For Walking Dead viewers the end of season 4 was a huge buildup to Rick Grimes and his clan of survivors' arrival at Terminus, which was a cataclysmic disaster. The people of Terminus were cannibals and managed to quickly take Rick and all his people captive. Season 5 opens in the frenzied confusion of a flashback of Terminus' tragic beginnings and the darkened battle-planning of Rick's crew from inside their cargo freight prison. Soon though, Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Bob, and a few people we don't know find themselves in a human slaughterhouse knelt above a feeding trough, awaiting their deaths. One by one the victims' throats are slit until they get to Glenn, whereupon his potential death is dangled before us a number of times as outside gunshots are heard and Rick distracts Gareth, the Terminus leader, by threatening to kill him.
Eventually, due mostly to Carol, they all escape and zombie hoard chaos ensues, but once everything died down I realized I had had an actual physical reaction to watching all of this. My hands and my guts were quivering. I was down there in the trenches with them. I had immersed myself in their trauma and my adrenalin was flowing freely. I was the farthest thing from a detached viewer. I cared deeply about these people and I felt like I had become one of them.
Later on, perhaps weeks later, after a few other experiences similar to this, I came to a realization: I don't think I can watch any of this again. This is not something I want to put myself through more than once.
