Season One, Episode Four
- Rick and Michonne are alone together, and now have to work things out.
- Armor-Piercing Response: Rick is finally able to break Michonne’s bluster when he asks if she would’ve still gone home without him if he had been straight up with her about the threat to Alexandria.
- Becoming the Mask: Rick admits that he came to genuinely believe that the CRM, if reformed, could actually benefit the world, if only from his despair at being stopped from going home.
- Bottle Episode: Most of the episode takes place inside the hotel to provide Rick and Michonne a much-needed "timeout" like the latter describes it.
- Broken Pedestal: Michonne spends much of the episode with her already dwindling faith in Rick dwindling even further when he refuses to try to come home.Rick: I’m not the "Brave Man".
- Call-Back:
- Rick warns Michonne the CRM will do to Alexandria what they did to Nat’s group back in "Gone". She also quotes Nat’s "I know how it ends".
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Even when facing a horde with limited weapons and a building crumbling around them, Rick and Michonne, still in a foul mood, trade barbs.
- Continuity Nod:
- Rick sees the scars that Michonne was left with by Jocelyn’s group as depicted in the flashbacks of Season 9's "Scars", which took place several months after Rick’s disappearance. She eventually tells him the story.
- Michonne mentions the letter that Rick wrote for her that was shown in "Rest in Peace".
- Michonne reveals to Rick that she was pregnant with RJ when he seemingly died in "What Comes After".
- Michonne tells Rick how Judith and RJ tell each other the story of his apparent death, as they were shown doing in the Season 10 premiere "Lines We Cross".
- Michonne tells Rick how she and Daryl were suspicious of how they Never Found the Body, as Daryl first mentioned in "Stradivarius".
- Michonne calls Rick out for trying to use their situation to try to brush off their decision on what to do. Back in the first episodes of Season 3, Rick and Lori’s marriage had been destroyed without any attempt by them to really repair it since they focused themselves on surviving the winter.
- We see the footage of the flashbacks of Rick’s walk with Carl years before the Fall that was seen in the Season 8 finale "Wrath".
- Contrived Coincidence: Downplayed. Rick and Michonne manage to find an electric hybrid with cans of ethanol in the backseat right outside the hotel, which is a very lucky break; but it was shown the group that previously inhabited the hotel had access to great resources, and Rick had earlier noted that the area was largely untouched by other survivors, justifying why the car wasn't already taken.
- Cutting the Knot: Michonne proposes the plan of destroying Jadis’s evidence and then killing her so they can go home.
- Dead Person Conversation: Rick says he used to dream of talking with Carl.
- Destroy the Evidence: The second CRM helicopter destroys the helicopter that Rick and Michonne escaped from.
- Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: After they escape back to the room, Rick and Michonne begin to make up for lost time.
- Hope Spot: Rick is finally running back to Michonne, only for the camera to pan to another CRM helicopter approaching.
- Internal Reveal: Michonne finally reveals to Rick that she now has RJ.
- Ms. Fanservice: The camera sure gives a generous look at Michonne while she’s changing… and then it crosses into a bit of Fan Disservice when Rick sees the scars she was left with.
- No One Could Survive That!: Michonne says that the CRM would think they died in the helicopter crash.
- Papa Wolf: Upon hearing how Jocelyn kidnapped Judith and that Michonne killed her, Rick gives a bitter, vicious "good".
- Poor Communication Kills: Michonne calls Rick out on this, finally acknowledging the gravity of the threat that has cowed him into staying, but saying he should’ve been straight up with her from the beginning so she could at least try to understand better.
- Product Placement: For Roomba, as one keeps going around the penthouse and Michonne eventually says it’s what’s keeping the place spotless.
- Tranquil Fury: Rick is absolutely seething to hear Jocelyn kidnapped Judith but only gives a quiet, bitter "good" when Michonne says she killed her.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Michonne holds absolutely nothing back the entire episode.
- Wham Episode: Rick and Michonne have it out and with a chance for the CRM to believe they’re dead, finally work things out and look set to head home together.
