We start with a flashlight in the darkness, and zombie faces
wandering into the beam of light. Without the chain link fence between
one and those faces, imagine being in the darkness with only feeble human night
vision to prevent you from stumbling into these things. But Flashlight
Person is here for a purpose, to feed rat heads to zombies. Since the rat
is understandably shy, the zombies just push their mouths against the fence and
bite down on rat heads. The flashlight turns off.
And we cut to something equally gross – smooching and mushy
serenading. Karen and Tyrese are canoodling somewhere between cell blocks
D & C, with Tyrese singing pieces of “I’ve got you under my skin”, trying
to be romantic with his special lady friend in between bemoaning the fact that
people keep dying. Karen begs off sleeping together, and proceeds with
her own flashlight thru the passages we saw a season ago between the cell
blocks, where Hershel got his ankle bitten. She enters the same bathroom
Patrick died in, proceeds to fill a sink with the water the boy hacked up a
lung onto, and is interrupted by a sound from the showers. Karen, to her
credit, doesn’t fuck around. She quickly but quietly searches the shower,
finding nothing behind curtain #1. After washing up, she proceeds to D
block, where she goes behind the bed sheet/curtain door to her cell, settling
in for the night. But she’s not alone. Patrick, as we knew he
would, finally rouses himself, following Karen to D block, where he literally
stands in silhouette at Karen’s “door”, before being lured by the sound of
someone coughing a couple cells away. Smart even when undead, Patrick
starts by ripping out Sleepy’s throat, so even wide awake, he can’t call for
help, and probably dies too quick to make noise any other way (would have taken
seconds to bleed out). Patrick gets to gorge himself all night in peace
on juicy, yummy intestines. It won’t be until morning, when the first
rousing residents of D block distract him from his first meal. It also won’t be
until morning when Sleepy re-awakens. Between the two of them, they start
to unleash unholy hell all over D block.
Glenn wakes up, spots Maggie sleeping, and decides it’s Polaroid time. He then descends the ladder from the guard tower they shared to check the perimeter. I’ll give you a hint, Glenn. The zombies you didn’t clear yesterday are still there, plus some. Next time, secure your own prison, then go on supply runs.
Waking Carl at 6am (how does he know it’s really 6 am?
Just set it at sunrise and hope for the best?), Rick hands off Judith to his au
pair and takes Carl on a worm digging expedition. Typically, boys like
this, but Carl asks if maybe they should go clear walkers from the fence.
Proving, once again, that Carl is smarter than his father. They see
Michonne riding off again, and go to say goodbye. Michonne asks where
Carl’s old hat is, and he replies “It’s not a farming hat.”, clearly indicating
that Carl’s days as the sheriff of Prisonville are supposed to be over.
Michonne rides out of the gate, on her way to Macon. As Rick is
feeding worms to the remaining pigs, he and Carl debate whether Carl should get
his gun back. Rick gives him the “fuck no, ‘cause I said so!” look, but
suddenly, they hear pops that could either be illegal fireworks or guns.
Lizzie and Mika, bust out of D block screaming their heads off for help, as
Rick, Sasha, Daryl, and Glenn book it for some heavy badassery.
Michonne hears the trouble and immediately rides back.
But there’s only one to open and shut both sets of gates, and Carl can open the
outside doors, but can’t open the inner gate fast enough. Two zombies get
into the “vestibule” with Michonne, who is now trapped with them. She’s a
little slow with the sword, so she engages in a wrestling match with them,
tripping over a rope in the area and struggling until she uses one big push to
get one of them off her. Carl has rushed to grab the nearest rifle and
shoots one with no fanfare and perfect aim. Maggie appears and shoots the
other. They bring a hobbling Michonne into the prison. Someone
won’t be going to Macon anytime soon.
Between Rick, Glenn, Daryl, and maybe Tyrese, they
clear out the zombies from D block, but not before said zombies take about 5
victims, at least one of which was one of the other kids. One of them is
a middle-aged guy, who is suddenly bitten on the wrist. Wasting no time
and showing just why she’s the one really in charge of Prisonville, Carol
brings him to a cell behind the action where she immediately preps for
amputation, not even bothering to wait for the Doctor. Turning him over
to properly cut off his arm, she sees she’ll have to cut off his head, too,
while she’s at it.
Putting down all the bodies, Rick and Daryl realize someone
else turned in the night – a local sleepwalker who locks himself in at night
for his own safety. Just like Patrick, he has been bleeding from the
eyes, nose and mouth, with creepy, sunken, yellow eyes. Later, they
discuss this with Doctor S, an Indian guy with a British? Accent, who tells
them it’s a virulent flu strain, and Patrick and sleepwalker died from the
intense pressure build-up of blood in their internal organs. Hershel
figures it may have come from the pigs, since at least two have been seen sick
lately. Bob, the army medic who fucked up yesterday’s supply run, tells
them the flu has definitely spread already as they live in such close quarters,
and quarantines should be used on all exposed.
Sharon’s note: no, I do not have the flu. If I
had the flu, I wouldn’t be in to work. I obviously had a cold that dried
out and roughed up my throat, which is why I’m still coughing. Stop
telling me to get a flu shot, as they don’t prevent colds. Just fuck off
and let me suck on my cough drops.
Carol is breaking the bad news to her non-patient, and he
begs her to look after his daughters, and Carol practically has to restrain
herself from jumping up and down at the prospect of having a kid again.
Carol eventually calls the girls in to say goodbye to Dad. Turns out
they’re Lizzie and Mika, and they get there just in time to see Dad die. Lizzie
wants to put Dad down, but wusses out at the last second, so Carol does it
efficiently and quietly with the girls watching. I personally wouldn’t go
for the side, but would roll someone over and go right for the brain stem in
the back, but I’m not quibbling with Carol. Carol later tries to lecture
Lizzie on her weakness, being a little harsh on someone who was just asked to
put her own dad down. Lizzie is preoccupied, not with the loss of her
father, but with the loss of her new zombie-buddy Nick, who lies in a bloody
heap just outside the fence. Carol is frustrated, as she’s trying to tell
Lizzie what she should have told Sophia and failed. Lizzie runs off, avoiding
grief and shock for her father by mourning for a zombie. Mika tells Carol
that Lizzie isn’t weak, just in shock.
Novel note: in the graphic novel, there are two boys,
sons of Donna and Allen, who become the group’s responsibility when Donna and
Allen die. These boys meet and tragic and sobering end in the novel. Are
Lizzie and Mika stand-ins for these boys?
The council meets right away, around a table in the
Prisonville Library. Carol flat out lies to the council, telling them
Patrick was fine yesterday, even though he was already nauseous at
storytime. There is an empty chair at the table, not saved for anyone,
but to make the point that Rick should be there and isn’t. They all
decide to follow Bob’s suggestion, to quarantine anyone exposed to the newest
flu. They start with Karen, who they catch coughing as she and Tyrese are
walking past the library. Tyrese is not pleased with this, but he’s even
less pleased at the thought of more people dying. Karen was probably
feeling unwell yesterday as well, explaining her brief pauses at the wall to
contemplate her weapon in a couple of clips from the first episode, so she
doesn’t protest all that much.
Rick meets up with Daryl later, and Rick gets ready to dig
some graves. They re-bond a bit, with Rick feeling like he should have
left the rough stuff to the others, and Daryl telling him he was just fine and
those jeans don’t make him look fat, so just buy them already. Rick’s
inability to find a long-term strategy and implement it nearly got his group
killed last season, but it seems that Daryl hasn’t learned a goddamned thing
from the being governed by people who actually know what they’re doing.
He tells Rick he’s totally cool with the way Rick rushes into whatever danger
there is, mostly because Rick is the older brother Daryl wanted instead of
Merle. This bonding is cut short with Maggie screaming at them – she and
Glenn have finally realized all those walkers bunched up at one of the fences
are a problem. So Rick and Daryl rush to the outer fence on the other
side of the yard, dividing their time between putting down zombies and holding
up the fence. They finally let it sag a bit, and step back before one of
them gets bitten by the zombies literally plastered to it. Sasha finds
the rat bodies, and is royally pissed that someone’s been feeding zombies and
keeping them at the fence. Rick gets one of his crazy ideas, after
staring at his beloved pig pen. He tells Daryl to get a truck.
Carol finds Carl making crosses for the latest dead, and
tells him Patrick was an atheist, so Carl’s going to have to improvise for his
grave marker. They discuss the fact that Carol is giving kids weapons
training without their parents’ permission. Carl hates not telling his
dad. Carol hates thinking that the kids won’t be able to defend
themselves if their parents wuss out on the lessons. What part of
Carol-knows-best does Prisonville still not know?
Rick and Daryl head out on a jeep/flatbed combo with Rick on
the flatbed next to a big wooden box, which turns out to carry the remaining
pigs. Very likely carrying the flu that is spreading in the prison, Rick
realizes they are still good for one thing, even if not meat for them – he
knifes them and leaves them squealing for zombies about fifty feet from the fences,
in a slow progression to lure maximum zombies away from the fences long enough
for Glenn and the ladies to shore up the fences. Blood sprays all over
Rick, potentially carrying the flu to him and representing Rick’s return to
shedding blood. Daryl is at his happiest all day, enjoying Rick’s latest
crazy idea that turns out to work after all. It’s like the Blues Brothers
have reunited to get the band back together.
Beth and Michonne are confabbing while Michonne gets her
ankle bandaged, and Beth entertains Judith. In what will later be
strained and dramatic conversations in future episodes, Michonne freaks out
while Judith is crying, and later while holding Judith, who is really getting
cute now. Beth leaves her to her freak out, but look to these two to do
some bonding over whatever past baby Michonne lost.
Carol sees Lizzie and Mika staring at zombies again from the
graves, one of which has Patrick’s old eyeglasses dangling from the
marker. This time, Carol gets through to Lizzie. Carol gives Lizzie
a flower to wear in her hair, and Lizzie takes Carol’s knife for herself.
Cut to Rick. He tosses gasoline over the pig pen, and
takes off his old, blood-stained, police officer’s shirt and throws it away to
burn. Carl approaches, and confesses to his dad that he used a gun today
because it was necessary to save Michonne. He also tells Rick about
Carol’s weapons lessons. Rick has no wish to intervene, because now
badass Rick is back, whether he goes crazy or not. He opens up the magic
box of past sins, reaches in and hands Carl his gun back. He takes out
his old holster, and his Colt Python. He lights a match and sets the pig
pen with his old shirt on fire. Rick tells Carl they should both
stay away from Judith for a bit, as they’ve both been exposed to the flu.
Which means no tender brother/father moments to get in the way being badasses
for a while. He’s back, and he has no plan besides surviving to the next
day.
It’s getting dark out, and Prisonville has survived another
day. Tyrese has flowers for a certain quarantine patient, but he doesn’t
get to deliver them. Karen’s new cell has a lot of blood marks, but none
of them are footprints, which means a bloody Karen was dragged out of her cell.
Tyrese follows the blood trail to the yard outside the A block, finding two
burned bodies, one of which was Karen. The zombies at the fence were a
distraction. The real killing today was here. Prisonville
officially has a serial killer.
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