TS-19 (WTS)

"TS-19" is the sixth and final episode of season 1 of The Walking Dead: Willing To Survive.

Plot
While in the car, T-Dog asks Paul and Karina about where they came from. Karina talks about the zombie attack at their camp and says they did not know they were overrun until Angelo began screaming.

Rick and the other survivors file in to the CDC lobby in Atlanta. Dr. Edwin Jenner meets them at the door with an automatic. "Why are you here, and what do you want?" Jenner asks them. "A chance," Rick says simply.

"That's asking an awful lot these days," Jenner replies, but he agrees to allow them in - provided they all submit to a blood test. "Grab your things," he tells them. "Once this door closes, it stays closed." Rick agrees, and they follow Jenner to the building's subterranean control center.

Daryl asks if doctors always go around packing heat like that, and the doc deadpans, "There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself. But you look harmless enough".

Carol notes that she's claustrophobic underground, and Jenner simply advises her not to think about it.

He leads the Survivors in to the control room. "Vi, bring up the lights in the big room," he says, and the lights go up. "Welcome to Zone 5," he tells Rick and his group.

Looking around, Rick questions the absence of other doctors. "I'm all that's left," Jenner replies. Lori asks about Vi. When Jenner introduces her, the group realizes that she is the voice of the CDC's computer system.

As Jenner takes a blood sample from Andrea, she asks him what the point is. "If we were infected, we'd all be running a fever.", she scoffs, but Jenner asks her to humor him. When she stands, she wobbles. "She hasn't eaten in days. None of us have," Jacqui explains to Jenner as she helps Andrea stable herself. Jenner seems struck with a sudden idea.

Later, the group feasts in the CDC cafeteria, joyfully drinking wine and liquor from the fully stocked kitchen. They are beyond happy about finding a safe place to stay and a good meal. Glenn is drunk, much to Daryl's satisfaction.

Carl tries his first sip of red wine. He hates it, to Lori's delight. Rick toasts Jenner for his hospitality, and the doctor quietly raises his glass.

Shane isn't interested in celebrating. "When are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here?" Shane asks. Jenner explains that most of the doctors fled. The rest, he says, "couldn't face walking out the door. They...opted out (committed suicide)." Jenner says that he stayed because he hoped to do some good.

After dinner, Jenner shows the group around the building, directing the children towards the rec room and telling everyone not to waste electricity. The survivors are thrilled to luxuriate in hot showers — all except for Shane, who angrily swallows a bottle of liquor while he bathes; and Andrea, who sits numbly under the stream.

Afterwards, Dale overhears Andrea throwing up. "Everything's gone," she cries. Dale argues that they have an opportunity to make a fresh start. "Didn't you see the look on Jenner's face?" Andrea hits back. "There's nothing left."

Rick stumbles drunkenly into the control room, where Jenner is working on the group's blood samples. "How's the blood?" Rick asks, falling to the floor as he tries to prop himself up against a desk. "No surprises," Jenner states.

Rick makes a point of thanking Jenner again. He admits to Jenner that he never let on to the others what he really thought, but he knew that they were running out of options before they got to the CDC. "We'd have died out there," Rick explains, his face awash with relief at their new surroundings. "It'll all be ok," Jenner replies softly.

Cradling another glass of wine, a buzzed Lori finds Carl, Carol, and Sophia reading books in the rec room. Carol takes the children to bed while Lori stays behind to browse the library.

Shane looms in the doorway, whiskey in hand, watching her. He stumbles, drunk, and she whips around, startled. "I'm going to tell you a few things, and you're gonna listen," he says, closing the door. Lori tries to push past him.

"How can you treat me like this?" he asks, insisting that he didn't lie to her about Rick. He really thought Rick was dead, that he hadn't heard a heartbeat when he listened for one at the hospital, he swears to her, "and I had y'all to think about". He tells her he loves her and also states that he knew she never would have fled the chaos if she believed that Rick was alive. That would have risked her and Carl's lives if she stayed.

Drunk and desperate, he tries to kiss her. He grabs for her, forcing himself on her until Lori screams and scratches his face and throat. Horrified by his own behavior, Shane flees, and Lori breaks down in to tears.

Later, Rick stumbles in to bed with Lori and sees that she's been crying. He assumes that it is of something else as he is clueless as to what had just happened with her and Shane. "We don't have to be afraid anymore," he assures her.

The next morning, Rick shuffles in to the cafeteria. He, as well as most others, is hung over. Merle proudly dishes out powdered eggs for everyone, and Glenn groans in agony with his head down. Lori hands Rick some aspirin which she says came from Dr. Jenner.

Shane enters the room and heads straight for the coffee, and Rick asks if Shane feels as bad as he does. "Worse," Shane answers, and T-Dog asks about the scratches on Shane's neck. He shrugs it off, claiming he must have scratched his neck in his sleep. "Never seen you do that before," Rick says. "Not like me at all," Shane agrees while eyeing Lori, who keeps her head down and continues to eat.

When Jenner arrives in the kitchen, Dale starts asking questions. Andrea concurs, saying, "We didn't come here for the eggs." Jenner leads the group in to the control center. He tells Vi to display the brain scans from the episode's namesake "Test Subject 19." The top-secret brain-scan video shows someone who was infected and allowed the process of reanimation to be recorded by the CDC, Jenner explains.

Synapses are shown throughout the brain. "Experience, memories. Somewhere in all that organic wiring is you. The thing that makes you unique and human," Jenner explains. The display shows the virus attacking the brain - the "first event." The brain goes dark; the body dies. "Everything you were or ever will be - gone," Jenner says.

"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia wonders innocently, and Carol nods. Andrea looks beaten, and Lori explains to Jenner that Andrea's sister died two days before. Jenner approaches Andrea. "I lost somebody, too. I know how devastating it is," he says.

Jenner fast-forwards to the "second event" — TS-19's resurrection. "It restarts the brain?" Lori asks. "Just the brain-stem," Jenner corrects. "The human part - the you part - that doesn't come back."

A bullet flies through TS-19's head in the video playback. Andrea reminisces of Amy, whom she, too, had to shoot in the head. He admits he doesn't know what the disease is or how to treat it. He also states that he has lost contact with other research facilities. "I've been in the dark for almost a month," he admits. "There's nothing left anywhere. That's what you're really saying, right?" Andrea accuses him.

Dale interrupts the stunned silence to ask Jenner about a clock on the far wall, which is counting down from an hour. At that point, Jenner says, "the basement generators, they run out of fuel." At zero, Vi explains, plant-wide decontamination will occur, a reference to the decontamination-by-fire that happened to the lab in the previous episode, "Wildfire".

Rick, Shane, T-Dog, and Glenn head to inspect the generators. While they're in the basement, the building's emergency lighting switches on, bathing the four in darkness. Upstairs, Lori and Carl are in their room when the building's air cuts off.

In his office, Jenner stares at a photograph of a woman, asking her to understand that he did the best he could in the time that he had. He says that he hopes she's proud of him. With the lights now shutting themselves off inside the panicked survivors' rooms, they confront Jenner in the hallway. He explains that the building is slowly starting to shut itself down.

Rick, Shane, Glenn, and T-Dog return from the basement, and Jenner states that the system is designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second. "It was the French," Jenner says. "They stuck it out as long as they could before they too ran out of power," he says.

He states that in thirty minutes, the building would decontaminate, and that it is too late to stop it since there is no fuel. Rick yells at the group to grab their things and run as the emergency alarms start blaring. Before they are able to, Jenner locks them inside the control center.

"There's no point in struggling", Jenner explains. Everything topside is automatically locked down. "When that door closes, it won't open again - you heard me say that," he points out as Rick tries to demand that he open the door.

"It's better this way", Jenner says. When Rick presses him about what happens when the clock gets to zero, Jenner reminds the survivors where they are. To prevent organisms from getting out if the building's security was ever compromised, HITs (High-Impulse Thermobaric fuel-air explosives as defined by Vi) would deploy, setting the air on fire. It would destroy the building and everything inside.

He tries to help the case and convince Rick and his group to accept their fate by stating that the death would be instant and painless. "There's no hope. Last night, you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead," Jenner argues. He calls the Outbreak humanity's "extinction event." Rick's family and friends look on fearfully.

Daryl and Shane futilely attempt to break through the door with axes and guns, but Jenner states that it's built to withstand a rocket launcher. Rick, T-Dog, and Dale throw Daryl, wielding an axe, off Jenner. Rick talks down Shane as he points an automatic gun in Jenner's defeated and unaffected face. "If you kill him, we'll never get out of here," Rick states as he tries to reason with Shane.

Rick also demands to know why Jenner stayed if he didn't think there was any hope. "I made a promise," Jenner says, to his wife — Test Subject 19, the woman in the photograph — to keep going as long as he could. "She was one of the finest scientists in the world, "and if anyone could have done something about this, it was her." he says. "Me?" he admits, "I'm just Edwin Jenner."

Rick and Lori tell Jenner that they just want their chance to keep going as long as they can. Swayed, Jenner agrees to open the door, but also tells them that they still won't be able to get past the lockdown upstairs. Jenner opens the door to the control center.

"I'm grateful", Rick says before he exits, but Jenner counters, "the day will come when you won't be". He shakes Rick's hand and pulls him close, whispering something in to his ear. "We've got four minutes left - come on!" Glenn shouts.

The group heads for the exit, but Jacqui stops. "I'm not ending up like Jim and Amy," she tells T-Dog and the others, tearfully telling them to leave while they can. "I'm staying too," Andrea says, sliding to the floor. "Andrea, no!" Dale responds, horrified. He runs to her. "This isn't what Amy would want for you!" He pleads with Andrea to come with them, but she won't budge. "She's dead, and you need to leave," Andrea says. She can't look at Dale, who's on the verge of tears. The others yell at Dale to hurry, but he tells them to go on without him.

In the CDC lobby, the group finds the doors locked and they pound helplessly on the windows. Shane shoots a rifle at the glass, to no avail. "I think I have something that might help," Carol says, fumbling in her purse while Shane retorts, "I don't think a nail file's gonna do it." Carol ignores him. "Your first morning at camp," she tells Rick. "When I washed your uniform? I found this in your pocket." She pulls the hand grenade that Rick found in the tank from her bag.

Quickly, Rick detonates the grenade, blasting out one of the windows with mere minutes to spare before decontamination.

In the basement, a resigned Dale sits in front of Andrea. "If you're staying, I stay too," he tells her. He sits down beside her. She's furious, but he continues tearfully as Jenner and Jacqui look on in silence. "You don't get to do that. You can't come into somebody's life, make them care, and then just check out."

The survivors run to the cars, shooting at nearby walkers as they run. They pile in to their cars and are getting ready to drive away when, from inside the RV, Lori sees Dale and Andrea emerge from the building.

With just ten seconds left, Jenner and Jacqui hold hands, smiling hopefully as they watch the survivors flee on the security monitor. Dale and Andrea run behind a military blockade and take cover as the CDC erupts in a fiery explosion. Andrea looks numb, but follows easily as Glenn desperately motions them to the RV.

Shaken, Rick starts the engine, and the caravan drives away from the smoldering rubble, thick black smoke rising up behind them.

In the distance, T-Dog, Paul and Karina see the explosion in the distance and drive to there. They see the RV drive off and T-Dog tells them to go after them.

Main Cast
🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes
 * Jon Bernthal as Shane Walsh
 * Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes
 * Sarah Wayne Callies as Lori Grimes
 * Steven Yeun as Glenn Rhee
 * Laurie Holden as Andrea Harrison

Also Starring
🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * Lennie James as Morgan Jones*
 * Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier
 * Jeffrey DeMunn as Dale Horvath
 * IronE Singleton as Theodore Douglas
 * Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon
 * Michael Rooker as Merle Dixon

Co-Stars
🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * Madison Lintz as Sophia Peletier
 * Jeryl Prescott Sales as Jacqui
 * Noah Emmerich as Edwin Jenner
 * Ashley Bell as Karina
 * Wyatt Russell as Paul

Uncredited

 * Claire Bronson as Candace Jenner

Deaths

 * Angelo (Off-Screen, Confirmed Fate)
 * Candace Jenner (Alive and Zombified, Confirmed Fate)
 * Edwin Jenner
 * Jacqui
 * At least 16 unnamed camp survivors (Confirmed Fate)
 * Numerous CDC scientists (Confirmed Fate)

Trivia

 * First (and last) appearance of Candace Jenner. (Video Tape, Corpse)
 * Last appearance of Jacqui. (Alive)
 * Last appearance of Edwin Jenner.