Previously on The Walking Dead.
This episode felt… slow to me. I’m pretty sure I was just tired from work, though.
Isolation starts with Glenn and Maggie digging graves. I’m not a doctor or anything, but I’m pretty sure for a “mask†to work you have to wear it. I’m also fairly certain handkerchiefs aren’t a viable option to substitute for medical masks. I digress. Maggie and Glenn look at each other longingly. They’ve had to be apart since the outbreak. Sad faces.
Dr. S and Hershel check in on patients. It’s not looking good, folks. Dr. S is also looking a bit feverish. Maybe he’s just been working hard?
Outside at the bonfire Tyreese is pissed. He wants answers. Me too. Carol and Daryl are there. Tyreese wants Officer Friendly to open an investigation. Rick does a piss poor job of deescalating the situation, and a fight breaks out between the two. Okay, Tyreese hits Rick and Rick takes his anger out on Tyreese. I’m not for sure I completely understood this scene, so someone please explain it to me. Why was Rick all crazy?
Rick looks out of it in the next scene where Hershel is cleaning Rick’s wounds. He looks broken. Hershel thinks Rick has fallen off the wagon and says move on, think about his responsibilities. Again, I’m not feeling this scene. I didn’t feel a lot of this episode.
Bob checks on Tyreese who is digging graves. Okay…
Glenn and Hershel talk about the progression of the outbreak. In the background we see Sasha stumble in, coughing and looking putrid. She swears she is going to be okay, but heads to see Dr. S. Glenn and Hershel look concerned, but not about Sasha. As Sasha stumbles into the sick ward, things aren’t looking so good for our “survivorsâ€; people are dying and going zombie. It’s starting. Um… what’s starting?
Meeting time. It’s spreading. All the D Block survivors are now sick. What about the people who rescued the D blockers? Rick. Glenn. Daryl. I’m scared. Glenn isn’t looking so hot as Hershel plans a quarantine. There is no stopping this outbreak, Hershel says; they have to control symptoms. The group needs antibiotics. For the flu. Okay. But Daryl decides to take a group to a local veterinary college to look for medications. Hershel thinks he is going, but his one leg will only serve to get himself killed. He’s out.
Outside now, Carol and Rick are fetching water. The hose is clogged and Carol wants to fix it. Rick is dragging his feet now and wants to wait until tomorrow. I don’t understand this and neither does Carol. Carol and Rick discuss the quarantine plans. Carol says it’s always better to be safe. Heh heh.
Carol and Rick spot Tyreese covering the graves, and make plans to pay their respects. Carol takes the water back to the prison, while Rick goes to talk to Tyreese. They both apologize or something, and talk about possible murder suspects. Rick thinks the person who toasted David and Karen was trying to stop the disease from spreading. Tyreese isn’t getting any urgency from Rick to solve the murders. What does Tyreese want him to do, dust for fingerprints? Rick wants this place to keep going while Tyreese is going to “do what’s rightâ€. I almost hate this episode. It’s 17 minutes in and I don’t want to write anymore.
Rick goes to talk to Carl, who is PMSing about going into quarantine. Carl is there to watch over people. There’s a discussion on when it’s okay for Carl to shoot his gun.
Finally, before we cut to commercial we find out Glenn is sick now. Great.
Back from break, Daryl and Michonne are tuning up their ride. Daryl thanks Michonne for being here and not running off. Bob is coming on the run, but they need someone else. They discuss their options; no Rick. Cut to their only option Tyreese, who is now guarding the sick. Daryl convinces Tyreese to come along as man power.
Later, the crazy blonde girl comes strolling in to where the sick people are being held, and she’s coughing. I’m skeptical. Something fishy is going on here. I think she’s either trying to get sick or she’s going to murder everyone.
Outside Bob wonders if Daryl really wants him to come along to get “antibioticsâ€. FYI – the drug Daryl has Bob read is an antiviral. It’s a real human drug that reduces the duration of flu symptoms or prevents you from getting them. Drugs that end in –vir are antivirals. That’s your medical lesson of the day. And now Tyreese is on board.
Back inside Carol finds out they don’t have any water. Tyreese comes along and asks Carol to look after Sasha because Carol cares about everyone. After Tyreese leaves, Carol gets real pissed about the water situation. Or something.
Rick is now outside investigating the crime scene. He notices a bloody handprint on the door and it’s too small for a man. I think that’s what it meant, anyway.
Further outside Carol is stepping up and fixing the water by herself. She’s made a distraction for the walkers and it’s kind of working for a little while. Rick comes outside and sees Carol and the incoming walkers. Carol busts out a knife and takes out a walker or two. Rick is pissed, but they make it back to safety.
On the road, Daryl, Michonne, Bob, and Tyreese hear something on the car radio before hitting a giant mob of walkers. The car is overrun and they have to get out and try to make it to the woods. Tyreese doesn’t budge for a few minutes, though. Suddenly, he leaves the car and seemingly gives himself up so the others can survive. Bob, Daryl, and Michonne enter a cleaning in the woods, finally out of the Walker thick. They hear something behind them, and it’s Tyreese! He’s entered beast mode or something, and has also escaped what looked like an insurmountable pack of Walkers. Dude is killer with a hammer. The gang runs off into the woods.
Back inside the prison, Rick chastises Carol, who says she would do anything for the people here. Ding! Rick cuts to the chase and asks Carol if she’s the one who killed Karen and David. Yep, she did. And like that she walks back inside with the water and the episode is over. Finally.
It was a very slow episode. Given the previews, I was thoroughly disappointed. Something felt forced about the whole thing. Like they wanted to set something else up, but failed to figure out how to get from a to z on it and this is what they came up with.
Thoughts:
1) Rick is fighting between being the man and not being the man. Or at least that’s what the writers are trying to do. And in their version of doing this, beating the shit out of Tyrese was supposed to be symbolic of it. It was a failure. Even moreso was Hershel’s pep talk. A proper one would have been short and sweet: “Get your shit together.”
2) I think little chick is just sick. Flu-like. I don’t think there was an ulterior motive there. I think it was built in in connection to Carol’s murder. To make her ask the question: “Could she have done it to this little girl if she if she were with Karen, etc.” It would have made more sense to do that reveal prior to this.
3) That reveal sucked ass. Her: “Yes.” Rick: “Um… okay. Thanks.” That’s how it felt. It was lacking in the “Bum Bum Baaaah” sort of deal.
4) There felt like there was zero urgency to get out there to get those meds. Really. You have like 20+ people sick and you’re all likely going to get this thing. So lets spend tons of time just wondering about, chatting it up.
5) The whole “Let’s take the fast car” thing is idiocy. You’re going to be dodging crap all the way. It’s not like you’re in the Nevada desert or something where going 150 MPH would ever made a difference. You need something with power, not speed. And something with a solid 4×4/off road capabilities cause you never know what sort of detour you’re going to need to take.
6) If that Z i mentioned above isn’t real or sucks. Fuck them. They’ve deflated the balloon from last week for nothing.
Thanks for commenting, I appreciate it.
I totally agree about this episode… I felt like they’re setting us up for the rest of the season, but this was boring. A bunch of small scene put together to make an episode.
1. If Rick was going to fight someone to be The Man, he should have been fighting Daryl. If I was making a hierarchy chart of the survivors I don’t think I would have even put Tyreese on the chart at this point.
2. I re-watched season 1 this weekend. Man, Carol has come a long way since then.
3. I kind of liked how nonchalant the reveal was. Yep, I did. Now what’s Rick going to do about it? What’s Daryl going to do? Was Daryl involved? Unlikely.
4. Agree.
5. Agree.
6. Agree. My heart was racing after last week. I wanted more. I was going wherever they were going. This episode was a giant letdown. I kept waiting for something to happen but it never did. I had blue balls by the time Carol confessed. Maybe this should have been the first hour of a two hour special. Ugh. Hated it.
The more I think about it. The more I REALLY hated that episode. I’d have liked it more probably had I not seen the sneak preview of the episode last week. But it was a royal fking let down when you tease with the 7500 zombies coming at you and that lasted all of 2 minutes as they run away. And they hid it at the end. They should have led with something else, probably a Rick & Carol snippet where they’re talking about what they need. Maybe the fight scene between Rick & Tyrese. Something other than that.
There hasn’t been an episode this shitty in a long time. I wanted a meaty discussion on The Talking Dead to help me process, but then Manson happened.
LOL. Yeah. That was just all kinds of odd. He sort of took over the show in a weird and bad sort of way. Seriously though. How do you fk up having a scene with 7500 zombies storming your way? Instead of following those who left, they’d have been better served hanging out with Tyrese and watching him hulk out. It would have been the only thing that could have saved it. We all knew he was going to survive.
I thought black hulk was dead.
See, if he were dead, they’d have shown him die. That’s usually a pretty good tell tale showing that a character is toast. They always make sure to give him an appropriate send off. Running away while leaving them in a giant pile? Nope, not dead. Didn’t show it. TV is weird like that.
I thought the low-key Rick reaction to the Carol reveal was appropriate. I think its his way (and the producers way) of saying yeah, killing a few to save the rest is not only the right decision, it’s a routine decision, the kind we all have to make every day now. Tyrese’s anguish is the only thing that makes it unusual…and really that’s not all that unusual either (as we see in the grave digging scenes which are now an everyday part of their life).
I don’t really disagree with the move per se. Especially given how far along the two were and the risks involved. But as a reveal, it kind of sucked.
I think Rick wants to abdicate responsibility for the group to the council, but he’s finding that everyone still looks to him to lead them. He took his anger out on Tyreese, who looks scary as FK with only 1 eye.
I had a feeling it was Carol that killed those 2. They set it up with her stabbing that dude in the ear, and teaching the kids to defend themselves even though she knew Rick wouldn’t want her to. She’s becoming a lot harder, maybe even a little cruel. This should’ve started happening after her daughter died, though.
As soon as Herschel mentioned abx, I thought “wha?” Then I thought of you, Jennifer, and how you probably reacted.
Me from 10/18:
I saw this on FB the other day.
Hershel could use the antibiotics to treat complications of the flu, like pneumonia, I guess. But he has them picking up antivirals. Whatevs. There’s so much I hated about this episode I didn’t care about the medical shit.
As far as the med shit, in general having that would be beneficial eventually. You wouldn’t want to pass up on good meds just because you need something else at the moment. That list my have been a standard “get this shit if you find it” sort of list more than a “we need THIS now!” Especially since it wasn’t a short list.
How old os Beth supposed to be in the television series? I don’t remember.
Late teens.
Thanks.
i don’t have cable. i’ll try and read this next year when these epps show up on netflix. i saw killer joe last night though. it was scorchin’. there were no zombies. there was fried chicken. it… didn’t exactly get eaten.
Re-watching Season 2 now. Man, I’ve forgotten so much of what has happened.
I won’t be continuing on reading the graphic novels. Not feeling it.
I prefer the televised series, but more than that, I don’t think you can mix and match. At least I couldn’t. I want the events to be new to me.
Some of them were new. But I like THIS Rick and Daryl.
The show was renewed for a fifth season.
FYI – Tonight’s thread will most likely be short.