While still Phil, he spends the night in his own tent with Martinez and Shump (where did the tents come from??? were they brought along for the invasion of the prison???) vegging, watching the campfire like it's an infomercial, oblivious to the woman zombified in a floor-length dress who trips partially onto the fire but still crawls to him. Martinez shoots it, shaking his head at Phil. And, perhaps, formulating a plan. Because Phil does finally sleep in his tent, and wakes up to find Martinez, Shump, their tents and his awesome white truck gone. All that's left is some old, empty gas station and some huge freight truck. Which Phil magically finds the keys and diesel fuel for so he can bust through Woodbury's old gate and torch the entire town. He leaves Woodbury burning to warm the zombies wandering through it.
We hear in a voice-over, that Phil has been wandering for two weeks. His questioner sounds suspiciously like Carol, but she'd never question him so kindly, or refer to the zombies as "monsters". Later, we realize he's answering questions from a 6 or 7 year-old girl. Phil passes an old warehouse/barn structure covered in a record of dead friends and some seriously confusing directions for someone named Brian Heriot.
Kind of like updating your Facebook status, but more end-of-the-worldish
Phil claims to have come from a town of survivors ruined by the guy running it... and conveniently not revealing he's the guy who ran and ruined the town. We see his beard and hair grow, for 2-3 months. We see him on a small town street barely move to dodge a walker, leaving it on the sidewalk while he meanders past. As he passes by a charming little apartment building, he sees... someone in the window, looking back at him.
The first thing to get his attention in months, Phil slowly searches the building, to find laundry hung to dry in a hallway, and two sisters, Lily and Tara, living with their elderly, sick dad and one of the sisters' daughter, Megan. Lily is wary but willing to trust Phil, while Tara is all bravado and threats of violence. Dad, hooked up to an oxygen tank, asks for an extremely dangerous cigarette, while Megan hides behind Dad's lounger. This family makes it a little more obvious in every scene that they are pretty helpless, despite the fact that Tara has a little spirit in her. Maybe she reminds Phil of Andrea when he reassures her and the others he's no threat, letting them have his gun and retiring to an old lady's former abode to not eat the dinner Lily gives him. He calls himself Brian.... Brian Heriot.
He later wanders over to return his plate, and has a confab with Dad after carrying him into bed. Turns out, neither Lily, an RN, or Tara have any idea how to bring down a zombie, which I blame on a lack of George Romero films today. Dad asks him if he'll go upstairs in the still zombie-infested apartment building and enter his old friend's apartment and retrieve said friend's real backgammon set, pleading that it will help the kid. Phil has not yet spoken to this kid, who is still shy of the new guy, but Phil silently plods upstairs and through the man's place, finding the backgammon game easy enough, along with a new gun. He also finds the old buddy, a paraplegic who took off his fake legs, and shot himself in the bathtub, turning because it wasn't a head shot. Phil examines the bathtub, maybe reveling a bit in the fact that so many died so horribly, and he's still alive. Phil returns to the apartment, informing Lily that only headshots work, a little confused at her ignorance. I mean, she worked at a hospital, right? Before sleeping on a couch in his new abode, he takes the last piece of his old life, the picture that sat on his Woodbury mantle of him, his wife, and his daughter. He can't bear to look at himself, or maybe he can't even recognize that guy anymore, so he folds over the photo to cover his face.
Oh, how the mighty have jumped off a cliff...
The next day, Lily asks for another favor. When the "crap" hit the fan, Dad managed to grab his daughters and granddaughter in the truck he drove for some regional junk food company. Lily grabbed all the oxygen tanks she could from her hospital before they left. So, they've been living on beef jerky and hoarded oxygen, both of which are running low. Dad doesn't have long before the cancer kills him, so Lily asks if he'll grab just one tank from the nearby old folks' home, which his daughters are too scared and too inexperienced to try. We don't see Phil agree, just see him trudge into the nursing home, lock a zombie in his room, dodge a zombie in a wheelchair, and try to bring back a whole cart of tanks. He gets ambushed and only manages the one tank in the end, but even that's enough.
Phil rests back in his place while Lily offers to clean and dress his wound, a cut/scratch conveniently on his forehead for leaning in close to Phil. Phil silently accedes, like he's done for the whole episode. When little Megan walks in, he looks at her like she's an oasis in a desert. When Lily has to leave for a minute, Megan starts her interrogation, and we realize it was her voice we heard at the beginning. She wants to know how Phil lost his eye, and doesn't buy his pirate story. So Phil explains that he was trying to help someone, but that someone got killed by the same person who took out his eye. Phil leaves out a lot, obviously, but it's hard to tell whether it's because he wants to lie to trick these people, he just doesn't want to delve into his past sins, or whether he really has just mentally left that life behind, and now can't even remember. He and Megan pinky swear that she won't tell anyone, and she doubles down by very cutely crossing her heart. Phil aint' going nowhwere now, even if he doesn't realize it yet himself.
The next day, Phil has managed to shave and trim his hair, no longer looking like Charles Manson, and looking alot more like the old Phil, the one that built Woodbury and really dug Andrea. He entertains Megan by teaching her that you can lose a lot of pawns and still win at chess, and she makes her king a nifty eyepatch, so he knows she likes him, too. But the lesson is cut short when Megan is called to say goodbye to Dad, and Phil sneaks in just in time for Lily to tell him Dad's been dead for a while. Like, long enough to turn a while. Phil turns to kill-zombie mode, especially when a grief stricken Tara is almost zombie-Dad's first victim. Phil, to everyone's panic, beats Dad's head in with the oxygen tank. I'm sure Mike Brady would have done the same thing. Phil buries Dad, with Lily coming out to verify, really, we're all infected? And Phil realizes just how lost these women are, though they're not actually stupid or weak, just sheltered from never leaving the apartment building. Tara is grateful, perhaps realizing it's not a good idea to pretend to be a bad-ass anymore. But Megan is hiding behind the chair again, and it visibly breaks Phil's heart. Maybe sick of the man he was before, maybe realizing he's found a new family, he burns the old family portrait and throws it out the window.
When Phil decides to leave the next day, Lily informs him they're leaving with him. Phil is reluctant to take them, especially considering that Megan is still scared of him, but he seems happy enough to drive Dad's old truck with Tara in front, optimistically telling her things will be fine, which we know from Jim's death is the biggest lie of all. They sleep in the back of Dad's old truck, and Lily decides she's had enough flirting, they're doing it already, and Phil seems fine with doing anything that will help him forget the travesty of a human being he really is.
The next morning, the truck won't start, so Phil good-naturedly tells them to take their packs and hike along the road, which they do until Tara, in a move that only a total city-slicker could do, trips while walking down a road and sprains her ankle. Lily helps her up while Tara loses it over her own clumsiness, and Megan hangs back with her little Lilac Bunny. Phil sees a pack of about twenty zombies, shuffling out of the forest just beyond the bend in the road, and shouts to them to leave the packs and run into the woods. Tara and Lily freak, drop everything, and Lily helps Tara into the forest as fast as the bum ankle will let her.
Megan, still scared of Phil, hesitates to run to Phil, but does just in time for him to snatch her up, run into the woods, pass Tara and Lily, and fall right into a zombie-catching trap. There are three in there, and Megan is completely helpless, so Phil suddenly remembers he's a homicidal maniac and literally beats a head into a gun barrel stuck in the ground, then rips out one walker's throat, bashes another head, and then turns back to the walker with the ripped out throat, picks up some old gigantic bone sitting around, and literally uses the bone, with Megan watching, to rip the walker's head off from the mouth up.
Oh yeah, that's right, I love killing!
Megan is terrified, but Phil just scoops her up and crosses his heart as he promises to always take care of her. It's official, she's Penny's replacement. But she and Phil have new problems. There's a ditch to somehow climb out of, and a pissed-off-looking Martinez at the top of it, looking just as unhappy to see Phil as Phil is to see him. So much for Brian Heriot.
Notes: we know that this episode takes place 2-3 months after the final attack on the prison, so in the late fall/early winter. We know from last week that Phil will show back up at the prison next spring/summer, looking ready to do some killing. So... how will he lose this family, and how crazy will that make him?
No comments:
Post a Comment