The Walking Dead season 9 episode 5 recap: What Comes After

Rick keeps riding along, mumbling about finding his family. He starts to pass out again and he flashes back to a barn. Hershel is there and he greets Rick and shows him a beautiful sunset. Hershel pats him on the back and gives him a big hug. Rick apologizes for what happened to him, and to Glenn, and for everything that Maggie has lost. Hershel waves him off and says that Maggie is strong and so is his grandson. He doesn’t need to worry about them. Rick says he needs to find his family but Hershel says he doesn’t need to worry about it. Rick is trying to save his family and finish what he and Carl wanted. He wonders if he should stay there but Hershel says he can’t. He says Rick needs to wake up. Rick wakes up and slumps on the horse, unconscious.

Rick returns to the hospital. It’s a mess. There is blood everywhere. “Don’t open. Dead inside.” is scrawled on the doors but Rick opens the doors anyway. Beyond the doors is a field of dead bodies. They’re the people he has lost along the way. We see Daryl and Beth and Maggie and Jesus. They’re all there.

Sasha stands up from the bodies to look at him. “They’re all dead,” Rick says. Sasha knows, and she says it’s ok. She tells Rick it’s ok because Rick did his part. And they gave their strength to them in a continual cycle to make each other better. The cycle never ends. “It feels like it’s ending,” Rick notes. Sasha says it’s never the ending because it’s not about any one person, but instead it’s about all of them. It’s all about the good, and about the brave, and it’s about love and family. Rick won’t find his family because they aren’t lost, and neither is Rick. He needs to wake up.

Rick falls off the horse and the horse rides away. He’s back at the camp and everyone there is gone and there are some dead bodies there, too. Rick grabs his gun as he struggles to breathe and he shoots them. There’s a rustle in the trees as more walkers start coming through the camp, knocking down tents and anything else in their wake. Rick stumbles away and gets back to the road, staying ahead of the herd, but he starts to falter. When he arrives at the bridge he looks out toward the other side of the river and then back at the herd.

Suddenly Rick hears Daryl’s voice calling his name, and all of Rick’s family comes running past him to fight the walkers by hand. Everyone is there. Michonne sees him and says they have to get him out of there. She tells him it’s not over, and that he won’t die. Rick nods. She tells him she loves him because he’s a fighter and he will never give up. She tells him to fight for all of them. He looks and everyone has stopped fighting to watch him. Maggie, Ezekiel, Daryl, Eugene. Rick says it isn’t real. Michonne says that it’s real. She kisses him and tells him to wake up.