TS-19

"**TS-19**" is the sixth and final episode of the first season (and the sixth episode overall) of *The Walking Dead*.

The finale was written by Adam Fierro and Frank Darabont, and directed by Guy Ferland. It premiered on Dec. 5, 2010.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the episode has a score of 82%, with an average rating of 7.38 out of 10. The site's critical consensus reads: "*TS-19* closes out *The Walking Dead*'s debut season by offering the answers to most key questions while advancing the show's overall story arc."

## Plot

Rick and the group are allowed into the Center for Disease Control by a strange doctor. But all is not what it seems in their newfound haven.

## Synopsis

In the early days of the outbreak, Shane visits Rick at the hospital, where soldiers are evacuating employees and executing the infected. He tries to lift his comatose partner from the bed but hesitates due to all the tubes and wires attached to the machines keeping him alive. The power goes out and Rick's monitor turns off. Fearing the worst, Shane puts his ear to Rick's chest but is unable to hear anything because of the noise. Desperate, he reluctantly leaves Rick in the room, blocking the door with a gurney before he flees amidst the chaos.
In the present, Rick and the group enter the CDC lobby. Armed with a rifle, Dr. Jenner meets them at the door and is suspicious of the newcomers but allows them to stay in exchange for a blood test. Rick accepts and they follow him into the subterranean control center where Carol confesses to being a little claustrophobic. Looking around, Rick questions the absence of other doctors and Jenner replies that he was the only one left. One by one, the survivors undergo the blood test.

The group then feasts in the CDC cafeteria, joyfully drinking wine and liquor from the fully stocked kitchen, beyond happy about having found a safe place. Rick offers a toast to Dr. Jenner, who calmly raises his glass. Shane isn't interested in celebrating and asks what happened to the other scientists. Jenner reveals that most of them fled or committed suicide after being unable to face reality and that he stayed because he hoped to do some good.
After dinner, Jenner shows the group the facilities around the building, directing the children to the recreation room and telling everyone not to waste electricity.

The survivors are thrilled to luxuriate in hot showers, all except for Shane, who angrily drinks from a bottle of liquor while showering, and Andrea, who sits numbly under the stream. After leaving his room, Dale overhears Andrea throwing up and finds her in tears, convinced that everything is lost. He tries to cheer her up by telling her they had a chance to start again, but Andrea remarks on Jenner's disappointed face at dinner and claims that there is no hope for the world.

Completely drunk, Rick stumbles into the control room, where Jenner is working and thanks him again for his hospitality. He confesses to Jenner that he never told the others what he really thought, but that he was sure they would die out there because they were running out of options. With a somber tone, Jenner assures him that everything would be fine from now on.

Meanwhile, Lori finds Carl, Sophia, and Carol hanging out in the rec room. Carol takes the children to bed while Lori decides to stay behind checking the library. Shane looms in the doorway, with a bottle of whiskey in hand, and tells Lori that he is going to say some things to her and she will have to listen. Lori tries to leave but he closes the door. Shane insists that he didn't lie to her about Rick and that he truly believed that he had died when he left him in the hospital. Drunk and desperate, he forces himself on her trying to kiss her, causing Lori to scratch his face and neck. Horrified by his own behavior, Shane leaves as Lori breaks down in tears. Shortly after, Rick lays on the bed with Lori and notices that she has been crying. He assures her that she would never have to be afraid anymore.
The next morning, Rick shuffles into the cafeteria and Lori gives him some aspirin for his hangover. Shane also arrives and T-Dog notices his scratches. He justifies himself by saying that he scratched himself in his sleep, to which Rick replies that he had never seen him do something like this before. Shane tells him that it was definitely not himself and looks at Lori with embarrassment.

When Jenner arrives, he takes the group to the control center and shows them the brain scan of test subject 19, someone who was infected and allowed the process of reanimation to be recorded. The tape shows the virus attacking the brain, which turns dark. Jenner fast-forwards to the second event: the resurrection of test subject 19. He explains that the virus only restarts the brain stem, therefore the human part never returned, and admits that he doesn't know what the disease is or how to treat it as well as that he lost contact with other facilities around the world a month ago.

Dale interrupts the stunning silence to ask Jenner about the clock on the wall that was counting down. Jenner replies that when it reaches zero, the power generators that were in the basement will run out of fuel. Rick, Shane, T-Dog, and Glenn head to check the generators, while upstairs the air conditioning stops working. In his office, Jenner stares at a photograph of a woman and asks her to understand that he did the best he could in the time he had and that he hopes she is proud of him.

With the building shutting itself down, the panicked survivors confront Jenner, who explains that the building is shutting down on its own and that the system is designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second. He reveals that it was the French who went the furthest with the investigations before running out of power and states that in thirty minutes the building would decontaminate. The group tries to escape, but they are locked inside the control center.
Jenner tells them that it is useless to try to fight what was going to happen because the main doors on the top floor were automatically locked down. He explains that when the clock gets to zero a decontamination protocol will be initiated that will set the air on fire and destroy the building. That was the way the CDC had to prevent diseases from going abroad if the security was ever compromised.

Trying to convince them to accept their fate, Jenner states that the death would be instant and painless, words which causes great resonance in some members of the group, and then brings up what Rick said the night before that it was only a matter of time for all his loved ones to die. This lowers the morale of the group.
As despair grips the survivors, Daryl and Shane futilely attempt to break through the door with axes and guns while Rick demands to know why Jenner stayed if he believed there was no hope for the world. Jenner admits that he had made a promise to his wife, test subject 19, about keep going as long as possible, and confesses that she had been the most valuable scientist of the CDC and that he was just a nobody. Lori tells him that they deserved the opportunity to keep going as long as possible.

Jenner finally agrees to open the doors of the control center but remains adamant that they will not be able to exit through the main doors on the top floor. Rick says that he was grateful for the second chance he was allowing them to have, but Jenner counters that the day will come when he won't be. He pulls Rick close and whispers something into his ear. Rick is left stumped for a few seconds but soon recovers as the others scream him to hurry as the time was running out.

When the group starts running towards the exit, Jacqui surprisingly decides to stay behind. T-Dog tries to convince her otherwise but Jacqui admits that she did not want to end up like Jim or Amy and tearfully asks them to leave while they can. Andrea reveals that she was going to stay as well. Dale pleads with her to come with them, but she won't move, so he tells the others to leave.
In the CDC lobby, the group finds the doors locked as Jenner had told them and they helplessly try to break the windows. Carol insistently searches for something in her bag and then hands Rick something she found in his pants pocket the first day he arrived at camp: the hand grenade. Everyone takes cover and Rick detonates the grenade, destroying one of the tempered glass windows.

In the basement, a resigned Dale sits in front of Andrea and tells her he was staying too. Andrea is infuriated by this but he tearfully claims that she simply couldn't come into his life and then leave as if nothing had happened. Outside, the survivors run to their cars while taking down nearby walkers. From inside the RV, Lori sees Dale and Andrea emerge from the building at the last moment.

With just ten seconds left, Jenner and Jacqui hold hands, smiling hopefully as they watch the group flee on the security monitors. The counter goes to zero and the CDC explodes completely. Dale and Andrea get into the RV while the rest of the survivors looks in silence at what remains of the building. Rick starts the vehicle's engine and leads the caravan away from the flaming ruins.

## Cast

* Jon Bernthal as Shane Walsh
* Sarah Wayne Callies as Lori Grimes
* Laurie Holden as Andrea
* Jeffrey DeMunn as Dale Horvath
* Steven Yeun as Glenn Rhee
* Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes

Guest Starring* Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon
* Noah Emmerich as Edwin Jenner
* Jeryl Prescott Sales as Jacqui
* IronE Singleton as T-Dog
* Madison Lintz as Sophia Peletier

Uncredited* Claire Bronson as Candace Jenner

## Deaths

* Candace Jenner *(Alive and Zombified, Confirmed Fate)*
* Edwin Jenner
* Jacqui
* Numerous CDC scientists *(Confirmed Fate)*
* Numerous patients and hospital staff *(Flashback)*
* Several U.S. military soldiers *(Flashback)*

## Trivia

* First (and last) appearance of Candace Jenner. *(Video Tape, Corpse)*
* Last appearance of Jacqui. *(Alive)*
* Last appearance of Edwin Jenner.
* Last appearance of the CDC.
* The title of this episode, **"TS-19"**, refers to Candace Jenner, who was labeled as **T**est **S**ubject **19**.
* The CDC building is actually the Cobb Energy Center, which is a performing arts center in Atlanta.
* After Rick tells Jenner *"I'm grateful"*, Jenner counters: *"The day will come when you won't be"*, a phrase eventually used as the title for the Season 7 premiere.
* Jenner's password was 6-9-6-9.
* Originally the phrase that Dr. Jenner whispers to Rick was going to be revealed before the end of the episode to give a conclusion to the story in case the series was not renewed for a second season. Following the announcement of the show renewal for a new season, Darabont chose to keep Jenner's words secret and modified the scene into a cliffhanger.
	+ The bulk of the whisper is audible on the Season 1 Blu-ray if you significantly increase the center channel to isolate the dialogue. The first two sentences are: *"It's in your blood. We're all carriers."*
	+ This was revealed in "Beside the Dying Fire", where it was explained that Rick didn't believe Jenner until he witnessed it for himself.
* The song that plays over the end credits is, "Tomorrow is a Long Time" by Bob Dylan.
* Jenner said that Test Subject 19 resurrected after 2 hours, 1 minute and 7 seconds. This is the same time the clock reads when Rick wakes up from his coma.
* Robert Kirkman has expressed that he is disappointed with how the CDC storyline turned out. He said in one of his interviews: *"If I had to do it again, I wouldn't have done the CDC episode. It possibly gave away too much information and was such a big change very early on in the series. I feel like there might have been a better way to wrap up the first season. But there were things in that episode that I think seem very much not of The Walking Dead world. I've been careful in the comic series to not say what's happening in other parts of the world. It's something that's going to be fun to explore in the spin-off series. But the fact that France is mentioned in that episode and other things like that, I probably would have steered away from that stuff if I had to do it all over again."*
* This episode takes place on the same day as the Season 3 episodes "Things Bad Begun" and "Sleigh Ride" of *Fear The Walking Dead*.

## Comic Parallels

* The group finding shelter inside the CDC.[Issue 7]
	+ In the original issue, the group seeks refuge in an abandoned neighborhood.
* Dale attempting to comfort a depressed Andrea to no avail.[Issue 6]
* Lori scratching Shane's face.[Issue 6]
* The group escaping from the CDC before it explodes.[Issue 9]
	+ In the original issue, the group escapes from a herd in Wiltshire States.
* The group driving towards an uncertain destination.[Issue 9]

## Goofs/Errors

* In the flashback sequence, Shane is wearing black gloves while attempting to evacuate Rick from the hospital. After he hides from the military inspecting Rick's room, Shane's gloves disappear.
* During the playback of TS-19, the counter at the bottom of the screen suddenly jumps from "32:18:12" to "12:18:13", jumping back 20 hours, but when scanning to the second event, the numbers go from 32 up to 34 hours to resume playback.
* Jenner's scan shows that in a walker, only the brain stem and midbrain are still functioning. Yet, in many battles, damaging only a little part of the cortex is sufficient to kill a walker.
* Jenner inaccurately gives the resurrection time as "2hrs:01min:07sec" but the timings using the clock at the bottom of the screen from the moment of death (32:18:12) until the first signs of EEG trace signals (34:20:23) is actually "2:02:11".
* The first soldier that is grabbed by walkers in the flashback scene is wearing an outdated Desert Camouflage Uniform, unlike the rest of the soldiers that are wearing the Universal Camouflage Pattern.

## Gallery

The following are all the photographic stills released to promote this episode.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the\_walking\_dead/s01/e05
2. ↑ https://www.amc.com/shows/the-walking-dead/season-1/episode-06/ts-19
3. ↑ EOnline.com
4. ↑ The Hollywood Reporter