Burning Down the House

Recapped by Angel Cohn · Aired 03-18-2012 · S02E13

We pick up before where we left off, but from the walkers' perspective. We see how this massive herd was in the city, saw a helicopter and decided to follow it, which led them along the highway and into the woods. They might have bypassed the farm entirely, or had gotten trapped in the swamps, but then heard the gunshots from the Shane/Rick/Carl incident and opted to head towards that. See, Carl ruins everything.

Glenn and Daryl return to the house and give a brief rundown on the whole it-seems-like-Shane-maybe-just-up-and-killed-Randall-but-somehow-the-dude-still-turned-into-a-walker thing. Everyone is all freaked out and Lori begs Daryl to go find Rick and Shane who still haven't returned.

Out in the field on their slow, leisurely stroll back to the farmhouse, Carl starts asking questions about exactly why Shane ended up dead and a walker and Rick isn't quite willing to answer them. How to explain to a child that his sometimes father figure tried to kill his actual father? Anyway, even though there are thousands of walkers and they've been coming up rather steadily and Rick's supposed to be a cop and have decent senses of perception, it seems to take him awhile to finally notice the hissing/plodding noises that the undead are making. He panics and then they run for it.

Back in the farmhouse, mother of the year Lori finally realizes that her son is missing, despite the fact that she told him to stay upstairs. Because telling him to stay some place has worked just so well in the past. Also, he's got that ginormous ugly ass hat on all the damned time, so you'd think someone would notice his movements. Lori wants to run after her son, but with all the zombies descending on the place, that's not really an option. She's freaked, and Carol gives her this look that is a combination of sympathetic and condescending. I'm almost starting to tolerate Carol.

Hershel wants to defend the farm, with the plan being to shoot as many walkers as they can, and use their cars to distract them and drive the herd away. It's not a terrible plan, and it's better than the plan to just hide out in the basement. The basement option is quickly dismissed after they realize that this amount of walkers would just tear the house down trying to get to them.

Rick and Carl make it only as a far as the barn. And they try and lock out the walkers, but this is a particularly feisty herd that will not be stopped for long by a door. So Rick sends Carl up to the loft, while he throws some gasoline all over the hay. He gives Carl a lighter and tells him to drop it when he tells him too. Then Rick lets the walkers in, starts climbing the ladder and screams to Carl to drop the lighter. It seems like he fumbles with it, and when he drops it, for a moment I really thought it was going close itself during the fall, failing to ignite. Maybe I've just come to expect ineptitude from the kid. But it seems like the show doesn't want Carl to die just yet, so they let the lighter thing work and the barn goes up in flames. Actually, given the fact that he has Lori and Rick for parents, he probably plays with lighters all the damned time without anyone noticing.

The rest of the gang is out doing donuts around the farm. Andrea's got pretty good aim, considering that T-Dog isn't exactly giving her a smooth ride. Glennn's shooting while Maggie is driving their car, and Daryl is on his motorcycle. He's fairly unprotected, but he's got the most navigation ability. The person who drew the short straw is Jimmy. That dude (whose name I completely forgot until someone on the show reminded me of it later in the episode) is stuck in the RV, which he pulls up to the barn so Rick and Carl can get out of the second story window. What does poor Jimmy get for his troubles? Eviscerated by zombies. The second he lets the RV stop, it is overrun by walkers and he's taken down in a bloody mess. But hey, Rick and Carl get away unscathed on foot.

Realizing that they don't have nearly enough ammo to take out all these walkers, T-Dog opts to just hit the zombies with his car, like some kind of twisted version of Frogger. Lori is still panicked about Carl, but she and Carol grab Beth and Patricia (all of whom have been hiding out uselessly in the house) and drags them out to the car. Along the way, Patricia gets nabbed by a walker and gets eaten. Poor Otis' wife, she never really stood a chance, but the special effects department gives her a nice bloody sendoff.

Carol gets separated from the group, and when T-Dog shows up with the truck, Lori and Beth hop in, while Andrea goes to get Carol. And of course T-Dog takes off without both women. He finally gets to do something and it's drive off like a wimp. Way to go, T-Dog. Anyway, Andrea saves Carol, then the two split up for some ridiculous reason, and Carol ends up getting picked up by Daryl, while Andrea is left alone in the middle of the zombies with just a handful of weapons to protect her. Sucks to be a good Samaritan.

Glennn wants Maggie to drive off and leave the farm, but she's worried about her father and Beth, but Glennn says if they head back towards they mayhem, everyone will be dead. Is Glennn making sense again? And he knew not to take the RV? There might be hope for him yet. She doesn't really need to worry about her dad, because Rick's there killing off zombies just in the nick of time. He drags Hershel to the one remaining vehicle, mostly against his will.

At daybreak, Glennn and Maggie are still driving somewhere, but not really all that far from the farm. She doesn't want to head back to the highway, because that's where the walkers came from. But it seems like that's the most logical place to meet up with everyone. She's very upset at the prospect that her entire family might be dead, and Glennn calms her down by telling her that he loves her. Ridiculous timing, but it seems to work.

Rick returns to the highway, back where they left supplies for Sophia, and sees no one else there. Carl throws a hissy fit about going back to the farm to find Lori, even though Rick tells him to be quiet and not draw the attention of the walkers. Depressed old Hershel would like very much for Rick to take Carl somewhere far, far away where they'll be safe. It might seem like a nice gesture, but Hershel is willing to stay like a sitting duck on the highway awaiting the others all alone, if Rick and Carl will get the hell out of there. I'd probably rather die alone than have to deal with Carl, too. Rick and Hershel have some more inane conversation about God and resurrection that is heavy-handed and about as predictable as you'd expect. You can fill in your own blanks here, I don't have the patience to recap that blather.

T-Dog finally gets some lines, and they are all about wanting to ditch everyone else and hightail it to the East Coast. Seems like that was what he wanted all along, but no one ever listened to him. Can't imagine why. Lori wants to go back to the highway, says that Beth does, too (though she's mostly mute) and even tries jumping out of the car. Let her! Why didn't he let her? Anyway, he reluctantly gives in.

Back on the highway, Rick is about to give up hope and drive off, but everyone shows up at the same time. Seems that while they scattered in what seemed liked different directions, they all found each other at exactly the same moment? Very convenient. They do a roll call and account for the deaths of all the missing... except Andrea. No one actually saw her die. They barely even entertain the idea of going back for her, but opt to leave her for dead. So they'll send four guys out into the woods to look for Randall, but not one person to look for Andrea who has been with them all along. It's probably a good thing that Dale isn't around to see this.

As for Andrea, she's actually not dead. She's running in the woods. Girl has some amazing cardio capacity, given that it was dark when the zombie attack started and is now full-on daylight. She pauses for a moment to check her very low ammunition status and takes down a walker in the process. Then she starts running and shooting quite effectively, like any good action hero would. For a woman who spent most of the season wanting to die, she's certainly making up for it by fighting for her life now. And she looks pretty badass while doing it. I may hate the hell out of whiny Andrea most of the time, but I like her when she's in survival mode.

The troupe on the highway has to stop because one car is out of gas, and while there are several viable options on how to deal with this that don't involve having a campout in an area where there could be lots of zombies, Rick refuses to hear them. He insists that they all stick together and wait until daylight to go get gas. Why didn't they think to quickly siphon gas when they were on the highway? It's more annoying than a little kid who asks to go pee five seconds after you get in the car.

While they are stopped, people start to get inquisitive about the whole Randall-turning-into-a-zombie-without-being-bitten thing, and Shane drops the bomb that they are all infected... and that he's known since Jenner told him at the CDC. We may have figured it out, but to say that this doesn't go over well is an understatement. Everyone is pissed as hell that he knew this and didn't tell them, and he says he was protecting them? Exactly how? What if they were with a person who just died from a fall? And then that person came after them? That would leave them pretty unprotected. Rick realizes that his leadership abilities are being questioned and storms off to pout.

Lori follows after him and seems somewhat sympathetic about his choice to keep this to himself. Well, until he tells her that he killed Shane. And he's happy about it, because Shane was trying to steal his family. Then Lori turns green and looks like she wants to puke, and not just because she's pregnant. Yeah, Rick sounds about as crazy as Shane ever was. And then Rick makes matters worse by telling Lori that Carl delivered the killshot to zombie Shane. She glares at him like he's some kind of monster, which he really is. He's killed more humans on this show than anyone.

Suddenly awesome Andrea is still kicking ass in the woods with only a box cutter to fend off the walkers. She's nearly taken down, but some creepy ass hooded female figure saves her with a samurai sword. The person in the cloak has two armless walkers on chains with her, and looks like some twisted S&M version of the grim reaper. But we won't find out more about this mysterious stranger until season (unless we bother to read the comics or peruse Wikipedia), but for now, it's probably still better than being with Rick and Carl.

The others are all camped out by some waterfall thing, because a fire won't attract attention or anything. Carol tries to convince Daryl that he should ditch Rick because he's an asshole who only cares about his family. Maggie's inclined to agree with her. When a noise sounds off in the woods, they all want to investigate, but Rick quickly puts a damper on that. He wants them to stay together, like some bratty kid who doesn't want to share his toys ... but more evil. Still think Rick's a nice guy? Try hearing him screaming, "I killed my best friend for you people, for god's sake" in the woods in front of his son. Not the words of a rational or trustworthy man.

By Angel Cohn

Rick tries to convince everyone that Shane was a danger to the group. Then he spins the killing as self-defense. If it was self-defense, how exactly is that helping the entire group? And was Shane ever really a danger to everyone else? He wanted to kill Randall. He mostly just wanted Lori to love him. It seems like the only person who was really in danger was Rick. And it's not like Rick was able to stop the gunshot that attracted the walkers to the farm in droves. There was no protecting; it was just Rick being a selfish prick who only wanted to get rid of the immediate threat to his personal well-being/power position in the group.

By Angel Cohn

Carl starts bawling, because of course he does. And everyone else looks shell-shocked and horrified. Somehow surviving this big zombie raid seems like nothing when you are faced with following a leader who just admitted to killing a man to keep control. Rick gives everyone the option to either go out in the dark alone or stay by the nice cozy fire. If they stay, they are subject to his dictatorship, as he says there's no more democracy here. Note that he didn't give them this option while they were close to their cars in the daylight. He waited until they were trapped in a somewhat safe place to lay his iron fist down. Lori's gaping eyes, which usually bug the hell out of me, actually work here because she looks like she wants to kill her husband with her stare.

As everyone comes to terms with new crazypants Rick, we zoom out to see that they are close to a large, imposing building, which looks like it could be a prison, where I'm guessing we'll be spending at least part of season. It's got to be better than the farm, right? Maybe someone there has a tracking device they can put on Carl.

Overall, not a bad way to end the season, though I'm far more interested in Andrea's storyline than anything else at the moment. Well, unless my beloved Daryl decides to skip town and leave Rick in the dust. And, aside from some preachy moments about faith and love and whatnot, there wasn't a lot of talking, which made it one of the best episodes yet.

Check out a recap of the season finale from Hulu's The Morning After show: