War comes to the CRM and the Bennetts and friends find themselves on countless new paths.

The end of the world is made up, as it was always going to be, of new beginnings. There’s an instinct, a nagging requirement almost, to be annoyed by this episode. It definitively ends the series certainly but does so in a way that sends every character somewhere else. For some, that’s to death. For others it’s presumably the just announced eighth season of Fear The Walking Dead, the long anticipated Rick Grimes movies, Tales of the Walking Dead, or the Carol and Daryl show.

We’ll get to them but first let’s talk about death because the two characters that don’t make it out of this are surprisingly fitting and resolutely unsurprising. Huck was never leaving the series alive, especially when she switched sides but Annet Mahendru gives her best performance of the show on her way out. This is Huck as, at last, the soldier she always thought she was, serene in defeat and knowing that defeat is in itself a victory. Her fight with Pollyanna McIntosh’s increasingly monstrous Jadis was only ever going to end one way and Huck goes out knowing full well she, at last, has genuinely done some good.

Her husband, Dennis, played by Maximilian Osinski, is the other major casualty and his exit is remarkably similar. Osinski has had half a season to register but register he definitely has, Dennis’ exhausted Steve Rogers routine a neat counterpoint to Huck’s fast talking reticence. Dennis actually started dying a couple of episodes ago but here he accepts his fate and, like Huck, uses it. She takes out the CRM’s gas. Dennis puts a knife in their ribs by sacrificing himself to give Silas a plausible entry to their military. His last scene is heartbreaking, as Silas, a kid who has been defined by refusing violence, is redefined by violence he has no choice but to carry out. Hal Cumpston’s another key part of the episode especially his final scene with Jadis. She knows exactly what he did. She doesn’t care. A good soldier’s a good soldier and that, in the end, is what’s going to doom her. Even after the mistake with the gas, even with the masterstroke of framing Kublek for it, Jadis still can’t quite see that other people are as smart as she is. When she makes her move on Portland (where it seems likely Rick is), it’s going to be much harder than she thinks.

Two characters live, one character is changed and a fourth gets very lucky. Elton (Nicolas Cantu again impressing) sacrifices an arm to save Hope which is a metaphor all by itself but is also a vital moment for the characters. Hope murders Elton’s mother when they were children, Elton saves her as adults and in doing so discovers he both wants to live and believes that generations will follow his after all.

This is all great stuff, chewy and emotive and rewarding. The other half of the episode is a little more crowd pleasing and a little less satisfying. Nico Tortorella’s Felix hasn’t had much to do recently and here all he gets is an admittedly really fun duel with a CRM officer. It’s a neat idea, the two repeatedly having to stop to kill the Empties swarming them both but it feels less like a conclusion for the character than a piece of catharsis. Likewise Aliyah Royale’s Iris is called on to process the loss of Percy in a couple of scenes and Jelani Aladdin’s Will gets an action sequence and little else.

But in the end, there is no end. The show has always been both a journey and about a journey and the episode is bookended by a flashback. The four kids who walked across the country, terrified and excited and so innocent, replaced by a scientist who may save the world, two soldiers who’ll help her do it and a deep cover spy who may save them all. The concepts here are too huge for one life but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be engaged with and as the episode closes we get a pretty hefty gear change for the universe. Jadis is now in charge of the CRM military, Silas is undercover within them, the Bennetts are attacking the Empties through yeast infection (so clever! so gross!) and also off to Portland to recruit help. The struggle continues and the four children who started it are now all adults and all a vital role of what’s to come. We’ll be seeing these characters again I’m sure but I have no idea where.

Verdict: What I do know is that seeing the show end this way is a little frustrating, a lot satisfying and sets up fascinating things for the future.

And thar’s even before we get to the end credits scene… 8/10

Alasdair Stuart