Last night’s episode of The Walking Dead was another busy one. There is lots of stuff happening in the world of flesh-eating zombies. We think that calls for another weekly recap! At Max Level Geek, we try to distill that down to the major plot developments and ask the questions on your mind. Let’s take a look at what we’ve learned this week.
Careful, season 4 spoilers ahead!
In the last episode, we found Carl and Rick rediscovering what it means to have a home life and Michonne trying to forget her past. This week, we discover what happened to most of the others who fled from the prison after the Governor’s devastating attack. Here are the six craziest developments:
The Walking Dead is all about putting very different characters together, adding a few hordes of killer zombies and seeing what happens so of course Daryl and Beth are together! The two could not be more different. Daryl, the show’s resident bad ass, and Beth, the show’s resident “Who’s Beth again?”, don’t have much in common, but they have to work together to stay alive now that they are all alone. While in the woods they manage to pick up the trail of some people (possibly even from the prison), but soon discover that the trail ends in those same humans no longer members of the “currently not being eaten by a zombie horde” club. Daryl and Beth are forced to move on to an unknown fate.
Show creators, we never doubted you for a second (even if Rick and Carl have). While we can’t say it was surprising to see Judith alive and well, it was interesting that she ended up with Tyreese and two of the other prison children – Lizzie and Mika. It seems that Tyreese has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. We’ll admit, going into this episode we were worried that Tyreese might not make it out alive – the show has a way of making characters with decency and likeability go bye-bye in a hurry. So far, Tyreese has escaped that cruel fate. And by episode’s end he has a bit of help, because…
The last person we expected to see emerge from the woods and into the lives of Tyreese, Lizzie, Mika, and Judith was Carol. The last we had seen of her was several episodes earlier when Rick explicitly abandoned her away from camp as punishment for killing several sick members of the prison (including Tyreese’s girlfriend – Karen). As we mentioned earlier, the show loves to throw characters who don’t fit together adding to the tension and Carol and Tyreese are a powder keg that is one spark away from blowing sky high. So far, Tyreese doesn’t know about Carol’s “mercy” murders and Carol seems in no hurry to change that. By episode’s end, we find this little band of misfits heading towards a cryptic sign that promises sanctuary at the end of the railroad tracks. After Woodbury, can these survivors trust another “safe” place?
We can now be confident that the person who was torturing animals in the prison was little Lizzie. Despite being on the run, she still finds time to mutilate a bunny or two and hide its corpse in a tree trunk – you know, kid stuff! She also nearly got eaten by zombies, so focused was she on suffocating baby Judith to death. Luckily for Judith, Carol came along and the little baby lived to see another day. Lizzie is a wildcard to watch for going forward. We can’t imagine torturing animals and nearly killing babies is a phase she is likely to grow out of.
More survivors made it – albeit, also cut off from the rest. The budding relationship between Bob and Sasha rages on (just kiss already!), and Maggie gets to play the part of third wheel. Not that she notices, Maggie has a singular mind to find Glenn who was last seen driving away on the bus with the other people too sick to help fight the Governor. In what will go down as one of the series’ most intense scenes, Maggie finds the bus, but rather than survivors it is filled with zombies. One by one, she lures them out. One by one, she doesn’t find Glenn. It appears that he was not on the bus when it was overrun by the infected. So where is he?
Glenn wakes up still at the prison. The rest of the survivors are either no longer survivors or have fled. After a few minutes of pitying himself and wheezing (he’s still really sick after all), Glenn gets his resolve back. Riot gear Glenn is ready to kick some ass when he notices an unexpected sight. Tara, formerly the sister of the Governor’s love interest and formerly on the side that was shooting at Glenn with a tank. After determining that he could use her help, Glenn gets her to snap out of her depression (losing everyone you love will do that). They begin their journey to catch up with other survivors, but stumble onto a mysterious new trio of military-looking folks who could be their salvation or their worst enemies. We’ll have to wait until next episode to find out.
