Season 6, Episode 14:
Mother
Directed by Janice Cooke
Opens with Teddy writing and listening to a newscast about an epidemic sweeping the country. The Anchorwoman says people are not seeking medical care because of patients reacting violently in hospitals. Teddy turns the TV off and closeups of articles about his crimes in life are pinned to the wall along with an old photo of a woman he looks at sadly. He’s in prison.
A man’s scream echoes through the hall. A man walks in ahead of the screaming prisoner dressed in white and three guards who are holding and guiding him through the hall. It’s his execution day. Teddy tries to comfort the man, telling him “The end is the beginning.” The first man scoffs at Teddy’s words replying, “You believe the bullshit you spew? You’ll be here soon enough.” Teddy laughs.
Some time later that evening, Teddy is eating the last of his dinner, some bleak looking vegetables. There’s a heat lamp behind him over a grouping of growing plants. He continues writing when he can’t finish his meal and an alarm goes off, coupled with indistinct shouting. The executed inmate and a guard have turned and are walking down the hall. Cell doors have opened automatically. Prisoners tentatively leave their cells and are attacked by the newly turned walkers. Teddy looks scared and confused. The taunting officer has also turned and wanders into Teddy’s cell. Teddy falls back into the wall with a whimper. He holds the officer back then stabs him in the head with his pen. Teddy takes the photo of the woman off the wall, telling it, “I was right, I just needed to be patient!” He takes his notebooks and leaves, only turning back to tell the now dead walker his words weren’t bullshit but revelation and with this, he leaves.
Alicia wakes up in a dark classroom and Teddy’s voice repeating the same message over and over. Riley comes in and roughly asks her if she sees it yet. She ignores him and he tosses her a can of beans before walking away disappointed. Alicia sits in a lit room still listening to Teddy’s recording, frustrated. Teddy comes in and comments that she hadn’t been eating the beans they left for her after she comments that he’d stopped sending Riley in. He reveals he had been trying to indoctrinate her though imprisonment wasn’t his preferred method, even though it was how his revelation came to him. He tells her they’ve found their new home, one better than The Holding but before he can take her, he needs assurances that she is dedicated to what their goals are, which she declines. Riley gets frustrated with Alicia and pulls a gun on her, which Teddy discourages. He wants to end things right there, Teddy is still convinced she’s who he’s been waiting for. Teddy grabs him by the balls from behind, a trick he learned in prison.
Teddy is refueling a pickup truck with Alicia waiting next to it. Riley asks where they’re going, to which Teddy answers that he has a personal matter to attend to and wants her in attendance. Riley doesn’t like it and tries to discourage him. Teddy doesn’t want questions about it again. A bus of new arrivals comes in, Dakota being amongst them. Alicia is not happy to see her. Teddy notices that they know each other and asks her questions about her family. Dakota tells him she has none, Alicia reveals she tried to kill her mother but Dakota tells him she didn’t succeed, someone else did the deed. Teddy takes a liking to Dakota and invites her on his road trip with him. Alicia doesn’t want to travel with Dakota and warns Teddy against taking her, which Riley agrees. Teddy tells him he’d know what to do if he didn’t return. The two leave Dakota and Alicia to talk. Dakota claims she went to find Alicia and got in with the cult to find and help her, which Alicia rebukes. Dakota wants to make up for her actions and warns Alicia further. She offers to help kill Teddy.
On the road, they pass a sign for the stadium where Madison and her group had been in before the Vultures and the fire, upsetting Alicia. She confronts Teddy about doing this to throw her off, using the tapes Riley recorded when she arrived at The Holding. Teddy claims the universe sent signs to bring her there. He goes on one of his rants and nicknames Dakota “Sioux” after his favorite city in the Dakotas. He begins talking about signs, and timing and how it’s no coincidence Dakota arrived when she did nor that their journey would take them by the stadium.
Teddy is breaking into a mausoleum and removing a coffin. He breaks it open to reveal a decomposing woman he greets as ‘Mother’. He says she was taken before her time and that she could be a part of their new beginnings. He reveals everything around them will be gone when they’re done.
They’re back on the road, Mother in the back of the pickup. He tries to relate to the girls because he lost his mother too. He tells them he had always aimed to change the world and instead he ended up in a jail cell and thought he’d failed. He kept the photo of his mother up on his cell and felt dejected that he’d failed in his goals but came to find he wasn’t wrong, he needed to be patient. He’d have his time. Then the world fell and he got a second chance to change the world. Alicia asks if he thinks he can do that with a pair of keys and inquires as to what they open. Dakota tells him he sounds like her mom. Just then, a tire pops and the truck goes out of control, Mother falling out the back. Teddy freaks out and goes to her, uncovering her face and calling for help getting her back to the truck. Alicia and Dakota grab tools from the back of the pickup and kill Walkers that have wandered to them, after telling Teddy not to shoot so as not to attract more. Someone starts shooting the walkers dead instead, saving them. It’s Cole from the Stadium. Alicia is stunned, as is Cole. Teddy asks about him, Cole tells him Madison had saved him, which Teddy takes to be a sign.
Teddy tries to call Riley on the walkie for help with the truck. Alicia and Cole talk about the time between the Stadium fire and now. Cole tells her about a bunch of the Stadium folks still living because of Madison’s sacrifice and Alicia tells him of Nick’s death and Luciana and Strand’s survival. Cole asks about the gasoline and Alicia tells him about Teddy and the supplies his group has. Teddy returns with Dakota unable to get a signal on his walkie. He asks Cole if he knows where they can get a new vehicle. Cole points them to a car shop nearby but warns them of “unsavory types” who rob others on the road and set up boards with nails to derail cars. Teddy looks at him curiously and Cole offers to take them. Teddy tells him to lead the way but tells Cole to give up his gun because he doesn’t trust him yet. He tells Cole to give it to Alicia since they know each other.
Dakota asks Teddy about his jail time and she tells him about Virginia. Teddy points out that Dakota seems a little guilty for her misdeeds but the two bond over their doing whatever it took, even to people they knew, to get them to see their way. Teddy understands Dakota. As they approach the car shop, Cole and Alicia talk about how, with her having his gun, they can take Teddy out. Alicia tells him she can’t because even if Teddy is gone, the rest of his group will follow through on their plans. Cole keeps prodding about the group and what their plans are. Cole offers to let her join up with his people. He uses the memory of Madison to try to push her further.
At the car shop, they search for supplies. Teddy stares at Alicia and tells her she reminds him of his mother. He asks her what she wants to do, whether to join them or leave. They are then ambushed by Cole and their former Stadium group, revealing himself to be one of the unsavory types. Cole says maybe Madison should’ve left them to die at the Stadium since they’re attacking her daughter and other innocents rather than doing better for themselves and others.
Cole tells them about their group being attacked not long after the Stadium fire. Most of the survivors were shot and killed while they had been searching for a place to regroup and search for Nick, Alicia and their friends. They were attacked by people holed up in a motel. It was then that they decided to become what they are. Teddy chimes in that this is what he was trying to get Alicia to understand and he prods at Cole for being the kind of person Teddy wanted to destroy to make the world better. Doug interrupts him, telling him they aren’t proud of it but could find no other way and Alicia reminds him they had another way before the fire and they could’ve regrouped and done that. It becomes a back and forth between Alicia and Cole and their methods.
They fix the truck and Cole once more offers to let Alicia live and join them, Teddy goes to talk to her, telling her he knows what she’s thinking, although she doesn’t believe him. He tells her he’s even more confident that she is exactly the person he’s been looking for for his plans to succeed. Cole approaches them to get back to work and Alicia unsuccessfully tries to bargain with him to part ways peacefully. Cole tells them their last negotiations with someone they robbed bit them in the behind and push Teddy to tell them where his place is so they can take it. Teddy stays quiet and Doug mentions there may be a map inside the truck. Teddy tells them it’s all in his head and Cole threatens to shoot him, inquiring why Alicia is protecting him. Dakota is worried for Teddy and the others are worried because of Walkers. Cole is getting greedy though and Teddy tells him he could kill him without derailing his plans. Cole then threatens to shoot “Mother’s” corpse, citing his earlier reaction. Teddy doesn’t react and taunts him. Then Teddy reveals that’s not his mother. He tells Alicia he brought her that way on purpose, to help her see the truth and move on from her past. He had hoped they wouldn’t find any of their old comrades alive but finding a few who went bad was even better.
Cole apologizes and offers one last time for her to join them. When she refuses because she wants to find out what they’re planning to help stop them, he has them all on their knees ready to shoot. Walkers begin approaching them and Alicia tried to reason with Doug. Alicia stops Cole from shooting Teddy and the walkers swarm them. Doug and Viv are eaten first while Dakota and Teddy kill off walkers together. Alicia grabs a walker and holds a pistol through its shotgun hole in the stomach. She approaches Cole who threatens her. He tries to reason with her. She pushes the walker at him and he dispatches it quickly. Alicia points her gun at him and confronts him with Madison’s sacrifice for him. Teddy tried to chime in but she’s not having it. She’s heartbroken that Cole and the others wasted the opportunities Madison’s sacrifice afforded them. He tries to taunt her and she shoots him in the head. She still tells Teddy he’s wrong about his methods and that they should just destroy people like Cole to make the world better rather than everyone. She then puts down Doug and Viv.
Dakota tried to sympathize with Alicia telling her it’s not as hard and she thinks killing people she knows but knows can’t stay alive. Alicia brushes this off as Dakota continues trying to get Alicia to understand. Alicia tells Dakota she tried to help her believe in something better the way Madison did with the Stadium group both sets threw it away. Teddy tells her she’s proud of her and Alicia pushes back. She pushes the right button and Teddy tells her all about his beloved mother. Mother had found Teddy’s notebooks full of his writings and told him he was disturbed and, fearing she’d have him locked away, he killed her and buried her on the family farm. When nobody found her body by the next spring and a garden of flowers grew over her body, he became convinced of his ideas of a new beginning. He’s an open book and when Alicia asks how he plans to end it all, he tells her the key his people have been searching for all season will launch a missile from the beached submarine washed ashore in Galveston. She takes the walkie from him and tells him he needs to be put down too. Dakota pumps her shotgun behind her and says Alicia will have to get rid of her too. Dakota wants a fresh start and if it can’t be with Alicia and Morgan after her murder of John Dorie, it’ll have to be with Teddy and his people. Teddy tells Dakota he wants Alicia alive and Alicia calls out on the walkie, reaching Victor. She tells him about the plan and what’s going on and to spread the word. The cult arrives to get Teddy. Riley takes the walkie from Alicia and they take her captive. Riley moves to kill Alicia but Teddy stops him. She the right person for the work he wants done.
They reach a hotel with a bunker set up for government officials before the world ended. Teddy tells her the history of it before locking her in the bunker and leaving her behind. He wants her to start the world over after everything ends.
Tropes:
- Back for the Dead: Cole, Viv and Doug (and some unnamed characters) from the Stadium return after two seasons just to be bad guys and get killed or eaten by Walkers
- Chekhov's Volcano: The beached submarine in the first episode of the season is revealed to be Teddy's plan for destroying the world and starting over.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Dakota
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Then again, everyone’s having a hard time forgiving Dakota and she’s not very patient about it.
- Matricide: Teddy is revealed to have murdered his own mother, fearing he would be locked away for his writings.
- Was It All a Lie?: Alicia says a variation of this to Dakota after she threatens to shoot her if Alicia kills Teddy.
- You Will Know What to Do: Teddy tells Riley this when handing him the key around his neck.
