Our plucky band of heroes has just been getting used to
being a small town. The Andrea Flu Strain sweeping through C Block and
even creeping into D will reduce them back down a core group. Each of our
heroes slowly realizes this during the course of the episode, that a community
will return to a tribe. Or disappear altogether, like Roanoke. Were
the last days of that doomed settlement like this episode?
We begin with a little gravedigging. Glenn and Maggie
give each other sympathetic looks. Question- whose grave has been marked
with their handgun? Not TDog’s (even though the gun resembles his old
one), as he was a Christian and would have gotten a cross. Hmmmm…
Tyrese is furiously demanding that Rick solve Karen’s
and, apparently, “David’s” murders, with Daryl and Carol trying to talk him
down. Dude, Tyrese, how do you even know they were alive when someone
found them in their cells anyway? Fortunately, everyone is smart enough
to at least not suggest to Tyrese that there might not even be a murder
here. Rick, who’s had his own post-love-dying-crazy-time, tells Tyrese
he’s been there, and that Tyrese needs to calm down. There’s water to
fetch, sick people to isolate, food to grow, living people’s needs to be
settled. This sends Tyrese over an edge, and he and Rick have it out with
each other, ending only when Daryl pries Rick off of him. Tyrese’s eye
has been bludgeoned shut. Carol is in shock more from a fist fight than
the two burned bodies.
Glenn returns from gravedigging to meet up with Hershel, who
has just come from another death due to the Andrea Flu Strain (AFS), with Glenn
both hoping they are at least past getting sick now, and mad that this flu can
undo all the survival everybody’s been doing up until now. Just as he
finishes, we see Sasha stumbling out of C Block, obviously ill. She waves
off Hershel, and continues to stumble to A Block, where she sees that Doctor S
has also come down with AFS.
Carol and Rick discover the water line is gunked up with mud
where the hoses connect in the creek outside the fences. Someone will
have to fix it. Rick is sure they should do it tomorrow. Carol
points out that they could both be sick tomorrow.
The Council worries about what to do – all of C Block is now
definitely sick, including Prisonville’s only doctor. Hershel declares
that it’s not the flu actually doing the killing, but the symptoms. He
suggests that they make a supply run to a veterinary college fifty miles away,
and that it might still be stocked, as most people don’t know that the animal
antibiotics that will not cure any virus, much less the flu, will magically now
work on humans, and that by treating the flu, the symptoms will then lessen and
people could survive the flu. Daryl and Michonne are immediately all for
it, and will recruit Bob, since he can actually read Hershel’s shopping
list. Daryl and Michonne work together to prep Zach’s old car, and
Daryl tells Michonne how glad he is Michonne is here, instead of looking for
the ex-Gov. But he messes up and Michonne takes it badly, leading to an
awkward convo later.
Tyrese resists all attempts to have someone look at his
horrible eye as he digs graves for Karen and Dave. Rick tries to question
him about any possible motive for their deaths besides being sick with a fatal
flu virus; Tyrese declares that it doesn’t matter if someone tried to keep a
deadly flu virus from spreading, especially since it didn’t work anyway.
That kind of rules out Hershel, Bob, and Doctor S, since they would have known
that the flu was already spreading with or without the victims (at least we hope
they did). Rick realizes that he’s not going to get out figuring this out
for Tyrese; he’s spent the season up until now avoiding solving anyone’s
problems. But Rick, once you strap on that Colt Python, don’t be
surprised if people think you’re the Sheriff.
Hershel wants all the sick in A Block, and all the children
(and reluctantly, himself) in the administration building since it’s
uncontaminated with the flu. Glenn starts feeling sick at the Council
meeting, and only admits being sick when Maggie comes near him. Carol
ushers all the sick into A Block like she’s Mary-fucking-Poppins, including
little Lizzie. She can’t go into A Block with Lizzie, so after hugging
Lizzie, and telling her to be brave, she all but pushes Lizzie into A Block and
shuts the door. Daryl tries to convince Tyrese to come the supply run,
but Tyrese thinks someone should protect the sick, especially since his sister
is in there. Visiting with Sasha, who thinks a supply run is awesome, and
Carol, who agrees reluctantly to check in on A Block, Tyrese volunteers to go
drug-shopping with Daryl, Michonne, and Bob. Carol, at first startled
shitless by Tyrese, is so frustrated by Tyrese’s complete faith in her ability
to help people she can’t help, she actually knocks down the water barrel,
desperately scrambling to save what little she can. Rick orders Carl into
the admin building with the other kids, telling him to protect the kids, and
let him know if anyone else gets sick. Rick puts Carl on notice- the gun
can only be used as a last resort. Carl, like an evil child from a horror
movie, tells Rick that they both know he’ll eventually have to.
Carl catches Hershel wandering out of the admin building,
and Hershel tries to lie to him, but then admits he’s going out to pick elderberries
for a folk remedy to the symptoms of the flu. Carl, deciding he’s in
charge of what adults do now, tries to lay down the law. But Hershel is
adamant- he’s not sitting around useless when relief is just a berry-picking
adventure away. So he and Carl go in search of bushes in the
forest. AND THE HAT IS BACK. Set against the treetops of the magic
forest, Carl’s hat is practically a character itself. Carl keeps an eye
out while Herhsel crouches over some nearby bushes. Hershel and Carl
palaver a bit, with Hershel telling Carl that it’s good that Carl toned it
down, did some growing up and some goofing off. Herhsel, didn’t you see
the fucking hat? Carl is all business. Next to a torn and tattered
tent, he spots a zombie that has literally rotted into a tree. They both
spot another zombie, with one leg caught in a bear trap, limping around.
Carl is ready to put them down, but Hershel talks him out of it; neither can
actually catch up to them, even with Hershel’s prosthetic foot. So they
meander back to Prisonville, leaving these two characters to forever haunt the
magic forest, like something out of Lord of the Rings. For that is what
the world is slowly becoming. A series of haunted forests and roads and
towns.
Maggie and Beth convo between a door. Beth holds onto
Judith for dear life in almost complete isolation, to keep both of them free of
the flu. Beth tells Maggie a bit of wisdom from their father: You
don’t get to get upset. We all have jobs to do. Alone with a baby
who is her sole responsibility for the time being, with so many now dying, her
father’s wisdom is all that’s holding Beth together.
As the team in Zach’s car finds out for real. Racing
down back roads, scattering leaves in their tailwind, Daryl tries to make right
with Michonne. He’s pretty sure the trail is cold on the ex-Gov, assuring
Michonne he’d be out there too, if the ex-Gov could be found. Will
Michonne give up her quest for justice/revenge? It’s left unresolved.
Daryl turns on the stereo and Michonne starts in on Zach’s CD collection to
avoid any more talk. But the stereo is talking. A garbled, staticy
voice on the radio says stuff like survive, blah blah, untelligible. It’s
cut short when Daryl realizes he’s got an obstacle course of zombies, swerving
like crazy to avoid hitting them. He stops only when they see they’re
head-on running into a horde of thousands of zombies, right between them and
Hershel’s veterinary college. Daryl quick reverses, frantically running
over zombies behind them now just to put some distance between them and the
herd. But he eventually runs over so many the car is no longer actually
on the road, wheels uselessy spinning and cutting up zombie heads under it.
Daryl tells them all to bail and head to the woods with him,
don’t stop for anything, just move while the horde has gaps in it.
Daryl, Michonne, and Bob spring from the car, Daryl popping out of the sun
roof, sliding down the front, and knifing his way away from the car.
Michonne gets away easily with her sword. Bob shoots a few in the head,
running as he goes. Only Tyrese hesitates. Is he scared? No no
no. He’s just saving it up, and springs from the car himself, last and
surrounded by about a dozen zombies. He whips out his hammer, furiously
pounding zombie heads as they close in. Convinced Tyrese is a goner, the
others head into the woods without him.
Hershel heads to A Block with a few containers of his new
tea. He and Maggie and Rick have a snit fit over whether he’s allowed
in. Hershel explains that he’d rather go out knowing he tried to help,
rather than cowering in fear of a disease he’s already been totally exposed to
anyway. He makes stops throughout A Block, telling Doctor S that he’s
where he needs to be, telling Glenn that we all have jobs to do, and Glenn’s is
to keep his shit together. For everyone’s sake. Maggie and Beth
convo again, repeating their father’s wisdom to each other, commiserating on
their father’s own risk-taking while they sit around useless.
Carol has decided to make amends for losing the water.
Activating a very cute noisemaker that distracts zombies from the creek bridge
outside the fence, she is cleaning out the hose connection between the creek
and Prisonville’s water pump. But she’s a little noisier than she intends,
and she only just gets away after quick cleaning out the hose and reconnecting
it with Rick’s help. He tries to scold her for such risk-taking, and
reminds her they were going to this tomorrow. Like Hershel, she’s not
having it. “We might not have tomorrow”, she tells Rick. She’s
right, and Rick is still not in charge. Later, Rick finally decides to
look into Karen and David’s death, because he’s going to have to have some
progress to give Tyrese. The bodies have been removed, and almost all the blood
cleaned up (it’s a huge contamination risk), but Rick finds a handprint against
a doorframe that was missed by the cleaning crew. It’s much smaller than
his own hand.
Daryl’s team, now three, romp through the forest, bringing
down zombies in their way, and find a clearing where they can outrun the
zombies and lose them. Two zombies stumble out of the woods to follow,
but one is brought down by …. Tyrese! Covered in zombie goop, he nearly
collapses. But Daryl brings down the other zombie, and grabs
Tyrese. They all head on together.
Carol is bringing water somewhere, probably to the sick,
back in Prisonville. Rick stops her, asks her if there’s anything she
wouldn’t do for Prisonville. There isn’t. So he point-blank asks
her if she killed Karen and David. “Yes,” is all she says.
She walks away with no further explanation. She has shit to do. And
people to save.
No comments:
Post a Comment