What Happened and What's Going On

"What Happened and What's Going On" is the ninth episode and mid-season premiere of the fifth season of AMC's The Walking Dead. It is the sixtieth episode of the series overall. It premiered on February 8, 2015. It was written by Scott Gimple and directed by Greg Nicotero.

Plot
After all the recent trials the group has faced, a slight detour might prove to be the solution they've been looking for.

Special Guest Stars

 * David Morrissey as Philip Blake/The Governor (Hallucination)
 * Lawrence Gilliard Jr. as Bob Stookey (Hallucination)
 * Chris Coy as Martin (Hallucination)
 * Brighton Sharbino as Lizzie Samuels (Hallucination)
 * Kyla Kenedy as Mika Samuels (Hallucination)

Uncredited

 * Charlotte & Clara Ward as Judith Grimes
 * Andrew J. West as Gareth (Flashback/Corpse)
 * Xavion Shelton as Noah's youngest brother
 * Gino Crognale as Walker
 * Samantha J. McDonald as Walker

Deaths

 * Tyreese Williams
 * Noah's mother (Confirmed Fate)
 * Noah's older brother (Confirmed Fate)
 * Noah's youngest brother (Alive, Confirmed Fate; Zombified)
 * Many unnamed people from Shirewilt Residence (Confirmed Fate)

Trivia

 * Last appearance of the West Georgia Correctional Facility. (Flashback)
 * Last appearance of Woodbury. (Flashback)
 * Last appearance of The Governor. (Hallucination)
 * Last appearance of Lizzie Samuels. (Hallucination)
 * Last appearance of Mika Samuels. (Hallucination)
 * Last appearance of Martin. (Hallucination)
 * Last appearance of Gareth. (Flashback/Corpse)
 * Last appearance of Tyreese Williams. (Alive)
 * This is the first time a main cast character has died in an opening mid-season episode and the third time that two main cast characters have been killed in successive episodes.
 * This is the only episode in Season 5 to feature every credited series regular in the season in some capacity.
 * This is the first episode of the TV series to be set outside of the state of Georgia.
 * This episode is the longest distance the group has traveled in the entire series, a distance of 530 miles from Atlanta to Richmond.
 * The first two minutes of the episode were released the day prior to the episode's premiere.
 * During one of his interviews, Robert Kirkman teases this episode is gonna be "polarizing" to the fans. He believes The Walking Dead fans may be caught off guard, and he expects the episode will bring plenty of debate. He said, "Episode 5x09 is going to be a fan-favorite episode in a lot of ways, and it's going to be a fan-hated episode in a lot of ways because it is a somewhat brutal episode. Those are very hard for the audience here and there, but there’s a lot of magic in that episode as well, and a lot of really cool stuff that people are going to be very excited about. So it's going to be a very special, very unique episode that I'm really excited for people to see".
 * The title of the episode, "What Happened and What's Going On", refers to Tyreese's statements to both Noah and to The Governor.
 * The name of Shirewilt Estates is a reference to Wiltshire Estates, a semi-prominent location in the early issues of the comics and that was shown in Season 2 of the show, though it was never named onscreen.
 * The song that Beth sings is called "Struggling Man" by Jimmy Cliff.
 * This episode features flashbacks to "Isolation", "The Grove", "No Sanctuary", and "Four Walls and a Roof".
 * The room in Noah's house was built inside a soundstage to keep the actors in Tyreese's hallucinations hidden from the public.
 * According to Greg Nicotero on the episode of Talking Dead that followed this episode, 17 days have elapsed between episodes 8 and 9.
 * Tyreese's death in this episode now makes Season 5, and later Season 6 with the most main character deaths, with four main characters dead. This would be later beaten by Season 9, which has five main characters dead.
 * In Talking Dead, Gregory Nicotero confirmed that Andrew Lincoln was the voice of the radio broadcaster during Tyreese's hallucinations. He also specifically drew attention to the way Noah's mother had been killed; that she had not been shot, but her head was bashed in by some type of blunt weapon. That he specifically pointed this out suggests that it may have been a more significant detail than was apparent at the time.
 * In Noah's house, the words "Wolves Not Far" can be seen written on a stone wall. Also the torn apart human limbs and walker torsos missing their limbs with "W"'s on their foreheads. These are the first of many hints through the second half of season five to the scavenger group known as the Wolves, who don't physically appear until the season finale, but are shown to use walkers as weapons to raid camps for supplies.

Comic Parallels

 * Tyreese being bitten in the arm by Noah's zombified brother and then amputated by Michonne, causing him to die from blood loss is adapted from a similar scene in Issue 81 and Issue 82, where Morgan is bitten and amputated instead.