Let's catch up with all the various splinter groups, shall we? After escaping the prison, Beth and Daryl are on the run through the woods. The moment they catch their breath, Beth wants to start tracking other survivors, especially the kids. Daryl has the skills but not the optimism, so Beth's hopeful nature -- which is underscored by her VOing some pretty bleakly ironic diary entries written before the prison fell -- has to serve for both of them. And so it's just crushed that much harder when she and Daryl find a bunch of zombies that have apparently just finished a nasty meal that seemed to have included someone pretty small.
Speaking of the little ones, Lizzie and Mika are still with Tyreese. As is Judith, who survived after all. Yay! As it turns out, Tyreese and a baby, a panicky preteen, and a tween idiot-sociopath do not prove to be an optimal survival unit. Tyreese leaves all three girls to help with a zombie battle, and fails to save anyone, while zombies close in on the sisters and Lizzie threatens to suffocate Judith to keep her quiet. Fortunately they're all found by Carol, of all people. Lucky for her Rick and Daryl never had time to tell Tyreese what happened to Karen. And lucky for all of them that a dying member of the party Tyreese failed to save tells them about a safe place up the railroad tracks. And then he presumably dies or leaves the scene so Beth and Daryl can find it later.
As for Maggie, she's determined to find Glenn, with Sasha and an oddly cheerful Bob in tow. Eventually they come across the bus that we last saw Glenn on when it was leaving the prison. But something clearly went wrong, and it's not only stopped on the middle of the road but full of walkers. Maggie's so bent on closure she insists on opening up the bus and cleaning it out, finally killing a walker that looks an awful lot like Glenn.
Except we see that Glenn was still in the prison after the attack, apparently having jumped off the bus at the last minute to help Maggie look for Beth. As the one member of the cast able to actually pack before leaving, he does so and soon meets up with Tara, repentant sister of Lily and former apocalypse-roommate of a guy she called Brian. Glenn partners up with her despite her former association with the Governor, and declares that she's going to help him find Maggie. But then Glenn, still recovering from the prison flu, collapses as they're fighting off a fresh group of walkers. Tara finishes the job, and thus gets to be the first to meet some important new characters. I won't spoil who they are if you've read the comics, so let's just say that between the three of them they've got a big mustache, a handheld radio, and a tiny pair of shorts.
Tonight's episode begins with a soundtrack filled with hope and optimism. It's the voice of Beth, telling her diary how great it is that after months of being on the run from the farm, they've found a prison where they can settle down, build a life, start a farm, help Lori raise her baby, sleep in beds, and just generally be safe. "We can live here," Beth wrote. The irony, of course, is that Beth's voice-over takes place while we're watching a scene of her and Daryl in panicked flight from the prison, desperately fighting their way through zombies in the woods. Eventually they get enough distance to crash down in the bush for a minute to catch their breath, out of sight, looking up at the sky, where vultures are circling. "We can live here for the rest of our lives," she wrote. So it's all clearly Beth's fault for jinxing it, then.
That night -- or more specifically, early the morning -- the two of them huddle around a tiny campfire. Beth argues that they can't be the only survivors and that they should "do somethin'." She wants him to start tracking them, but Daryl is shut down, silent and motionless, not bothering to move until Beth takes her gun and her knife and stomps into the dark woods. He kicks out the fire and follows, if only to make sure she reloaded her pistol since dry-firing it at that zombie in the opening scene.
Once the sun is up, Daryl uncovers some dead leaves from some small footprints. Beth thinks they might be Luke's or Molly's, and insists they're still alive. Daryl's not so sure. I'm not so sure who Luke and Molly even are. Following the trail, Daryl finds some squashed grapes on the ground and interprets them as a sign that the survivors fled in a hurry. Beth is still telling him to have faith, but Daryl doesn't think much of faith right now. "Didn't do nothin' for your father," he says. Beth gives him a nasty look and he gives her an apologetic one, and when Beth starts picking more grapes for when they find the kids, Daryl gives her his bandanna to carry them in. Teamwork!
Further along the path, Daryl finds two dead walkers on the ground and a spot of human blood on a leaf. And lots of other tracks that indicate this is something of a walker thoroughfare. Suddenly another walker comes out of the trees and grabs Beth in a way that prevents Daryl from getting a clear shot with his crossbow. So Daryl closes with it and forces it to the ground, then rolls under it so Beth can stab its forehead with her recovered knife. And, back to the search.
The trail leads them to a set of railroad tracks, and along the nice, wide, right-of-way, they can see walkers feasting on a fresh kill nearby. There aren't enough left of the human remains to identify them, but among them is a very small black sneaker. Advantage: Dixon. Beth cries over the scene before following Daryl along the tracks.
That night, Beth is feeding their fire with blank pages from her diary, which has decided to go on with the ironic commentary from Beth's past. "If this doesn't work, I don't know if I can keep going," she wrote.
Time to check in with another party of evacuees, one of whom is wearing a pair of small black sneakers. Remember Lizzie and Mika, the two sisters Carol took on before Rick exiled her from the prison? They're still alive, but I don't know what happened to the boy that was with them. Lizzie, the older of the two, tells Mika to stop crying over Carol, and gives her a knife so small that I wouldn't carry it into battle against a herd of balloons. They're still with Tyreese, who is walking ahead of them. But when Lizzie calls to Tyreese, he and turns back -- at which point we can see what he's carrying in his arms. It's Judith. Aw, man, I'm not even going to pretend not to react to that.
That night, Tyreese and the three -- count them, three girls -- are sitting in the wood. Lizzie looks ready to slaughter a couple of rabbits she's found in a hollow log (and go find a walker to feed them to, most likely) when Judith starts crying. Luckily Lizzie has a bottle all ready, and Tyreese has barely popped it into her mouth when Mika hears walkers approaching from the trees. Time to move on. I know it's the apocalypse, but I've never seen people with a baby leave anywhere so quickly in my entire life.
In the morning, the girls find some wild grapes to eat, but Judith needs a diaper change. She doesn't bear the process quietly, and Mika worries that walkers will hear her. Hearing a noise in the trees again, she clutches at Tyreese's injured arm, hurting him and triggering a round of all three verbal members of the group snapping at each other before Tyreese investigates a cluster of trees, his framing hammer raised. When something bursts out, it's just a flock of birds, but Mika freaks and runs. Lizzie and Tyreese scoop up Judith and run after her, Lizzie squashing those grapes on the forest floor along the way for Daryl and Beth to find later. Lizzie blames Mika's flight on Tyreese for yelling at her, because she can always find some way to be helpful. When they catch up with Mika, Tyreese tells her she did the right thing to run, but that she needs to stay close to the group. She apologizes for reinjuring Tyreese's arm, which is bleeding again, explaining the blood Daryl finds on that leaf. Mika also apologizes for not being like Lizzie, which is something nobody should ever apologize for. Tyreese says they both get it done in their own way, which is half right. "Like you and Sasha?" Mika asks hopefully. Lizzie says that Mika isn't like Sasha, "because you're still here and Sasha isn't." Before Tyreese can say anything to that cold, cold shit about his sister, they hear a woman's scream in the distance. Tyreese positions the girls back to back and says he needs to go help. Lizzie says they'll be okay, and with some more instructions and encouragement, Tyreese goes running in the direction of the screams. As if Sasha would ever scream like that.
Reaching what will eventually be the scene of carnage that Daryl and Beth found earlier in the episode/will find later in the episode timeline, Tyreese finds two unfamiliar men swinging a baseball bat and an empty rifle in a pitched battle with a small group of walkers. Any woman who was with them is already dead, but Tyreese wades right in with his hammer. Meanwhile, Lizzie is left holding a now crying baby, and clamps a hand over Judith's mouth and nose to quiet her down. Too late -- a walker is already approaching her and Mika. Tyreese is also too late, as the guy with the baseball bat suffers a gross bite on the arm and goes down. Tyreese bashes in the skulls of the walkers unwise enough to settle down to make a meal of him. Lizzie continues smothering Judith, her eyes dead like those of the sociopath she is, while two zombies shamble into sight from behind her, the direction Mika is facing. Mika raises her gun and fires. Tyreese hears the shot, but is still stuck in the fight. And Mika missed when she fired at the walkers, both of whom are approaching the girls as they stand frozen in their tracks. Tyreese's heroic little field trip proves futile anyway, as the stranger with the rifle gets bitten in the neck. Tyreese bashes away the head of the offending walker, and hears someone call his name from behind. He turns around and there stands Lizzie…and Mika…and Judith…who is in the arms of…Carol. Tyreese looks at the foursome in shock and rushes over, even as Carol is maybe regretting calling Tyreese's name, given that whole Karen situation. But Tyreese gratefully hugs Carol and asks how she found them. Before she answers, they all turn to the bitten and bleeding man Tyreese failed to save, now. Carol sheaths the knife she no doubt used on those two walkers that Daryl and Beth will find later, so she's clearly gone soft. The dying man tells them to stay on the tracks. "There's a place, up the tracks. It's safe. They can take the children there." The group leaves him there, sobbing and bemoaning his fate and the fate of his party. One of whom presumably wore small black sneakers, because Mika's still got both of hers.
As they walk along the tracks, Mika proudly tells Tyreese that she didn't run and leave Lizzie. Carol shares out some of her supplies, and Tyreese remarks that he didn't see Carol make it out of the prison. Having realized that Tyreese doesn't know she killed Karen, Carol isn't about to tell him. Instead, she explains that she was on her way back from her run with Rick, saw the fall of the prison, and found them after seeing them run into the woods. Tyreese suggests going back to look for a car, but Carol thinks not. Up ahead, the girls see a sign posted in front of a bridge support to the track. A map shows a big black asterisk marked "Terminus," which isn't the cheeriest name I've ever heard of for a place at the end of the world, and Mika reads the slogan: "Sanctuary for all, community for all. Those who arrive survive." Including at least one copywriter, apparently.
group: Maggie, Sasha, and Bob. Near a stream where Sasha is cleaning Bob's bullet wound, Maggie is dividing her attention between sharpening her knife on a flat rock and staring at the wedding and engagement rings on her finger. Bob apologizes to Sasha for smiling, and assures her that Tyreese might have made it. Sasha suggests to Maggie that they camp there for the night, and Maggie says they're welcome to, because she's going after the bus that escaped the prison with Glenn on it. She says she couldn't find Beth, but she knows which way Glenn was going, so the two of them will come back for Sasha and Bob. Sasha protests that they can't split up, and Bob brightly agrees. So he follows Maggie, not leaving Sasha much of a choice.
As they follow Maggie down the road, Sasha quietly complains to Bob that they should be looking for food and shelter, but Bob is in the living-for-a-purpose camp. Eventually the three of them come around a curve in the road, and there, in the silence, stands the bus. Well, that didn't take long. Maggie pauses long enough to take a hitching breath and runs at it, Bob and Sasha in pursuit. Fortunately Maggie starts by looking in the windows instead of opening the door, because those windows are choked with walkers. Oops. Sucks to be from Woodbury this season. "You should go," Maggie tells the others, and makes for the emergency door in the back because she insists on knowing if Glenn is in there. Bob says they'll help, letting out the walkers (riders?) one at a time, together. Sasha clearly hates this plan, but she's getting used to being outvoted. She and Bob position themselves against the door, while Maggie stands back so she can see them as they come out. They get to work, operating the bus door like a giant, grisly Pez dispenser, with Maggie stabbing skulls as they come out at her. Eventually every undead passengers on the bus must be pushing from inside, because they force the door wide open and the whole nasty cargo comes spilling out. Maggie goes all Saving Private Ryan for a moment, leaving Bob and Sasha to do the killing until she comes around and starts beating down the zombies like they owe her money. "I'm sorry," she says, after beating the last one's brains out on the side of the bus. "And they got away," Sasha marvels. Bob says they were all good people. Needless to say, there is no ex-Glenn among them. So Maggie climbs into the bus. It's pretty gross in there, with blood-spattered seats and clothes and body parts and flies buzzing around. Near the front, a body that could be Glenn's is trapped on the floor under another body. Maggie climbs up on the front seat to operate the handle and throws the corpse out the front door, so the walker -- which certainly looks like Glenn from the back -- can come slavering at her. She lets it come, and stabs it in the head. Then she collapses crying into one of the gross seats, and we go to commercial without ever seeing its face. But Maggie's face…did it just go from crying to laughing? Because if that wasn't Glenn this whole scene just got hiLARious.
So let's go back in time and see what happened to Glenn, shall we? Dressed exactly the same as the walker we just saw Maggie kill, he wakes up bloody and battered in the remains of the enclosed bridge between cell blocks that Mitch blew up with his tank, his assault rifle fortunately hanging by its strap and the inner yard below overrun with walkers. He must have followed Maggie off the bus, which is no nowhere in sight. Glenn struggles to his feet and screams for Maggie. Seeing the bridge blown away, Glenn can only turn around and reenter the building behind him. The only light in there is his lantern as he makes his way back to the cell block, weapon leveled. He finds it empty and abandoned, including the cell he shared with Maggie when they weren't on one of their little camp-outs in the guard tower. After collecting his riot gear from under the bed, he collapses on it for a minute, because you'll remember he's been sick on top of everything else. Then he spots the Polaroid he took of Maggie sleeping, and bonds with it emotionally for a moment before finding some juice to get going. He grabs the pocket watch Hershel gave him from off the counter, his knife from under the mattress, and just generally gets his goddamn shit together. He loads up a big backpack with ammo, supplies, a miraculously working Zippo, and who knows what else. That's one advantage of being left behind in a dead prison: he's the only one who has time to pack. He's about to step outside before noticing a half-empty liquor bottle lying open near the doorway of an open cell. I hope that wasn't Bob's cell.
Hero shot! Glenn comes bursting out of the prison through a wall of smoke, fully kitted out in his riot gear, and starts plowing through the walkers. They soon converge on him rubbing, against his face-shield in a gross Glenn's-eye-view shot. Breaking free, Glenn proceeds on his way, pausing to look at an unfamiliar (to him) woman who's just chilling behind some fencing. If by chilling you mean staring at her feet in shell-shock. It's actually Lily's sister, Tara, who harbored the Governor for months and thus played a part in this disaster, not that she knew that at the time and not that Glenn knows that now. He looks like he's going to leave her to it, but stops and looks back.
After the ads, Glenn kills a walker off the fence, then darts inside and snatches the automatic from her unresisting hand. Seeing that the clip is full, meaning she never fired a shot, he tells her it's time to go. "I was part of this," she says flatly. Glenn knows that, but he needs her help. Using the bottle he found, he rigs up a Molotov cocktail and, letting her hold her gun and his knife, kicks open the gate to bomb the nearest…parked car. That obviously kills zero zombies, but some of them start gathering around the fire instead of the little shelter that Glenn and Tara are about to blow out of. Which they do, shooting their way past a number of zombies and eventually making their way to the outer fence and into the woods.
They eventually get to the road at the same place we earlier saw Maggie, Bob, and Sasha on, near the shot up sign warning that "Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates." This of course means they can't be far from the bus that Glenn was supposed to have escaped the prison on. He asks her if she saw any of his people get out. "All I saw was my sister in that field," she says. "She wasn't supposed to be there. She had a gun but they just swarmed her." So now we know what happened to Lily after she shot the Governor. I would have liked to take her out for ice cream for that. Tara keeps babbling about the Governor, and how "He just killed that old man." Way to break the news to your new partner that you watched his father-in-law die. Seeing Glenn's reaction, Tara breaks down again. "I'm a piece of shit. Why would you want my help?" She starts walking away as Glenn says he doesn't want it…he needs it. He says he has to find Maggie, explaining to her (and to us) that he got off the bus to look for her, and Maggie didn't see him. He admits that he doesn't know if she made it. "But Hershel, Maggie's father, was a great man. And he told me all I have to do is believe, and that's what I'm gonna do. She got out, so you're gonna help me find her. Things aren't over."
She says she wants to believe that, and while they're looking at each other, a few walkers come over the rise. "You have to," Glenn says, walking up to them with his knife to get right to work. She stands for a moment watching him fight a battle that he'd lose quickly without his riot gear, and finally joins in to stab the third one's head. Glenn clubs down the fourth and last one, then collapses himself, gasping and ultimately passing out. She runs to him and tries to wake him up, calling him by name, but then has to beat one last zombie away, pulverizing its skull into a lens-smearing mess with the butt of Glenn's rifle. When she looks up, there's suddenly a big military truck idling on the road to her. "Hope you enjoyed the show, assholes," she yells at it. Out of the truck climb three characters straight from the comics. Not necessarily the Walking Dead comics, because they're so ridiculous-looking that they might as well be from any comic. Their leader is a big dude with a handlebar mustache, flanked by a doughy guy with a mullet and a handheld radio, and a pigtailed hottie who's converted her fatigues to Daisy Dukes and a halter top. They just happen to be from the comics, but for the sake of those of you who haven't read them, I'll pretend I don't know that this threesome can only be Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita. Abraham hefts his rifle and drawls, "You got a damn mouth on you, you know that? What else you got?" Well, she had a little realism, but you three just chased it right off the screen.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.