Rick and Michonne make their final push to find their way home.
Abusive Parents: Beale says his father was a drunk who finally drove him away from home when he broke his jaw.
All for Nothing: Beale invokes this, stating that unless the CRM takes firm control of the remnants of humanity, then humanity will eventually go extinct and the walkers with them, and within decades whatever is left will simply become compost for plants.
Back for the Finale: Donald Okafor and Nat's lines from earlier episodes are reused in this episode.
The first episode of the series had Okafor cryptically reference Beale's "swear on the sword", and this is the command that Beale gives to Rick in this episode before he turns on him.
"Days Gone Bye" ended with the shot of the camera panning above the horde surrounding Rick's tank after he heard from Glenn Rhee, showing that his struggles were only just beginning in the terrible new world. This episode’s climax ends with the camera panning above the horde surrounding Rick and Michonne after they’ve escaped it, indicating that their struggles are finally over after so long.
Rick's time at the CRM is bookended by an explosion. The first one at the bridge tore him apart from his family, and the last one at the Cascadia Forward Operating Base solidified his return to his family.
Broken Masquerade: The CR finally learns of the vile evils the CRM has been committing behind their backs and what they eventually planned to do to them and the rest of the continent. The remaining CRM is too weak to resist the CRC’s overruling of their authority.
Climax Boss: Two, the first being Beale, who is killed halfway through the episode by Rick, but with the CRM itself still needing to be taken care of; the second is the CRM leaders at the summit, who are then wiped out in a giant explosion, but with Thorne still surviving to be the Final Boss of the series.
Numerous episodes of the parent show are seen in flashbacks. Most notably, Rick flashes back to his murders of Shane (Season 2’s Better Angels), Tomás (Season 3’s "Sick"), Joe (Season 4’s A), and a Terminus butcher (Season 5’s "No Sanctuary") when Beale asks him what’s the worst thing he’d done to save someone else.
Michonne finds the cat doll that Rick got her from the junkyard in Season 7's "New Best Friends" that he was forced to return to Jadis after "Say Yes".
Beale says the CRM has determined that humanity will go extinct within fifteen years, an assessment that Elton shared in the first season of World Beyond. In doing so, he also says that eventually the walkers will go extinct with no further humans to feed off of or to have join their ranks upon death, an assessment that Amy and Dr. Everett surmised in their eponymous Tales episode.
Beale mentions the scientific experiments that have been taken to try to study the walkers and their virus, and footage of these experiments from World Beyond is shown. He also mentions the millions-strong mega-clusters of walkers that have been found lurking around the continent of North America; one of which was used to wipe out Omaha.
The last shot of Rick and Michonne at the destroyed summit has the camera zoom up and away as their safe platform is surrounded by walkers, recalling the iconic closing shot of the pilot episode "Days Gone Bye" (that was also reprised for Season 4's "After" and Season 8's "Mercy").
A whiteboard Thorne passes by has the mysterious "PP" on it, seen on a card left by where Heath went MIA in Season 7's "Swear" and also in the possession of Davon in his eponymous Tales of the Walking Dead episode.
Dystopia Justifies the Means: Beale says the CRM will seize martial rule over the CR after wiping out Portland and acknowledges that liberty and freedom will be sacrificed in the process, but it’s A-okay by the CRM since they get to impose their form of order.
Earn Your Happy Ending: Beale and the CRM leadership have been wiped out, and the CR itself proves to be a benevolent force who relax the isolationist policy on anybody who comes to the city, and have begun freely reaching out to survivors in need. Portland and the Coalition are now safe at last from the threat of the now largely vanquished CRM who are slated to be reformed by the CRC. Rick and Michonne finally get to return to the Coalition, where they reunite with Judith and RJ, and Rick finally gets to meet the latter who accepts him as his father. The family is reunited, and all is well.
Et Tu, Brute?: Thorne is devastated and enraged when she finds out Rick is going AWOL.
Failed a Spot Check: For being a man who promised he could see anything he needed to know with just a look in one’s eyes, Beale fails to notice that Rick is clearly about to pay him back for the CRM’s atrocities until it’s almost too late.
Final Boss: Thorne is the last threat of the series besides the walkers created by the wiping out of the CRM leadership.
Final Solution: The CRM wiped out Omaha, plans to do the same to Portland, and will also continue to every other community on the continent.
Honor Before Reason: Rick left behind his prosthetic hand presumably to put his past with the CRM behind him. All it does is rob him of a very useful prosthetic and he’s shown struggling with walkers during the climax without it. Leaving it behind also was a bread crumb that Thorne finds that leads to her cornering Rick and Michonne and nearly getting them killed.
Internal Reveal: Rick and Michonne confirm that the CRM was behind the fall of Omaha, which was previously established in World Beyond. The CR itself later learns this during the ending of the episode.
Karmic Death: The CRM leadership at the summit are all bombed and gassed to hell just like they did to Omaha, Nat’s group, and countless other poor souls over the last decade of the Fall. Beale himself gets killed by the man who proved that the CRM’s way of doing things is wrong long before he ever joined the CRM.
Killed Offscreen: Thorne is last seen handing Rick her mask but while she is not shown dying on-screen, she was surrounded by walkers, suffering from a nasty impaling from Michonne’s sword, and is also now victim to the chlorine gas, meaning she’s as good as dead.
Beale says the end of the world was also the start of the world, recalling the tagline of World Beyond - "the end was our beginning".
Pet the Dog: As a reward for his service, Beale tells Rick he will allow him to bring his remaining family and friends from his home to live safely in the CR with no strings attached.
Properly Paranoid: Subverted. Beale has Rick lay his prosthetic and gun on his desk before giving him the Echelon Briefing, presumably to make sure Rick is unarmed in case he turns on him after receiving the monstrous details within the briefing. However, Beale ultimately fails to recognize Rick as a threat until it’s too late, and also fails to account for any other weapon Rick might’ve had on his person.
The Purge: Beale reveals the CRM will one day wipe out every single organized settlement in North America so the CRM may rule unopposed.
The Reveal: The Echelon Briefing is unmasked at last, and it’s revealed that it’s the plan for the CRM to not just wipe out Portland, but seize military control over the CR so they can wipe out every other organized community on the continent to ensure they reign supreme.
Series Fauxnale: The episode leaves Rick and Michonne as finally having gotten home to their children after years and the Greater-Scope Villain of the franchise so far, the CRM, defeated and otherwise reformed with the Coalition and Portland finally safe. However, the franchise is continuing in its sequel shows Dead City and Daryl Dixon - The Book of Carol.
Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: A sequence towards the middle of the episode where Rick is in an elevator with another CRM soldier as the box containing Beale’s corpse begins to drip blood. The soldier doesn’t notice until it’s time to get off.
While they never appeared in this series, the fall of the CRM and Portland now being safe leaves the question of what will happen to the cast of World Beyond, as half of them set out to warn Portland of the coming genocide, and Silas infiltrated the CRM to try to bring them down from within.
Morgan Jones was last seen on the mid-Season 8 finale of Fear the Walking Dead setting out to find and reunite with Rick, but he never makes an appearance in this series.
Would Hurt a Child: A ghastly revelation is that the CRM will only save 10% of Portland’s children before massacring the rest with the city.
You Will Be Spared: Beale says that he will spare anybody and everybody from Rick’s home from the coming purge of the continent and allow them to be brought back to the CR as a reward for his loyalty.
