Rick Grimes (TV Series)

Rick Grimes was a sheriff's deputy from King County, Georgia. Wounded in the line of duty, he was in a coma when the apocalypse occured. When he awoke alone, he set off in search of his wife Lori and young son Carl, and along the way discovered what happened to the world.

Rick is an every-man—smart, calm, just, a good friend and father—but will often stubbornly cling to his personal strong moral code. "We don't kill the living," he tells Daryl at gunpoint when the latter attempts to kill an infected survivor.

Rick has been partners and friends with Shane Walsh for a long time, and he is used to their easy camaraderie. Rick is thankful to Shane for looking after his family while he was comatose, but is unaware that his partner began sleeping with Lori during that time.

Rick is a natural leader—a fact that causes tension with Shane, who was in charge before Rick's arrival. Their friction comes to a head following a walker attack on the camp. Shane blames Rick for not being there (Rick had returned to Atlanta to retrieve a bag of guns and another survivor he had left behind) and disagrees with him on the next course of action: Rick believes the group should head to the CDC in Atlanta for protection; Shane thinks Fort Benning, an Army base a hundred miles away, is a safer bet.

Ultimately, the group sides with Rick and they are met at the CDC by a strange doctor, Edwin Jenner. He is the last man alive at the CDC and he tells them that there has been no progress on curing the disease and that the building will soon self-destruct from lack of power. Before the explosion, Jenner (who opts to stay behind) shakes Rick's hand and whispers into his ear.

King County, Georgia
Rick and Shane eat hamburgers in their police car and joke about the differences between men and women. When the conversation turns to Rick’s wife Lori, Rick turns somber. He explains that Lori recently accused him of not caring about his family in front of their son, Carl. “The difference between men and women?” Rick says, “I would never say something that cruel to her.”

An APB reports a high-speed pursuit in progress. Rick and Shane head to the scene, where Shane lays down a spike strip. As they wait for the car, a young deputy named Leon Basset muses about their chances of getting on a police chase reality show.

The car approaches, pursued by two Linden County cruisers. When the car hits the spike strip, it flips off the road. Rick approaches the overturned car as two men emerge from the wreckage. One shoots Rick in his Kevlar vest as the other officers gun them down.

“Shane you do not tell Lori that happened,” Rick says after the firefight. His back turned, Rick fails to notice a third gunman crawling from the car. The man fires and hits Rick in the side, where his vest does not protect him. He falls to the ground bleeding, and then passes out. Shane delivers flowers to Rick in the hospital, but Rick is not fully conscious or at all aware of what is going on.

Days Gone Bye
Rick wakes in a hospital room, unshaven and sweaty. He calls for Shane, and then notices the flowers have wilted and died. Rick then exits his room; the hallway is dark and disheveled. He goes to the nurse’s station and tries the phone, but it is dead. Through a doorway, Rick notices the ravaged body of a nurse missing most of her skin. Further down the hall, the walls are covered in blood and riddled with bullet holes. A double door has been chained shut with a message scrawled across: “Don’t Open, Dead Inside.” A woman’s hands, her fingernails dirty and cragged, then reach through the cracks.

Rick exits the back of the hospital to the loading dock, where hundreds of bodies wrapped in sheets are arranged in rows and piles. He wanders down the road, spotting an overturned bicycle in a park. As he reaches for it, the body of a woman—badly decayed, her legs and lips missing—turns and reaches for him, pathetically moaning in hunger. Rick then speeds away on the bicycle.

Rick arrives at his home to find the front door ajar and the house deserted. Sobbing on the floor, he calls for Lori and Carl. Outside the house, Rick spots a man stumbling down the road. A young boy creeps up from behind and hits Rick with a shovel. “Carl, I found you,” Rick whispers. “Daddy I got this sumbitch,” the boy screams. The boy’s father approaches the stumbling man and shoots him in the head, then walks to Rick. “What’s that bandage for?” Morgan asks Rick, pointing a gun at him. Rick then passes out.

Rick later awakes tied to a bed inside Fred and Cindy Drake's home. Duane stands guard with a baseball bat. “Did you get bit?” Morgan asks Rick. “Just shot, as far as I know,” Rick says.

“I never should have fired that gun today,” Morgan says later. “The sound draws ‘em. Now they’re all over the street.” Rick accuses Morgan of shooting a man in cold blood. “It was a walker,” Morgan corrects. Morgan explains to Rick that the man he shot would have tried to eat them. “One thing I do know, don’t you get bit,” Morgan says. “Bites kill,” he explains, “then you become one of them.”

A car alarm goes off. Rick and Morgan peer out to the street, which is filled with walkers, drawn by the noise of the alarm. When Jenny Jones appears wearing a nightgown, Duane runs away crying. The woman walks to the front door and tries to open it. “She died in the other room on that bed,” Morgan says. “I should have put her down. I just didn’t have it in me. She’s the mother of my child.”

The next morning, Rick exits the house carrying a bat. “We’re sure they’re dead?” Rick asks, approaching a walker near the stoop. “They’re dead.” Morgan assures. Rick swings the bat, beating the walker down until it stops moving.

Rick tells Morgan he thinks his wife and son are still alive as he found empty drawers in his house, and the family pictures were gone. “Photo albums,” Morgan laughs. “My wife, same thing.”

“They’re in Atlanta, I bet,” Duane offers. Morgan explains there’s a refugee center there with military protection and food. The Center for Disease Control—where they were rumored to be working on a cure—is also in Atlanta.

Rick, Morgan and Duane head to the police station, where they luxuriate in hot showers. Afterward, Rick packs a duffel bag with guns. He also hands Morgan a rifle. Rick loads the weapons in the trunk of his cruiser and prepares to set off for Atlanta. Morgan says he will follow in a few days, once he and Duane have learned to shoot. Rick hands Morgan a walkie-talkie, instructing him to turn it on every day at dawn to make contact.

Morgan leaves Rick with a warning: “They may not seem like much one at a time,” he says, “but in a group, all riled up and hungry? Man, you watch your ass.” The farewell is interrupted when Rick spots Leon, who has turned into a walker. Leon claws at the chain link fence separating them. Rick then shoots him in the forehead.

Rick returns to the park where he found the legless walker. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” he says, shooting her in the head. On a deserted road, Rick pulls his police cruiser past overturned cars to a gas station. Vehicles filled with dead bodies litter the grounds; a sign hanging nearby declares “No Gas.” As Rick searches, he glimpses a little girl and calls to her. Her lips and right cheek have been torn away, blood dripping. She starts toward Rick, growling. As she approaches, Rick draws his gun and shoots her in the head.

En route to Atlanta, Rick sends out a broadcast on his radio. Out of gas, Rick abandons his car on the highway and heads out on foot. He approaches a farmhouse where he makes the grisly discovery that a man has shot his wife and committed suicide. Rick finds a horse nearby, saddles up, and rides the rest of the way to Atlanta.

Rick rides into the devastated city and searches the streets on horseback, finding an overrun military blockade. Rick hears a helicopter pass overhead and tries to follow it, but rides straight into a horde of walkers. The undead swarm Rick’s horse, toppling him. Rick scrambles underneath an abandoned tank, but walkers grab at him from both ends. Rick shoots several of them, and then places the gun to his temple. “Lori, Carl, I’m sorry,” he says. Looking up, he sees an open hatch underneath the tank and crawls inside. Inside, a dead soldier turns to bite Rick. He shoots. Walkers surround the tank as Rick seals himself inside, with no idea what he’ll do next. The tank’s radio then crackles. “Hey you, dumb ass,” a voice says. “You in the tank. Cozy in there?”

Guts
Rick says over the CB radio: “Whoever you are, I don’t mind telling you I’m a little concerned in here.” The voice replies that Rick is surrounded by “geeks,” and advises him to make a run for it while they are distracted eating Rick’s horse.

Rick takes a gun and a grenade off the dead soldier in the tank then opens the hatch. He jumps from the tank and runs down an alley, shooting walkers as he goes. Quickly, he meets up with the person who radioed instructions. Rick follows him to a ladder, which they climb to safety. “Nice moves there, Clint Eastwood,” says the young man who introduces himself as Glenn.

Glenn leads Rick down a staircase to an alley, which is free of all but a few walkers thanks to a bus blockade. When the two reach street level, two other people wearing riot gear emerge and beat down the walkers. The group rushes inside a Bradbury’s department store, where a woman named Andrea points a gun at Rick’s head, furious at his recklessness. One of the men called Morales informs Rick his gunshots have attracted scores of walkers. “You just rang the dinner bell,” Andrea seethes. Outside, walkers press against the store’s front doors and the glass begins to crack. Another man called “T-Dog” tries to radio “the others” but fails to get a signal. He suggests they might have better luck on higher ground.

On the roof, the group finds Merle Dixon—a middle-aged redneck—firing at walkers with a rifle. T-Dog chastises Merle for wasting bullets and attracting more walkers. Merle scoffs at taking orders from a “nigger,” which sets off a fight between the two.

Merle beats T-Dog then presses a handgun to his forehead, but Rick intervenes, hitting Merle with the butt of the rifle and handcuffing him to a pipe. “Things are different now,” Rick tells Merle. “We survive this by pulling together, not apart.” Morales tells Rick there is no refugee center, which was “a pipe dream.” They are with a small group of survivors staying outside the city, but T-Dog cannot reach them on the radio.

“We’re on our own,” Rick says. With the streets no longer safe, Rick suggests they try to escape underground. A woman named Jacqui, who formerly worked in the city zoning office, says that the building might have access to the sewers.

Glenn and Morales head to the basement while Rick and Andrea stand guard at the front of the store. “Sorry for the gun in your face,” Andrea tells Rick. He understands, people do crazy things when they are afraid, but gives her some advice: “Next time,” he says, “take the safety off.” Andrea then spots a necklace with a mermaid pendant. “My sister,” Andrea says. “She loves mermaids.” Rick encourages her to take it. As Andrea pockets the necklace, walkers break through the exterior glass doors and begin pounding on the interior doors. Morales and Glenn arrive to report that the sewer is not an option.

Back on the roof, Rick spots a cube van at a nearby construction site. The ignition keys should be nearby, Rick theorizes, but they need to get past the walkers undetected. The group explains that if they hear you, see you or smell you, they eat you. Rick latches on to the scent idea. “They smell dead,” Andrea offers. “We don’t.”

Wearing rubber gloves and rain jackets, Rick and Morales drag a dead walker in from the alley. After acknowledging the man’s lost humanity, that he used to be just like the rest of them, Rick grabs an axe and hacks apart the body. He and Glenn then smear the corpse’s guts on their jackets. Before leaving, Rick tosses T-Dog the key to Merle’s handcuffs.

Outside, Rick and Glenn shuffle through crowds of walkers unnoticed. A rainstorm then passes over them, washing the guts off their jackets. Their human smell unmasked, walkers immediately attack the two. Fighting them off, Rick and Glenn run to the construction site, hopping a fence that is blocking access. Once Glenn tracks down the key, he and Rick speed away in the van.

Rick orders Glenn to radio the group to get ready for pick-up. To lure the walkers away, Glenn drives off in a red sports car, which Rick has hotwired after setting off its alarm. With the walkers lured away by Glenn, Rick pulls the van up and the group piles in. T-Dog admits to the others he dropped the key, leaving Merle trapped on the roof.

Tell It to the Frogs
Morales advises Rick not to dwell on Merle’s abandonment. “Nobody’s gonna be sad he didn’t come back... except maybe Daryl,” Morales says.

The cube van arrives. Andrea and Amy tearfully reunite, as does the Morales family. Glenn explains to the group that they made it out of Atlanta thanks to the “new guy.” Morales adds that he is a police officer. Rick emerges from the van seeing Lori and Carl, and he runs to them and the family embraces. Shane just watches on.

Later, around a campfire, Rick describes the disorientation he felt waking in the hospital. Lori explains she was told Rick would be med-evaced to Atlanta, but it never happened. “Mom said you died,” Carl says. “She had every reason to believe that,” Rick replies, thanking Shane for saving them.

Nearby, Ed Peletier—a hulking, blue-collar type—stokes his family’s fire with a fresh log. Shane intervenes, instructing Ed to pull the log so they will not be seen from a distance. Ed concedes, instructing his meek wife Carol to pull it out. Ed glares as Shane bids Carol and their daughter good night.

Dale Horvath asks what they should tell Daryl about his brother. Rick volunteers to deliver the news, as does T-Dog, who is wracked with guilt for dropping the key. “Dixon’s alive, and he’s still up there,” T-Dog says. “That’s on us.”

Later on in their tent, Rick tucks Carl in and then crawls into bed with Lori. They reflect on past mistakes and the second chance they have been given. “Not many people get that,” Rick says. Lori returns Rick’s wedding ring, and the two make love. Shane, melancholy and keeping watch atop the RV, stares at Rick and Lori’s tent.

Rick wakes to find a fresh pair of clothes laid out for him. Outside, Carol is ironing his uniform. Nearby, Glenn mourns as Dale and Jim strip the sports car down for parts. “Maybe we’ll get to steal another one some day,” Rick consoles him.

Rick tells Lori he plans to return to Atlanta for Merle. Lori is shocked, but they are interrupted by Carl’s screams. Finding Carl unscathed, Rick, Shane, Jim and Glenn run past him to a clearing where a walker is devouring a deer with crossbow bolts sticking out of it. The four men beat on the walker until Dale arrives and decapitates it. “They never come this far up the mountain,” Dale remarks. “They’re running out of food in the city,” Jim offers.

Daryl then emerges from the woods and laments that the walker ate his hunted dear. Finding the walker head still alive, Daryl fires his crossbow at it, then heads into camp looking for Merle. Shane tells Daryl that Merle did not make it back—Rick chimes in, confessing he left Merle handcuffed to the roof. Daryl pulls a knife, but Rick disarms him, and Shane locks him in a sleeper hold. With the door to the roof chained securely shut, Rick tells Daryl, Merle is likely alive. “I’m going back,” Rick says.

Back in his uniform, Rick prepares to leave with Daryl. Shane questions his decision to risk his life for Merle. “We left him like an animal caught in a trap,” Rick says, enlisting Glenn’s help. T-Dog volunteers as well.

“You’re putting every single one of us at risk,” Shane says, arguing they need everybody to protect the camp in case more walkers show up. What they really need, Rick contends, are more guns, which he would be able to retrieve from his dropped bag. Rick also needs to collect his walkie-talkie from the bag so he can warn Morgan away from the city. Shane gives Rick the last of his bullets for Rick’s revolver. “Four men, four rounds,” Shane says. “Let’s just hope that four is your lucky number.”

In Atlanta, Rick, Daryl, Glenn and T-Dog return to the department store. They cut through the chain on the stairwell door and emerge onto the roof. On the ground, a hacksaw sits beside a severed hand. Bloodied handcuffs hang from the pipe above.

Vatos
An enraged Daryl points his crossbow at T-Dog, but relents when Rick pulls his revolver. They then follow Merle’s trail of blood to a kitchen, where Sterno cans burn next to an iron steak weight crusted with skin—the result of Merle cauterizing his stump. Rick agrees to help Daryl search the streets for his brother. “Only if we get those guns first,” T-Dog says. Glenn outlines a plan to retrieve Rick’s bag: Daryl will watch his back from the store’s alley, while Rick and T-Dog cover a second alley two blocks away.

On the street, Glenn runs toward the tank. Back in the alley, a teenager named Miguel approaches Daryl. Daryl trains his crossbow on Miguel, who begins screaming. Glenn grabs the bag of guns—and Rick’s hat—then runs back toward Daryl. Rick and T-Dog, hearing Miguel’s screams, also head for the alley. Two men named Jorge and Felipe, who have also come for the guns, then jump Daryl. The men turn to Glenn and start beating him. Daryl then fires an arrow in Felipe’s butt. They throw Glenn in a car and drive off—leaving Miguel and the guns behind.

Miguel leads Rick, Daryl and T-Dog to an abandoned factory, where the leader of the group called “G” emerges. Rick proposes trading Miguel for Glenn. G demands the bag of guns, threatening to kill Glenn if they do not hand it over. “I see two options,” says G. “You come back with Miguel and my bag of guns, everybody walks. Or you come back locked and loaded.” Rick and the group retreat to a nearby foreman’s office, where Daryl argues that the guns are more valuable than Glenn. “What life I have I owe to him,” Rick says, loading a shotgun. Daryl and T-Dog follow suit.

Rick then escorts Miguel into the warehouse carrying the guns on his back. Rick cuts Miguel loose and demands G hand over Glenn. “You said come locked and loaded,” Rick says. “We’re here.” Suddenly, Felipe and Miguel’s grandmother shuffles into the middle of the standoff, asking Felipe for help with “Mr. Gilbert.” She notices Rick’s uniform and begs him not to take Felipe away.

Rick tells Felipe’s grandmother that Felipe is helping him find a missing person. “The Asian boy?” she asks, taking Rick’s hand. Abuela leads Rick into a nursing home auditorium, where several elderly people—and Glenn—are grouped around an asthmatic man. Felipe helps the man with an inhaler.

“You’re the dumbest son of a bitch I ever met,” Rick tells G privately. G explains he was only trying to protect the food and medicine for the residents. The staff abandoned the patients, G explains, leaving only himself—the building custodian—and Felipe—a nurse—behind. G wonders why the people look to him for leadership. “Because they can,” Rick says, handing him a shotgun and a rifle.

Rick, Glenn, T-Dog and Daryl walk back to the cube van, but find it missing. “Merle,” Rick says. “He’s going to be taking some vengeance back to camp,” Daryl predicts. Running toward camp, they hear gunshots in the distance and quicken their pace. Back at the RV, a walker tears into Amy’s neck. Rick, Glenn, Daryl and T-Dog arrive and quickly shoot the remaining walkers.

Andrea runs to Amy. “I don’t know what to do,” Andrea cries. Amy touches Andrea’s face, and then falls still. Andrea, sobbing, screams Amy’s name.

Wildfire
Rick stares at a sunrise over Atlanta as he tries to reach Morgan on the walkie-talkie. “Atlanta isn’t what we thought,” he warns. “It belongs to the dead now.”

Rick, Lori and Shane discuss how to handle Andrea as she continues to cradle Amy’s body. 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 tells Rick, who apologizes and backs off.

Jacqui and Jim pile up bodies. Jacqui notices blood on Jim’s shirt. “A walker bit Jim,” she announces. Jim lifts his shirt, revealing a deep wound. “I say we put a pickaxe in his dead,” Daryl offers. Rick thinks the CDC might be able to help Jim, and suggests relocating there. Shane thinks the Army base in Fort Benning—125 miles in the opposite direction—is a safer bet. 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.

Rick and Shane dig graves near the campsite. “If you’d been here looking after your own,” Shane tells Rick, “our losses might not have been so bad.” Rick counters that without the guns he brought back, the losses might have been worse.

The survivors stage a funeral. “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 does not blame him exactly—not like Shane does—but she does not know if she can follow him to the CDC on blind faith. “Tell me something with certainty,” Lori says. “I love you,” Rick replies. “That’s all I got.”

In the RV, Rick tells a feverish Jim they are going to get him help, but Jim is delirious. 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. When Rick emerges, Lori announces that they should follow Rick’s plan.

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.” “I kept them safe,” Shane snaps at Rick. “Looked out for them like they were my own.” A sound draws Rick away. From a distance, Shane’s aim lands on Rick. Glaring, he drops the gun, and then notices Dale watching him. “Jesus,” whispers Dale.

Back at camp, Shane announces that he thinks they should trust Rick’s instincts and those that agree would be leaving for the CDC in the morning. At dawn, Rick tries to reach Morgan to advise him of their plan. Morales announces that his family will not be joining the group. “I gotta do what’s best for my family,” he says. Rick hands Morales a gun, and they part ways.

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. Rick suggests he is 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.

Rick’s caravan approaches the CDC, where hundreds of bodies lay dead on the ground. The group quietly approaches the building, which is locked and shuttered. Walkers begin to take notice of the survivors. Panicking, Shane suggests heading for Fort Benning. Lori points out they are out of gas, and would never make it.

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!" Rick continues to scream as Shane drags him away. Suddenly the shutters open, drowning the survivors in light.

TS-19
Rick and the other survivors file into the CDC lobby as Dr. Edwin Jenner meets them at the door. Jenner agrees to allow them in—provided they all submit to a blood test. Rick agrees, and they follow Jenner to the building's basement control center. Looking around, Rick questions the absence of other doctors. "I'm all that's left," Jenner replies.

Later, the group feasts in the CDC cafeteria, jovially drinking wine and liquor, jubilant about finding a safe place. Rick toasts Jenner, who quietly raises his glass. "When are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here?" Shane asks. Jenner explains that most of the doctors fled. The rest, he says, "couldn't face walking out the door. They 'opted out.'" Jenner says that he stayed because he hoped to do some good.

Jenner shows the group around the building, directing the children toward the rec room and imploring everyone not to waste electricity. The survivors luxuriate in hot showers—all except for Shane, who angrily swallows from a bottle of liquor while he bathes; and Andrea, who sits numbly under the stream. Afterward, Dale overhears Andrea throwing up. "Everything's gone," she cries. Dale argues they have an opportunity to make a fresh start. "Didn't you see the look on Jenner's face?" Andrea says. "There's nothing left."

Rick stumbles drunkenly into the control room, where Jenner is working. Rick thanks Jenner again. He admits to Jenner that he never let on to the others what he really thought, but he knew they were running out of options. "We'd have died out there," Rick explains. "It'll all be okay," Jenner assures.

Lori finds Carl, Carol and Sophia lounging in the recreational room. Carol then takes the children to bed while Lori stays behind to browse the library. Shane looms in the doorway, whiskey in hand, watching. "I'm going to tell you a few things, and you're gonna listen," he says, closing the door. Lori tries to push past Shane. "How can you treat me like this?" he asks, insisting that he didn't lie to her about Rick. He really thought Rick was dead, that he hadn't heard a heartbeat when he listened for one at the hospital "and I had y'all to think about." Drunk and desperate, Shane tries to kiss Lori. He grabs for her, forcing himself on her until Lori scratches his face and throat. Horrified by his own behavior, Shane flees. Rick stumbles into bed with Lori and sees that she is been crying. "We don't have to be afraid any more," he assures her.

The next morning, Rick shuffles into the cafeteria. Shane follows, claiming he scratched his neck in his sleep. "Never seen you do that before," Rick says. "Not like me at all," Shane agrees, eyeing Lori. When Jenner arrives, he leads the group to the control center, where he displays brain scans from "Test Subject 19," who was infected and allowed the process to be recorded. The display shows the virus attacking the brain, which goes dark. Jenner fast-forwards to the "second event"—TS-19's resurrection. "It restarts the brain?" Lori asks. "Just the brainstem," Jenner corrects. "The human part, that doesn't come back." Jenner admits he does not know what the disease is or how to treat it, and that he's lost contact with other facilities. Dale interrupts the stunned silence to ask Jenner about a clock on the far wall, which is counting down from an hour. At zero, Jenner says, "the basement generators, they run out of fuel."

Rick, Shane, T-Dog and Glenn head to inspect the generators while upstairs, the building's air cuts off. In his office, Jenner stares at a photograph of a woman, asking her to understand that he did the best he could and hopes she would be proud of him. The panicked survivors confront Jenner, who explains the building is shutting itself down.

"It was the French," Jenner says. They stuck it out the longest before they too ran out of power. The survivors try to flee, but Jenner locks them inside the control center. There is no point in struggling, Jenner explains. Everything topside is automatically locked down.

When the building runs out of power, he continues, it will self-destruct—a "decontamination" protocol to keep dangerous infectious diseases from escaping. Jenner tries to convince Rick to accept his fate. "Last night you said, you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead," Jenner argues. Rick demands to know why Jenner stayed if he did not think there was any hope. "I made a promise," Jenner says, to his wife—Test Subject 19—to keep going as long as he could. She was one of the finest scientists in the world, if anyone could have done something about this, it was her. "Me?" he admits, "I'm just Edwin Jenner."

Lori tells Jenner they just want their chance to keep going as long as they can. Swayed, Jenner agrees to open the door, but maintains they still won't be able to get past the lockdown upstairs. "I'm grateful," Rick says. "The day will come when you won't be," Jenner counters. He shakes Rick's hand and pulls him close. Jenner whispers into Rick's ear. The group heads for the exit, but Jacqui stays behind. "I'm not ending up like Jim and Amy," she tells T-Dog, tearfully telling them to leave while they can. "I'm staying too," Andrea says, sliding to the floor. Dale pleads with Andrea to leave, but she won't budge.

In the CDC lobby, the group finds the doors locked and pounds helplessly on the windows. Carol fumbles in her purse: "Your first morning at camp," she tells Rick. "When I washed your uniform? I found this in your pocket." She pulls the hand grenade that Rick found in the tank from her bag. Rick detonates the grenade, blasting out one of the glass windows.

In the basement, a resigned Dale sits in front of Andrea. "If you're staying, I stay too," he tells her. She's furious, but he continues, "You don't get to do that. Come into somebody's life, make them care and then just check out."

The survivors run to the cars. From inside the RV, Lori sees Dale and Andrea emerge from the building. Jenner and Jacqui hold hands and watch the others evacuate on the security monitor. The CDC erupts in a fiery explosion. Dale and Andrea rush to the RV. Shaken, Rick starts the engine, and the caravan drives away from the smoldering rubble.