The Oath
The episode begins during a walker attack on a "tent city" in Rockford, Georgia. As walkers tear through survivors and destroy the tents, a woman named Karina holds one of the dying camp members and despairs over the situation. When a walker hears her crying and goes to attack her, it is dispatched by another member of the camp named Paul, who tells her to leave the dead woman she's cradling and run. Both of them flee the camp - the only survivors left.
In a nearby clearing, Paul hides with Karina behind a tree and they discuss their next course of action. Paul asks her to repeat the oath she took upon joining the camp — "One lives. All live." She repeats the words to him, and he tells that he'll never leave her before they continue running through the night. The next morning, the pair are walking along a nearby road when they discover a vehicle with keys in the pocket of a nearby corpse. While Karina goes to retrieve them, Paul realizes that he'd seriously injured himself the night before after cutting himself on a window during the escape from the camp. Karina sees this and pledges to get medical help for him, and they find a map that lists medical centers that have been overrun by walkers. Paul falls down from blood loss, and Karina places him in the car before setting out to find a hospital that isn't overrun.
After driving to several aid stations that can't be accessed due to walkers, Karina finally arrives at Harrison Memorial Hospital, which has no walkers outside. Karina uses a wheelchair near one of the entrances and loads Paul into it before bringing him into the hospital with her.
Inside the hospital, signs of a fight between members of the military and walkers are evident. Karina wheels Paul into the nearest storage room she can find and begins to rummage for supplies, but she is surprised when a walker wanders into the hallway and begins to advance on them. Karina fires her last bullet, but it only grazes the walker's shoulder. Just when it looks like they're done for, a woman rushes up behind the walker and impales it in the head, killing it.
The woman, Dr. Gale Macones, asks them if they're alright, then notices Paul's injury. Afterwards, she stitches up Paul's wounds and tells Karina that she is the last remaining doctor in Harrison Memorial — all of the other staff members are missing or dead, and she's tried to seal up all the entrances and exits to the best of her ability, but walkers can get in on occasion. She also admits that Paul has lost a lot of blood, and isn't sure whether he'll survive or not. To that end, she has his hands tied in restraints.
Outside the room where Paul is being kept, Dr. Macones tells her that she witnessed fighting between patients and the military in the early days of the outbreak, and that Humans Are the Real Monsters, not the "walking bodies" that now plague the Earth. She tells Karina that she is the only doctor left in the facility, but still has "an oath" to protect her patients. Karina nods and they walk back into the room, where Macones claims that Paul "barely has a pulse". Despite Karina's crying and pleading to save him, Macones tells her that he likely won't make it, and that she needs to take him somewhere for Karine's own protection.
Macones wheels Paul's gurney outside the room and down the hall to the cafeteria, which has been barred shut with a plank of wood. She removes the plank, opens the doors and pushes the gurney in before placing the plank back through the door. Inside, Paul wakes up and realizes that he's strapped to the gurney, just before noticing that the cafeteria is infested with walkers, which stir when he begins to move...
Back in the room where Paul was kept, Macones visits Karina, who tells her about her greatest act of remorse — she once mistook a man in the woods for a walker and shot him, causing him to choke to death on his own blood. She then saw a girl run out of the woods, see the man and scream, which caused her to panic and flee. She says she always knew she'd be the Sole Survivor of her group, and decides she doesn't want to keep running and surviving anymore. Macones tells her that she can offer Karine another option...
Inside the cafeteria, Paul is able to knock the cart over and untie his restraints before the walkers get to them. Looking around, he realizes that the cafeteria door is locked, and utilizes several objects, including a chair and fire extinguisher, to knock down several zombies. He eventually finds a handgun on the corpse of a hospital security staffer, and shoots down two more walkers before rushing the cafeteria door. The plank breaks as he smashes into it, and he stumbles into the hallway before quickly replacing the two halves back in the door.
Stumbling down the hallway, Paul calls out Karina's name. He eventually makes it to the room where she is laying in a bed while Macones looks on at it, and sees Paul, smiling at him. Moments later, she passes away, having received a lethal injection from Macones. Paul is aghast and calls for Karina, causing Macones to realize his presence. Blustering through an excuse that they thought he was dead, Macones tells him that Karine wanted a Mercy Kill because she didn't want to be alone in the world anymore. She then explains that, considering how humans will turn on each other over limited supplies and basic necessities, giving her patients the choice to take their life on their own terms is a mercy. Paul realizes that she did the exact same thing to many of the patients and staff in the cafeteria.
Macones refuses to apologize for her actions, prompting Paul to level a gun at her. She then tells him that he has a choice — either shoot her because he thinks she's a murderer, or allow her to continue to give others a choice in how they want to leave the world...
Some time later, Paul spray-paints a warning on the cafeteria door - "DON'T OPEN DEAD INSIDE". In a voiceover, he says that he remembers the oath he took with Karina, and is shown pulling out of her teeth, wrapping her in a straitjacket and leading her back to the vehicle, before loading it with supplies and heading off towards parts unknown...
Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Part of Karina's backstory — she reveals to Dr. Macones that during the early days of the apocalypse, she shot a man in the woods after mistaking him for a walker and he choked to death on his own blood. When a small girl with the man started screaming, Karina panicked and fled.
- Cliffhanger: Each part of the webisode ends with one — Karina being out of bullets as the walker advances on her and the comatose Paul in the first part, and the restrained Paul being wheeled into the walker-infested cafeteria and waking up as they notice him at the end of the second part.
- Double-Meaning Title: "The Oath" not only refers to Paul and Karina's promise to protect each other, but to Dr. Macones' "oath" to help her patients (by giving them a Mercy Kill).
- Driven to Suicide: Karina decides to kill herself after believing Paul has died, and asks Dr. Macones to perform a Mercy Kill on her.
- How We Got Here: The webisodes largely explain the eventual state of Harrison Memorial Hospital, as well as the mystery behind the words "DON'T OPEN DEAD INSIDE" painted on the cafeteria doors.
- Human Pack Mule: Much like Michonne's "pet" walkers, Paul pulls out the reanimated Karina's teeth, ties up her arms and takes her with him while leaving the hospital. Chronologically, he is the first person in the Walking Dead universe shown to utilize this tactic.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: According to Gale, who witnessed the military executing civilians and Disaster Scavengers kidnapping her assistant, prompting her to offer a Mercy Kill to any survivors who want to die on their own terms.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Karina, which prompts Dr. Macones to give her a lethal injection at her request.
- Just in Time: Averted — believing that Paul has died, Karina opts for the Mercy Kill offered by Macones. However, Paul fights his way out of the infested cafeteria and makes it back to her, seemingly getting a Hope Spot where she sees him and smiles. However, it's revealed that Macones already administered the lethal injection, as she passes away moments later.
- Late to the Tragedy: Paul and Karina arrive at Harrison Memorial long after the events seen in "TS-19", where the military was shown to have been executing patients and the dead entered the facility.
- Mercy Kill: How Dr. Macones elects to "help" survivors she meets who want to die.I realized I could help others in another way. No more violence, no more loss, no more pain. A release, on your terms.
- My Greatest Failure: Karina comes to believe this about the Accidental Murder she committed (see above).
- Not Using the "Z" Word: Karina calls the walkers "D.K.'s" (decays), while Dr. Macones elects to call them "walking bodies".
- Product Placement: A light-green Hyundai Tucson is used by Paul and Karine to drive to various medical sites in search of help, with the logo being prominently glimpsed at several points. The vehicle appears to be the same one used by the production (and driven by the characters Shane and Andrea) during the second season, repurposed for the webisodes.
- Sanity Slippage: It becomes clear that Dr. Macones is not all there, having been traumatized by the things she's seen over the intervening weeks and opting to perform euthanasia to survivors instead.
- Sole Survivor: Paul is the last remaining survivor of the Rockford Camp, as of the end of the webisodes. While Rick is still alive in the hospital (and will eventually wake up), Paul seemingly isn't aware of his location, and Dr. Macones' fate is left unresolved.
- Uncertain Doom: The last time we see Dr. Macones is with Paul pointing a gun at her head, telling him to shoot her if he thinks she is a murderer for providing mercy kills to those who give up hope. Since she is not present when Rick wakes up, it is likely that Paul killed her, but it's not confirmed either way.
- Depending on how far these events are from Rick waking up (the webisodes take place in his hospital), she may have lived long enough to continue taking care of him.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Paul's fate is left unaddressed, and he never appears in the series proper.
- Worst Aid: Karina does nothing to stop or impede Paul's blood loss, even though the duo has access to clothing that can be used as a makeshift bandage. Instead, she simply stuffs him in the back of their car and drives around to various medical stations without checking to see if the bleeding is getting worse.
