Sunday’s episode of “Talking Dead,” which followed the fifth-season premiere of “The Walking Dead” (8 p.m. Central Sundays on AMC), asked viewers if they thought Rick’s gang was justified in mowing down everyone in Terminus. Giving me a spark of faith in humanity, 97 percent said yes.
A couple of scenes suggested that the writers were trying for moral relativism with the Terminus society. In a vacuum devoid of context, locking people in train cars, then killing them and eating them is wrong. But what if there are extenuating circumstances? In a flashback, we see that Terminus leader Gareth and his family were in a train car when the previous Terminus bosses pulled his sister out to rape and kill her. And in a present-day scene, Gareth’s mom (Terminus Mary, who greeted our heroes upon their arrival last season) tells Carol that they did what they had to do: Evil was done to them, so they have to do evil to other people in order to survive. As Gareth puts it in the flashback: “Either you’re the cattle or the butcher.”
The society of Terminus has embraced the cannibal lifestyle and the dogma that goes with it – as the “Talking Dead” panel noted, the slaughterhouse scenes were just another day at the office for the butchers, who see murder as just a job. (Those who didn’t embrace the societal norms were presumably killed, or perhaps some escaped the compound.) But it should be noted that the Termites have embraced the idea that “Because Group A (the rapists) did wrong to Group B (Gareth’s group), Group B is justified in killing Group C (Rick’s group).” Rick’s vengeance on the Termites is different, as it follows much more sound moral reasoning: Group B did wrong to Group C, so Group C is justified in killing Group B (but ONLY Group B).
I think a lot of viewers felt the same as “Talking Dead” guest Conan O’Brien, who said he wanted to climb through his TV and help Rick kill Termites. This is because the episode, purposefully or not, created a crystal-clear moral situation. In the most violent pre-credits sequence in the history of TV – one that would make Quentin Tarantino do a spit-take — the Termites knock out prisoners with a baseball bat, slit their throats and let the blood pool into a trough. (Pause to reflect for a moment that this is allowed on American TV, but Rick had to say “screwed” rather than “f—-d” in last season’s final line.) Later, the butchers would presumably put a bullet into the brain so the corpses don’t turn into walkers, then prepare the meat as they would with a cow.
The opening scene – along with details like the pile of kids’ toys in the salvage room — allows a viewer to utterly loathe the Termites and experience immense satisfaction at what are arguably the three most awesome moments in the series’ history, two of which star Carol: 1) Carol blows up the propane tank, sending walker bits flying sky-high, 2) Rick mows down the Termites from behind with a machine gun, and 3) Carol opens a door and casually steps aside to let the walkers maul the wounded Terminus Mary, as if welcoming them to a buffet line.
Meanwhile, outside the compound, the naturally peaceful Tyreese struggles to find a place in his mind where he’s able to kill his enemy. When the Terminus soldier threatens to murder baby Judith, Tyreese is able to tap into that place of lethal violence, but if he had witnessed the episode’s opening scene, he probably could’ve gotten there even faster.
Through the Gareth flashbacks, and through his current character arc that will presumably play out as Season 5 goes forward, viewers will be asked to sympathize with Gareth. Last season briefly toyed with the idea of the Governor re-inventing himself as the peaceful “Brian” before he backslid into Governor mode, and viewers were let off the hook from asking whether the Governor deserved a second chance. After all, people can change, and perhaps Gareth will realize the error of his ways.
That having been said, Rick will be justified in mowing down that son of a bitch without hesitation the next time he sees him, because locking people in train cars, then killing and eating them is never morally justifiable.