TS-19

"TS-19" is the sixth and final episode of Season 1 of The Walking Dead.

Plot Synopsis

In the day of the apocalypse as the school is evacuated, we see Mariana, Cristiana, Inês, Diana, Sophia, Caramelo, Fábio and Ruth, as well as many of the background survivors who are probably their classmates being evacuated by the military. Along the way to the military truck, they see duzens of walkers grabing and killing other students, despite the military's effort, they weren't able to evacuate every class room leaving many people on their own.

On their way to a survivor refugee, a herd blocks the road, forcing the military to stop and kill them. They get out of ammo before killing all of the undead who start to climb into the trucks. The students and teachers, who were now abandoned by the military, are forced to fight for their lifes. We see Mariana and Cristiana grabing Bruno and running away into the woods with Paquete, Johanne, Ruth, Sophia and Gonçalo as lots of the evacuated students are now being devoured.

In the present, Daniel and the other survivors file into 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. "Help" Sophia 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."

They follow Jenner to the building's basement control center. Cassandra 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."

He leads the group into 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 Daniel and his group.

Looking around, Daniel questions the absence of other doctors. "I'm all that's left," Jenner replies. Mariana asks about Vi, and Jenner introduces them to the CDC's computer system.

As Jenner takes a blood sample from Cassandra, 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," Leandra explains to Jenner as she leans in to help Cassandra. Jenner seems struck with a sudden idea.

Later, the group feasts in the CDC cafeteria, jovially drinking wine and liquor from the fully stocked fridge, jubilant about finding a safe place and a good meal. Gonçalo toasts Jenner for his hospitality, and the doctor quietly raises his glass.

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

Jenner shows the group around the building, directing the children toward the rec room and imploring everyone not to waste electricity.

But the survivors are thrilled to luxuriate in hot showers — all except for Zita, who sits numbly under the stream.

Afterward, Ana overhears Zita throwing up. "Everything's gone," she cries. Ana argues that she still has her "Didn't you see the look on Jenner's face honey?" Zita hits back. "There's nothing left."

Paquete goes into the control room, where Jenner is working on the group's blood samples. "How's the blood?" Paquete asks. "No surprises," Jenner shrugs. Paquete makes a point of thanking Jenner and to say his sorry for he's behavior. He admits to Jenner that he never let on to the others what he really thought, but he knew they were running out of options before they got to the CDC. "We'd have died out there," Paquete explains, his face awash with relief at their new surroundings. "It'll all be OK," Jenner replies softly.

Daniel finds Cristiana, Mariana, and Ruth reading books in the rec room. He asks for Bruno and they say that he's in the bedroom. Sophia takes Ana to bed for an assured good night's sleep.

The next morning, Daniel goes into the cafeteria. Leandra proudly dishes out powdered eggs for everyone.

Johanne speaks with Paquete. "You we're right after all" Paquete tells her. She tells him that he should be thanking Daniel and not her. "maybe you're right" he tells her.

When Jenner arrives in the kitchen, Kiko starts asking questions. Zita concurs, saying, "We didn't come here for the eggs." Jenner leads the group to the control center, where he asks Vi to display the brain scans from "Test Subject 19." The ultra-secret, though worthless, video shows someone who was infected and allowed the process to be recorded by the CDC, Jenner explains.

Synapses are alight 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 Miguel?" Bruno wonders innocently, and Daniel nods. Zita looks beaten, and Cassandra explains to Jenner that her daughter and her son died two days before. Jenner approaches Zita. "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?" Fábio 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, and Zita remembers Illyana. He admits he doesn't know what the disease is or how to treat it, and that he's 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?" Zita accuses him.

Daniel 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.

Daniel, Paquete, Kiko and Gonçalo head to inspect the generators. While they're in the basement, the building's emergency lighting switches on, bathing the foursome in darkness. Upstairs, Mariana and Cristiana 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, and he says he hopes she'd be proud of him. With the lights now shutting themselves off inside the panicked survivors' rooms, they confront Jenner in the hallway, who explains that the building is shutting itself down. Daniel, Paquete, Gonçalo, and Kiko return from the basement, and Jenner says the system is designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second.

"It was the French," Jenner says. They stuck it out the longest before they too ran out of power, he says, but the building would decontaminate in thirty minutes, and it was too late to stop it without any fuel, he assures them. Paquete and Daniel yells at the group to grab their things and run as the emergency alarms start blaring, but 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 wouldn't open again - you heard me say that," he points out as Kiko tries to demand he open the door.

"It's better this way," Jenner says. When Daniel presses him about what happens when the clock gets to zero, Jenner reminds the survivors where they are. To prevent strains of disease from getting out if the building's security was ever compromised, HITs would deploy, setting the air on fire. It would decimate the building and everything inside.

Death would be instant, and painless, Jenner points out as he tries to convince Paquete to accept his fate. "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." Daniel's family and friends look on fearfully.

Gonçalo and Kiko attempt to break through the door - built to withstand a rocket launcher - with axes and guns. Daniel, and Gonçalo throw Kiko , wielding an axe, off Jenner, then Daniel talks down Paquete as he points an automatic in Jenner's defeated, unaffected face. "If you kill him, we'll never get out of here," Daniel reasons with him. "I'm sick of taking orders from you".

Daniel 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 photograph — to keep going as long as he could. She was one of the finest scientists in the world, he says, and if anyone could have done something about this, it was her. "Me?" he admits, "I'm just Edwin Jenner."

Daniel and Mariana tell Jenner they just want their chance to keep going as long as they can. Swayed, Jenner agrees to open the door, but maintains they still won't be able to get past the lockdown upstairs. The group rushes, panicked, to the open door.

"Thank you," Daniel says, but Jenner counters, "The day will come when you won't thank me" He shakes Rick's hand and pulls him close, whispering something into Daniel's ear. "We've got four minutes left - come on!" Cristiana shouts, holding on to Bruno.

The group heads for the exit, but Zita stops. "I'm not ending up like Illyana and John," she tells Sophia and the others, tearfully telling them to leave while they can. "What about Ana?" Sophia asks her, sobbing. Zita tells her that she can't protect her, "I couln't protect Illyana and I couldn't protect John either. It wouldn't be different with her." Zita tells her to take care of Ana and wishes them good luck. Ana refuses to leave her mother but Zita tells her to go and that she loves her, as Fábio grabs Ana and takes her. "I'm staying too," Cassandra says, sliding dejectedly to the floor.

"Cassandra, no!" Leandra responds, horrified. She runs to her.

She pleads with Cassandra to come with them, but she won't budge. "What's the point we'll all die out there, you heard Jenner, there's nothing left," Cassandra says. She can't look at Leandra and Carina, who's on the verge of tears. The others yell at the girls to hurry, but Leandra pushes them on without her and Carina.

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

Nervously, Daniel detonates the grenade, blasting out one of the windows with mere minutes to spare.

In the basement, a resigned Leandra sits in front of Cassandra as Carina had already left. "If you're staying, I stay too," she tells her. She's furious, but she continues tearfully as Jenner and Zita look on in silence. "Please go," Zita tells Cassandra, "I need people to take care of my daughter, I want you to be one of them. I know we had our divergences before all this but it's all gone now". "Yeah, you had divergences with many people wasn't it?" Cassandra tells her.

The survivors run to the cars, shooting at walkers as they go. They pile into their cars and are getting ready to drive away when, from inside the RV, Carina sees Leandra and Cassandra emerge from the building.

Just ten seconds left, Jenner and Zita hold hands, smiling hopefully, resigned, as they watch the survivors evacuate on the security monitor.

The CDC erupts in a fiery explosion, and Leandra and Cassandra take cover behind a military blockade. Cassandra looks numb, but follows easily as Carina desperately beckons them to the RV.

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

Deaths

• Zita
• Dr. Edwin Jenner
• Dr. Candace Jenner (Video Clip)

Trivia

• Last appearance of Zita.
• Last appearance of Dr. Edwin Jenner.
• First (and last) appearance of Dr. Candace Jenner.
• The building shown as the CDC is actually the Cobb Energy Center, which is a performing arts center in Atlanta.
• The name of the episode, "TS-19," refers to the fact that Dr. Edwin Jenner's wife, Candace Jenner, was Test Subject 19. Jenner called his wife the person who could have cured the virus; instead, her flesh samples went up in flames. The end of TS-19 signaled the end of Edwin Jenner.
• This episode's cover features Gonçalo and Sophia.
  • It may represent their need to go to the city one more time, to get to the CDC.
• This episode has the highest onscreen death count so far, many patients and soldiers that were at the hospital are seen killed, plus Zita and Jenner are known to have been killed during this episode.
• This is the only episode from Season 1 where no new characters were introduced.