Disease Control, roughly 25 miles away, might be able to help him, and suggests relocating there. Shane thinks the Army base at Fort Benning — 100 miles in the opposite direction — is a safer bet. Both places would provide food and shelter if up and running. But Rick believes Fort Benning got overrun like every other military cordon they've seen. He says the CDC would be Jim's best chance, and points out that in the event of a nuclear disaster or a terrorist attack, they'd protect the CDC at all costs. "If there's any form of government left," he says. "It'd be there."

Daryl heads toward Jim with his pickaxe and tries to take a swing. Rick points his gun at Daryl's head. "We don't kill the living," Rick says. "Funny, coming from a guy who just put a gun to my head," Daryl snaps. Shane steps between Daryl and Jim, agreeing with Rick, and Daryl throws dowwn his pickaxe. Rick moves Jim "somewhere safe" - inside the bedroom of the RV.

Dale sits beside Andrea to pay his respects for Amy's death. He tells her about his wife's battle with cancer, how he dragged her to every specialist even though she'd accepted her fate. Her death left him feeling angry and cheated. "Since she passed," he says, "you girls were the first people that I cared anything for."

Andrea pulls out the mermaid necklace, wrapped in pink tissue paper. She tells Dale how guilty she feels for having missed so many of Amy's birthdays. "She'd call all excited. I always said that I'd make it home, and I really always meant to. But I never made it past that phone call," she said. Dale tells her not to add guilt to how hard things are for her already. Andrea clasps the mermaid necklace around Amy's neck and Dale leaves her alone again.

Nearby, Daryl continues to swing the pickaxe into dead walkers' skulls. He raises the axe over Ed's head, but Carol stops him. "He's my husband," she says, taking the axe from Daryl's hands. Sobbing, she swings it down on his head repeatedly, taking out years of abuse on this final act to ensure he'd never reanimate. Daryl watches silently, cringing.

On the ground, Amy begins to stir, deep breaths growing from deep within her. Her hands and arms begin twitching on her stomach. She opens her eyes, which, though always blue, were succenly an icy cool grey-blue, the pupils gone. She reaches for Andrea. Her eyes are bloodshot and she moans and paws at the air. She grabs at Andrea's hair and pulls herself up while the group stands guard, grabbing their guns. Andrea apologizes to Amy for not being there. "I'm here now, Amy. I love you," she sobs. She shoots Amy in the head.

Rick and Shane dig graves near the campsite. "If you'd been here looking after your own," Shane accuses Rick, "our losses might not have been so great." Rick counters that without the guns he brought back, the losses might have been worse.

Daryl says they should burn the bodies, but Lori insists they need time to mourn and bury their dead. "It's what people do," she says. Jim is hallucinating inside the RV, his bit bleeding as he's sees terrifying visions of the dead. The survivors stage a funeral, and Andrea resists Dale's attempts to help her drag Amy's body into one of the graves. "Are we safe now dad?" Carl asks Rick afterward. "I won't leave again," Rick promises.

Privately, Rick asks Lori if she blames him for not being there when the camp was attacked, and to support his decision to head for the CDC. She doesn't blame him exactly — not like Shane does — but she doesn't know if she can follow him to the CDC on blind faith.

"We're all terrified. Tell me something with certainty," Lori says. Rick replies, "I love you. That's all I got."

In the RV, Rick tells a feverish Jim they're going to get him help as Jim coughs blood into a bucket. Jim is delirious and asks Rick to watch the boat, insisting Amy's there and that Rick "said he would." Rick begins to wonder if saving Jim will be possible as he promises to watch the boat and Jim nods gratefully.

Outside, Shane asks Lori to convince Rick the CDC is a bad decision, cautioning her about choosing her marriage over peoples' safety. "I think folks around here can make up their minds without bringing my marriage into it," Lori says. "It's a habit you need to break." Shane tells her he'll add it to the list of habits he needs to break as Rick emerges from the RV. Lori announces that they should follow Rick's plan, and Shane's reaction seems to confirm to Rick that something went on between his wife and best friend while he was gone.

Rick, Shane and Dale depart to sweep the forest for walkers. Alone, Shane tries to convince Rick to change his mind. "I've gotta do what's best for my family," Rick says, "If it was your family you'd feel differently." This offends Shane. "I kept them safe," he snaps at Rick. "Looked out for them like they were my own." Rick tries to calm him down. "You're hearing it wrong," he says, as they hear a sound in the bush as draw their guns.

Rick walks forward, and from a distance, Shane's aim lands on Rick. He hold it there for just a few seconds, glaring, his breath heavy. He hears a sound and his focus break. He drops the gun, then notices Dale watching him. "Jesus," whispers Dale. Shane shrugs it off, but back at camp, Shane announces that he thinks they should trust Rick's instincts and those that agree will be leaving for the CDC in the morning.

At dawn, Rick tries to reach Morgan to advise him of their new plan, telling him he needs him to be right about the CDC.

As the group is preparing to leave, Shane is giving instructions on how to stay with the caravan when Morales announces that his family will not be joining the group. They have family in Birmingham and want to be with their people. "I gotta do what's best for my family," he says. Rick hands Morales a .57, and they part ways. Carl and Sophia hug Morales' kids, Eliza and Louis, while Lori tearfully hugs Morales' wife, Miranda.

En route to the CDC, the RV's radiator hose bursts. While Shane and T-Dog drive ahead to find a replacement, Rick checks on Jim, who is in agony. "Leave me here," Jim says. "I'm done." Rick suggests he's delirious, but Jim insists his head is clear: "I want to be with my family," he says.

Outside, Dale advocates respecting Jim's wishes. Lori agrees, and the group carries Jim to a nearby tree. "Thanks for fightin' for us," Dale tells Jim as the group departs, tearfully leaving him behind.

Elsewhere, a video monitor crackles to life. An unshaven man, Dr. Jenner, speaks into the camera. "It's day 194 since Wildfire was declared," he says. "And 63 days since the disease abruptly went global. There is no clinical progress to report." He admits he's been feeling off-kilter lately, living underground and sleeping odd hours.

In a bio-hazard suit, Jenner passes through an airlock into a laboratory. He opens a tissue sample labeled TS-19 and begins an experiment. He takes a nap while he wants for the sample to be ready for examination.

Reaching for a beaker, he accidentally knocks corrosive fluid on the tissue. An alarm sounds as Vi alerts Jenner to toxic quality air and he runs to a decontamination chamber and disrobes. From the safety of the airlock, Jenner watches helplessly as the lab, and all of the remaining TS-19 samples, are engulfed in flames — an automatic safety protocol.

Later, a drunken Jenner speaks into the monitor: "The TS-19 samples are gone. The tragedy of their loss can not be overstated," he laments, musing that he's sure there's no one listening on the other end of his transmission anymore and that he might kill himself in the morning.

Rick's caravan approaches the CDC, where hundreds of bodies lay dead on the ground. Another military cordon was overrun. The group quietly approaches the building, which is locked and shuttered. From inside, Jenner's proximity alarm sounds. Stunned, he watches the group's approach via security monitor.

Outside, walkers begin to take notice of the survivors. Panicking, Shane suggests heading for Fort Benning. Lori points out they're out of gas, and would never make it. She demands a plan and Rick insists they'll figure something out as the sun sets.

Rick catches sight of the security camera's movement and slams on the shutters, screaming, "If you don't let us in, you're killing us!" The group yells at Rick, with people crying as he continues to scream. Shane drags him away. But sadditionsuddenly the shutters open, drowning the survivors in light.

Co-Stars

 * IronE Singleton as T-Dog
 * Jeryl Prescott as Jacqui
 * Melissa Suzanne McBride as Carol Peletier
 * Adam Minarovich as Ed Peletier
 * Madison Lintz as Sophia Peletier
 * Maddie Lomax as Eliza Morales
 * Viviana Chavez-Vega as Miranda Morales

Uncredited

 * Noah Lomax as Louis Morales

Trivia

 * Frank Darabont said, "We're in Atlanta and the CDC is based in Atlanta. Why wouldn't they at least pop by?"
 * Ugo.com makes 16 comparisons between the comic and the episode.
 * Wildfire is a reference to the secret government biological lab in the Andromeda Strain.
 * The name of the title, Wildfire, may refer to the fact that in one of Dr. Edwin Jenner's video logs, he explains that the infection spread like a wildfire.