The Last Man on Earth 4×11: “Hamilton/Berg” Review

We pick up right where the midseason finale left us: Todd and Tandy watching through binoculars while Carl eats the flesh of a corpse he dug up in the graveyard. At this sight, Todd and Tandy cannot stop vomiting. The leave quickly, hoping Carl doesn’t notice them. Carl looks up, however, and sees them running to their car and driving away.

Back at the mansion, Todd and Tandy tell the group what they saw. No one believes them. They think the two of them probably saw it incorrectly. Erica says maybe Carl was pulling a prank on them. When Carl gets home, Tandy awkwardly confronts Carl. He tells Carl that he and Todd had been at the graveyard. Carl asks what they saw. Using a lot of baby talk, Tandy essentially says it looked like Carl was eating flesh from the corpse. Carl admits to it and everyone is disgusted. Carl is relieved to finally admit that he is a cannibal. He tells his new friends to lock their doors tonight and they’ll discuss this in the morning, once everyone has had time to process this information. A little later, the entire gang knocks on his door and says they’re ready to talk now.

They put him in a straitjacket so he can’t hurt them. Carol brings him a glass of water and a ‘mentally abnormal’ straw. She holds the glass as he drinks, noticeably nervous. Once he’s done with his sip, he makes a loud noise to scare her. He was just trying to joke around, but no one finds this humorous. He warns, though, that everyone should keep a five foot radius away from him. When asked if he wants to kill them, he admits that he does. He doesn’t want to kill his last chance at friends, but the urge is still there, and he can’t promise that he won’t.

In a private meeting, Melissa says killing Carl is their only option at this point. No one really wants to, and Erica comes up with a different solution. In the morning, Todd and Tandy take Carl back to the prison.

Melissa tells Todd that she’s going to the store. In reality, she’s going to visit Jasper. No one else in the group knows where Jasper is, and no one knows that Melissa knows. She wants to give Jasper the space he needs right now, but it’s hard to keep lying to everyone.

Todd drives around looking for Jasper. He passes the prison and sees the chains on the gate open. Todd rushes home to warn the others. Everyone scrambles, locking doors. Melissa goes to run outside, but Todd stops her. She blurts out that she has to go get Jasper because he’s been living by the prison. 

Suddenly, they hear terrible piano wounds coming from upstairs. Sitting at the piano is Carl. He starts singing Benny and the Jets. Carl tells them how easy it was to find a way out of the prison when he wanted to come see these guys. He says he knows what kind of person he is, and that he’s just going to keep coming back. Calmly, he states that they know what they need to do.

The group realizes that they have to kill him. Gail asks if anyone volunteers for the job, but when no one does, Tandy has a stack of straws ready. One by one they each pull a straw. Carol pulls the short one.

Carol walks outside to process this. Tandy follows her outside and tells her that he’s actually the one with the shortest straw. (He wasn’t. He cut his straw shorter so his wife wouldn’t have to murder somebody.)

Tandy escorts Carl to the coffin he picked out for him. He tells Carl “The group wanted to be here, but they really didn’t want to be here.” To help separate himself from the grim reality, Tandy has decided on a themed execution: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron “Berg.” He will be playing Hamilton, and Carl will be Berg. (ICYDK: it’s Aaron Burr, and Burr kills Hamilton, so Tandy’s facts aren’t factual, as usual.) Carl asks if he can continue playing with the Rubik’s Cube while Tandy takes his ten steps, in classic duel fashion.

Right as Tandy takes his tenth step, Carl finishes the Rubik’s Cube. If you recall, the Rubik’s Cube was has a bomb in it from before the virus outbreak. The Rubik’s Cube explodes, killing Carl instantly.