In last week’s episode, Michonne went on a journey of self-discovery and zombie hacking while Carl acted like a hormonal douchenozzle towards his father. This week, our story catches up with multiple characters:
- Daryl and Beth (Hershel’s blonde daughter who can sing pretty well).
- Tyrese, who is also saddled with Lizzie and Mika (the two little girls who are what the twins from ‘The Shining’ would have ended up like in a suburban environment).
- Maggie, Sasha, and Boozin’ Bob.
- Glenn/Robocop (we’ll get to why I’m calling him that, later).
Dear Diary: We’re Screwed
The episode opens with Beth giving a journal voiceover expressing a decent amount of optimism about the group’s future. The fact that she mentions her still living father while she and Daryl are running for their lives from zombies, however, indicates that these were words were written in the past.
Later, Daryl does a whole lot of kicking ass and brooding while Beth harps at him to begin tracking their friends and to have a little faith.
“Faith ain’t done s**t for us,” Daryl replies.
He immediately follows that little nugget of wisdom by bringing up Beth’s dead father, which definitely put a dent in my man crush for him (but only a little). Whether it was by Beth’s insistence or guilt over being a jerk, Daryl eventually helps her attempt to track down the rest of the group. They eventually find and follow a trail of footprints, which lead them to a group of zombies enjoying a buffet next to some railroad tracks. Beth begins to cry because…umm…someone may need to help me out in the comments on this one. I mean sure, death is bad and stuff, but I didn’t recognize any major characters’ corpses in that group.
Abu El Banat
Of all the characters on the show right now, none are going through the special type of hell that Tyrese is currently experiencing. For starters, he has Lizzie and Mika tagging along with him. Mika whines a lot, but other than that, she’s not too bad. Lizzie, on the other hand, makes the kid from The Omen seem manageable and well adjusted. In addition to being an even worse complainer than Mika, she also likes to stab animals with her knife, which (SPOILER ALERT) is a tell-tale sign of a psychopath. Worst of all, however, is the fact that while those two are sniping back and forth at each other, Tyrese also has to carry around baby Judith.
You would think that the survival of Rick’s (or maybe Shane’s) child would be a reason to celebrate, but her constant loud crying and ability to get on everyone’s nerves indicate that this one definitely takes after her mother. At the point where Tyrese has to change Judith’s diaper on the woods while Lizzie stabs a family of rabbits to death, you have to wonder if the guy was ready to just give up and become a walker himself.
Later on during their adventure (accompanied by a soundtrack of Judith’s incessant wailing), Tyrese hears two people off in the distance who sound like they’re in trouble. He rushes off and leaves Judith in the care of Psycho Lizzie, who predictably tries to get the baby to be quiet by suffocating her…all while wearing a terrifying smile on her face.
Fortunately, a flannel-wearing zombie with ninja-like stealth skills attacks the girls, saving us from having to witness some HBO-level gruesomeness. Meanwhile, Tyrese sees that the people in trouble are a couple of dudes. Overjoyed at the prospect of having a couple of guys to finally talk to/commiserate with, he jumps into the fray with them. Unfortunately, the younger one is killed and the older one gets bitten. After the final walker is taken out, Lizzie and Mika emerge from the woods with Judith…and CAROL.
Tyrese gives her a huge hug, still completely unaware that she was the one who torched his girlfriend back at the prison. He’d probably be more angry at this point that she saved the other girls, but Carol still doesn’t say anything, instead claiming that she was out looking for supplies instead of being banished.
The man who was bitten informs the reunited group that he was following the railroad tracks to a safe place, which they dutifully set off to find for themselves.
Wake Up, Maggie
Bob, Sasha, and Maggie are off somewhere else in the woods. Bob seems unusually optimistic despite the lack of alcohol and terrible circumstances that the former prison group is in. Maggie, on the other hand, is determined to find Glenn.
After searching for a while, they find the bus that she had last seen him on before everything at the prison went to hell. Fearing the worst, she comes up with the incredibly stupid plan to let the zombies off the bus one by one so she can check to see if one of them looks like Glenn.
As you might have guessed, this doesn’t go very well. A swarm breaks out and nearly overruns the group. During the melee (that she caused), Maggie begins to space out in a haze of frustration and self-pity. A gunshot from Bob, which takes down a walker almost to chomp down on her, finally snaps Maggie back into reality.
She jumps onto the bus, takes out the remaining walkers, and finally breaks down in a mix of sorrow and hopefulness over the fact that Glenn is nowhere to be found.
RoboGlenn
Glenn wakes up, still at the prison and staring down at a horde of adoring walkers reaching up towards him. He rushes back inside to his cell, lays his head down, and looks over at a picture of Maggie. This inspires him to break out his stashed riot gear (which may have come in handy well before this point in time) and heads outside to begin searching for his wife.
Before Glenn gets outside, however, AMC ran a trailer for the new Robocop movie. I’m not sure if the timing was intentional, but immediately following the commercial break, Glenn busts out of prison, fully armored up, and begins inexplicably busting through a horde of walkers.
After coming across a dazed Tara and convincing her to come with him, he uses a Molotov cocktail to blow up a car, which instantly distracts the rest of the zombies….because I guess zombies love fire (?).
As the pair heads out of the prison, Tara admits that she was with the group of assholes that attacked the prison and killed Glenn’s father-in-law. Glenn forgives her, stating that they need each other to survive. As if on cue, another satellite group of walkers attacks. Glenn decides not to put on his helmet and fights them off, eventually falling to the ground and passing out for no apparent reason.
Tara fights off the last one and looks up to see a truck idling next to them. When she yells at them for not helping, the group inside the vehicle emerges and recreates one of The Walking Dead comic series’ most iconic covers…along with introducing us to someone who should ending up being a fantastic new character on the show.
The Verdict
Where last week’s episode dwelled far too long on one (annoying) character, this one had plenty of different flavors to enjoy. Even the minor missteps, like the reason Beth was crying or Glenn’s sliding super power scale, were forgivable in light of how much fun the rest of the episode was.
This episode gave us plenty of answers while also leaving more than enough plot lines open for things to continue to get even more interesting. It’s also telling (and a great job on the part of the show’s writers) that a little blond haired girl ending up seeming infinitely more terrifying than any of the zombies.
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