If The Walking Dead knows how to do one thing right, it’s season premieres. The show is always able to kick the season off with a bang, and No Sanctuary is no exception to that rule. It’s a great, action packed, fast paced episode that manages to still provide some great character moments. Really, No Sanctuary wraps up last season, while only hinting at plot points to come later this season. It’s likely that the next episode will be the “true” start for this season.
The episode begins, presumably, just a few days, possibly a week at the most, after the end of the show’s fourth season. And rather than sticking around at Terminus, this episode focuses on getting the group out of there, which is definitely fortunate. As interesting as Terminus seemed, the show has a bad habit of staying one place for way too long. This happened at both the prison and the farm, to the point where the situations there just ceased to be interesting. And really, once we figure out what Terminus really is in this episode, there’s really no way they could have been there all that long.
This is really the first time where the “Fear the living” thing has been fully realized on the show, and it’s done in the space of exactly one episode. The Governor was underused and misused as a character, and he never quite reached the levels that he did in the comics. The people at Terminus, however, are people to really be afraid of. We get a sense as to the levels these people who have sunk too, contrasting with the characters we’ve come to love. That being said, these people are also a reminder of what could become of the main cast if they aren’t careful – and at that end of the episode, Rick actually reaches a point where he comes close to falling over the edge.
The integration of flashbacks, really for the first time in the show (that I can remember), is used masterfully here as well. The backstory for those at the head of Terminus gives us an eye into how they became the people they are in this episode. I’m not sure if these flashbacks will stick around, but it would definitely be awesome to see more of who these characters were before they became the monsters they are now. There are hints at the reasoning in the flashbacks, but at the end of the day, these scenes only take up a small portion of the episode. That said, they are actually some of the episode’s best scenes.
No Sanctuary also does great things for Tyreese and Carol, who have been separated from the group for quite some time now. It goes without saying that, yes, they do find Terminus. However, by virtue of them not being with the group, they don’t arrive at Terminus early enough to be captured – in fact, they hear the gunshots that ended season 4, which warns them away from the compound. Despite knowing that there is danger, Carol makes the choice to go in anyways, leaving Tyreese behind with Judith and a hostage from Terminus. Tyreese is still struggling with his pacifism, and his conversation with the hostage is as unsettling as it is insightful. It gives Tyreese the chance for some much needed character development, and that’s great.
Carol’s a completely different story. She’s quickly becoming the TV show’s Andrea, which is odd considering that Andrea’s been dead for more than an entire season now. That being said, Carol is actually closer to Andrea’s character in the comics than Andrea ever was. We see her really stepping up in this episode, taking the initiative to help free the rest of the group from Terminus. She acts mostly behind the scenes, but she only becomes more badass as the episode rolls on. Plus, she makes flaming zombies a thing for, I believe, the first time ever on the show.
As great as No Sanctuary is, it’ not a perfect episode, and it’s not quite as good as some of the show’s peak episodes, like 18 Miles Out. There are some scenes that require some serious suspension of disbelief, and there are characters that definitely shouldn’t have made it out of this episode alive, and there’s a lot of convenient timing going on here. Plus, there’s not much in the way of a plot. It’s a fairly straight forward episode, with pretty simplistic plot structure and writing. That isn’t terrible, and the episode does some great character work and has some great action, which makes up for its weakness in the plot area.
No Sanctuary is a promising start for The Walking Dead’s fifth season. It wraps up last season, while at the same time laying seeds for coming episodes. Plus, it has some of the best action the show has ever seen, and picks up the pace from the last half of season four. If this season can maintain this level of quality, there’s no doubt in my mind that this will be a great season for the show.
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