Episode 21 Synopsis: North

"She believed in you because you weren't afraid.  Your people will live.  And you will get to die a beautiful death." - Nick Clark

Finally, IGN's review on the season finale and my thoughts were cohesive.  They gave it a high rating (the review was for the last two episodes), which I agreed with.  The episode was very well done, tied up soon loose ends but gave us enough to want more for next year.  Pretty sweet.

The episode started off with Travis left in a catatonic state after raging against Brandon and Derek, and accidentally injuring Oscar in the process.  Hector bashes through the window, while other security guards take out Travis.  Travis doesn't even fight it, but Madison chases them.  Strand tells her to stop.  Madison instead compartmentalizes the situation, takes Alicia's knife and stabs Brandon and Derek in the ear, remembering that, oh yeah, they are going to turn eventually.  They are now officially gone. 

Strand reminds Maddie that by her decree (remember: no violence!), Travis needs to be locked up or sent away.  He's compromised us, Strand says.  Travis needs to leave.  Alicia agrees with him.  But she tells Maddie that they will leave together.  "We found this place. We'll find another."

Which we see as a rolling theme in all these shows.  You stay in one place too long, you become compromised.  You either die or you leave.  It's a pretty simple concept.

And did we truly believe in happily ever after at the hotel?

Yeah.  That's what I thought.

Strand is incredulous though.  Each time Madison has compromised her integrity and rationale, she's put the group at risk.  Now she appears to put herself at risk by leaving with Travis.  "Are you really going to leave for the man who abandoned you?"

I'm certain Strand at this point thought to himself: get me the fuck away from these crazy ass white people.

Madison goes to Elena and Hector, who have Travis locked up.  Madison tells them, I know that Travis needs to go, he committed violence.  But they will all leave together in the morning.  Elena agrees to this, if they leave at dawn.  They have the night.  Hector is disgusted.  Elena tells him in Spanish that she fought for us once, and we can give her this.

Madison talks to Travis, says that he has to leave the hotel.  But that they will leave together.  They found each other again.  She feels this is a bigger reason why they found each other.  He waits the night out with Madison and Alicia.

Back at La Colonia, Luciana is preparing Alejandro to speak to the people.  He is already starting to feel the effects of the virus.  Luciana makes him "presentable."  He tells her that beyond the walls is death and more death, but Nick is right: the end is near for them.  She thinks he still needs to lie to the people though.  While addressing the masses, he tells them that men with guns are coming to do them harm.  He says their faith is stronger than any weapons the men have.

As he addresses the people, Nick leaves and sees a medevac in the distance.  He realizes there is activity at the border.  He makes his way back to Colonia to try one more time to convince the people to leave by appealing to Alejandro.

Back at the hotel, Andres operates on Oscar, as he believes his brain is swelling and needs to take out part of his skull.  Alicia offers to help, but Hector is there and tells her that if it were up to him, Travis would be gone.

Travis, meanwhile, tells Madison that he his not sorry that he killed the bromigos.  Madison tells him that she hasn't been much better, that she was responsible for locking Celia in the cellar with the dead, in an effort to "protect Nick."

She says that the world has changed, he did what he had to.  You'll do it again, because you will have to.  I can face that if you're with me, she tells him.

Oscar dies on the makeshift operating table.  Hector is very angry, tells Elena that she made the deal with Madison to save Travis.  He wants revenge.  Hector and Andres go to their room as Alicia and Madison slept, but Travis was wide awake.  Hector decks Travis, while Andres pulls a gun on him.  Travis seems resigned and accepting of his fate.  He asks them though, if they're going to do it, not in front of his family.  Well, I thought that was very noble of Travis. 

As Madison and Alicia scramble to save Travis, Alicia stabs and presumably kills Andres.  Hector lashes out at Alicia, while Travis fights back.  Strand enters the room as Travis, Madison and Alicia stand there with bodies everywhere.  Calmly, in the biggest understatement of the year, Strand says, "We need to run.  Now."

So Alicia, Travis and Madison hop into one of the hotel trucks, as they hear a ruckus in the distance (probably riling up the security muscle to take out those three), Strand stays behind.  He tells Madison he will stay behind.  He gives her his gun.  "I'll be okay.  Go.  Now."  Travis drives through the fence.

I mean, you just gotta love this new world.  You need a vehicle?  Fucking take that shit!

As the three of them drove away, I thought - wow, in the course of several months, each one of them has killed someone who was somewhat innocent (by our civilized standards of course, most of them had it coming in this world and it was in "self defense").  Madison has killed Celia, Travis the bromigos (and remember, he beat the ever loving piss out of Adams, the private who shot Ofelia after Travis had let him go) and now Alicia took out Andres to protect Travis.  They've adapted, all right.

They're on their way to Tijuana it seems, as Madison is intent on finding Nick.  I was disappointed that Strand didn't go with them, but Colman Domingo later said on the Talking Dead episode that night that he will still figure into the storyline.  Which makes me giddy because I do love his character.  I wasn't sure what to expect of Strand when he was introduced, but he just adds an element to the show that no other character does.

Alejandro is getting high on the Oxy reserves as he's preparing for his imminent death.  I mean, why the fuck not at this point, am I right?  Nick comes back to reason with Alejandro.  Tells him that he saw "something."  But before he says what it was, Nick flat out tells him that he is playing with other peoples' lives, when he knows he's already dying.  If the men come to La Colonia, they are all dead.   Alejandro needs to give them permission to go.  Alejandro asks where they will go.  Nick says, "North."

I ask...What is north of "north?"  Nothing.  I find it very symbolic that after crossing the border, Nick is now realizing that north is where an answer may lie for the people.  The end of the first season, they go "west."  Now they are going back North.

Nick says Luciana needs permission to go.  She was staying because of Alejandro, because he was not afraid.  If you tell her it's okay, they will all be safe.

Madison, Travis and Alicia arrive at the warehouse, which is now ransacked, completely empty, no one in sight.  Madison tells them there were about 100 people there.  She goes to the office where she interrupted the interrogation of Francisco, hoping to find clues about where Nick was or where these people were from.  They find Francisco's family, and Travis appears to have found something on Francisco's person.

In the next morning, the warehouse henchmen (including Marco and Elena's nephew Antonio) scale the wall of the dead and make it into the Colonia, without so much of a fight.  They celebrate; yet their victory is shortlived.

The wall of the dead, the wall that Alejandro and Luciana were convinced protected them from outside evils, was locked in by a school bus.  Alejandro, who had a death sentence anyway, stayed behind and moved the bus, allowing the dead to infiltrate the Colonia.  The men were outnumbered by the dead, and they start to run.

 
I have to say, when these leaders of the small communities go out, they go out with a bang (like Deanna at Alexandria in the main show).  The way Alejandro took them out was predictable, but needed to be done.  A+.  

Meanwhile, in the streets of Mexico, Nick and Luciana lead the remaining living to a new life.  "Where are we going," a little girl asks?

"North," says Luciana.

After all the bloodshed went down at Colonia, the Clark/Manawa tribe come in, after everyone has vacated.  Travis and Maddie tell Alicia to stay behind, where there about a dozen trucks from the banditos, who left them all behind when they took the Colonia.

Travis starts collecting the ammunition that was left behind when everyone started to run.  We see Marco and Antonio, as they are now bitten and have turned.  Alicia finds Alejandro in the bus, who is near death, and she attends to him.  Madison asks if he knows who Nick is.  Mistaking Madison as an angel at first, he tells her that Nick is still alive.  When she asks where he is, he spits out one word: "Border."  He saw something...before he could tell her what he saw, he passes.

I have to say, as far as death goes, Alejandro went out total balls to the wall.  He took out the banditos, protected his people and managed to give Maddie hope that Nick was still out there.  North, it is.

As the Colonia people get to the border, there are about a million abandoned cars, some infected border toll people.  Nick sees in the distance what appears to be a refugee camp.  As Nick lets his guard down for a second, presumably a border guard shoots at him, Luciana warns him and the Colonia people are scattering when the guns fire.

Nick and Luciana are captured in the last moments of the show, while Madison puts down Alejandro before he turns.

Nick was right.  Alejandro died a very beautiful death, giving hope to those around him.