The latest episode of season four of
The Walking Dead begins with a flashback to the prison days. Hershel gets to say the line, but actor Scott Wilson is the one who is actually a sight for sore eyes. I’ve never been as sentimental about the prison on the show as I was about the one in the comics, but this does evoke a fond memory. After that we flash-forward to Rick sitting alone and covered in blood. Over the course of the rest of the episode, we find out what happened in-between.
Rick, Carl, and Michonne cook dinner out of a can in the present. As they fight off zombies and check snare traps, Carl meditates on how difficult it will be to tell people his story later. When they see a lone man surrounded by zombies, they elect not to risk helping him and watch the man die. I’ll count this as a deadly moment for Rick on
my list. I like the decision - this may be based on comics, but they aren’t superheroes. Back on the move, food is also a major concern again, and just as you think this is going to be a slow episode full of survivor agony and flashbacks, Joe’s gang catches up to Rick. Daryl does a poor job of convincing Joe not to pull the trigger on Rick, and gets beat up in the process.
It’s a little disappointing in some ways, how it all goes down so fast. Daryl’s loyalties could have been a major source of tension, but weren’t, and Joe’s seeming mentorship and fond eye for Daryl are just immediately dropped. Joe’s group goes full villain with Joe bending his own rules, and his gang member deciding to rape Carl. We knew they were a bad bunch, but maybe there was more to mine here. It is a very dark and dramatic scene though, with every character in dire straights. Rick goes animal, and in a berserker rage rips Joe’s throat out with his teeth, turning the tide in the battle and allowing our survivors to overcome this gang. When he gets to Carl’s rapist, he stabs him repeatedly, the number of times countless really as the shot fades to commercial with Rick still stabbing away.
Before we get to Terminus there is still a little more time for survivor guilt. Michonne admits the gory details of how she lost her child and how she came to have her zombie pets. It’s a glorious moment that gives her a lot of character, and gets Carl to confide that he’s had some dark thoughts of his own. The continuing Hershel flashbacks show us how he was the one to talk Rick into his farming retreat. They really want to hammer home this idea of living peacefully vs. living by the gun, but they don’t do his memory a great service by showing how utterly wrong he was. It’s a tale of two extremes, but it seems a lot smarter to err on the side of the gun.
It also seems a lot smarter to err on the side of caution, and when Rick arrives at Terminus with Michonne, Carl and Daryl, they sneak in the back hoping to catch its citizens off guard, and get a look at them before they can put on their public face. Terminus seems ok for about two minutes, but Rick has a very good eye for things and stuff, and when he sees his friends’ possessions all over Terminus, the way of the gun becomes the more appropriate option again. There’s a firefight, which eventually leads to Rick and his group surrounded and outnumbered. They’re forced into a boxcar holding cell, where they meet up with the other group that had arrived at Terminus, consisting of Glenn, Maggie, Sasha, Bob, Eugene, Abraham, Rosita, and Tara.
Final notes:
"A" was the terminal letter by the door Rick runs out before the season finale cliffhanger.
Rick has finally passed his
moral event horizon. The key line is "he's mine" before he stabs Carl's would-be rapist to death. Rick doesn't just kill him very brutally, he WANTS to.
I'll see you in the fall for another season of Walking Dead reviews!