By M. Giant
Lured by a vision of Lori, Rick steps outside the prison's fence, where he spends the rest of the episode. While he's "wandering Crazytown," in Glenn's colorful phrasing, some other stuff happens. In Woodbury, the Governor admits defeat to Andrea, asking her to take over as leader and claiming he has no interest in retaliating against her friends at the prison. But that's not what he tells Milton, and Andrea's not able to find the Governor when she goes looking for him later. Daryl and Merle's Excellent Adventure is not going smoothly, as they're lost in the woods and arguing. When things come to a head after Daryl insists on rescuing a family besieged by walkers on a bridge, he decides to return to the prison. Merle says he can't come, but it looks like he's going to have to anyway. Dude's not exactly loaded down with supplies.
Back at the prison, Hershel's doing his best to keep everyone together, but it's not easy. Angry Glenn is pissed at everyone, Maggie is barely talking to him, and he keeps wanting to go on these Rambo missions, the last one being driving off alone to check the condition of the far side of the prison. Michonne's just camping out with her sword in the outer yard. And of course Rick's on walkabout, and although he confesses his visions to Hershel, he's still off chasing them. In fact, the only people who seem to be getting along are Carol and Axel, which is why it's kind of a bummer when Axel gets shot in the head.
Yes, the Governor has decided to make a move on the prison after all, and this is it. He and one of his men shoot up the place from outside the fence, while his lieutenant, Martinez, keeps Rick occupied with a gun duel at the edge of the woods and a man in one of the guard towers shoots at Carol and the kids. And as if the shooting weren't bad enough, a truck crashes through both front gates, not only destroying the prison's main fortification but offloading a crowd of walkers while its masked driver makes her getaway. Miraculously, though, no one else is killed, and Glenn makes it back in time to help Michonne save Hershel. But Rick's still on his own, outside the fence, out of ammo, and dealing with more walkers drawn by the gunfire. Lucky for him, the Dixon brothers come to the rescue at the last moment. Rick, Daryl, and Merle are left to stare helplessly across the prison's zombie-(re)infested outer yard at the rest of the group, who are now locked safely inside the inner yard, as the Governor and his surviving men take off, figuring their work is done. I suspect the Governor is being overly optimistic.
Using binoculars, Rick looks out over the prison yard from a high, fenced-in catwalk. There are a few walkers beyond the outer fence; not enough to worry about. He watches Michonne emerge from the overturned bus in the yard where she apparently sleeps these days, then pans across the grounds all the way over to the miniature graveyard. And there's the white-clad figure of Lori again, now standing over the crosses with her back to him. Rick picks up his rifle -- take the shot, Rick! -- but instead he slings it over his shoulder and walks out to graves.
Of course Lori vanishes right before he reaches her, but after looking around some more, he spots her again, now beyond the outer fence, near one of the guard towers. She steps out of view behind that structure, and Rick hurries to the nearest gate, ignoring Michonne as he runs past her and into the dog run, then outside the outer gate, leaving Michonne to close the inner door that he left swinging wide open behind him. Rick finds Lori standing on a small wooden footbridge over a creek that flows past the prison, and this time he gets close enough for her to actually touch him. Which she does, at least to whatever extent she can. Rick certainly seems to react as though her hand is real. But of course he has to know that she doesn't really exist because otherwise there's no way she'd be this clean. Meanwhile, Michonne stands inside the prison yard, watching in concern and confusion as Rick stands out there... doing whatever it is he's doing, by himself. If the Grimeses start having sex I hope she'll look away.
Things seem calm in Woodbury, with the streets quiet and the armed guards on the wall as usual. Andrea's hanging out in her place when she gets a visit from the Governor. He compliments her on the speech she delivered during last week's episode, and claims that he's not interested in retaliating against her friends at the prison. She wants to go see them, but the Governor would rather have a little pity party about how he's messed things up and isn't fit to lead. "But you are." Andrea asks if he's abdicating. Still processing his own crap, the Governor just says he thought Milton could find a cure for Penny if he kept her alive long enough. Finally he seems to realize that there are two people in this conversation and asks her to fill in, saying he'd understand if she chooses the prison, but they need her. Wow, Woodbury is in a lot worse shape than I realized if that's true. But of course Andrea is so convinced of her own awesomeness that I'm sure she's not doubting this for a second.
By M. Giant
Out in the middle of the woods, Daryl isn't having much luck finding game to shoot, and suggests they check out a house. Merle mocks him, which is probably all he's been doing since they left Rick and the others. Daryl suggests finding a stream to fish in, and Merle accuses him of trying to lead him back to the prison. Daryl allows that it's not such a bad idea. "For you, maybe," Merle says, and adds that everyone at the prison is about to get killed by the Governor anyway. "Let's hook some fish," he adds cheerfully. I think you mean more fish, Merle. You've already reeled in your little brother.
Inside the prison, Glenn is running a strategy meeting, using information from Carl to get a picture of how unsecure the prison must be in the area where Tyreese and his group entered. After all, if walkers and strangers can wander in, so can the Governor. Beth speculates that maybe Governor won't bother, as if she were in on his conversation with Andrea earlier. "He had fish tanks full of heads," Michonne pipes up. "Walkers and humans. Trophies. He's coming." Glenn suggests an unexpected preemptive strike, sneaking into Woodbury in the dead of night and shooting the Governor in the head. "You know where his apartment is," Glenn says to Michonne. "You and I could end this tonight. I'll do it myself." She nods. Hershel points out that the Governor wasn't expecting anyone last time either, and look how that worked out. "You were almost killed, Daryl was captured, and you and Maggie were almost executed." "Don't forget Oscar getting killed," Axel doesn't say.
Glenn isn't in a mood to be talked down, but Hershel says the prison isn't worth more killing and they should get gone. Which I can't exactly get behind, and Glenn even less so. Hershel points out they spent the winter on the road. "Back when you had two legs and we didn't have a baby crying for walkers every four hours," Glenn reminds him. Lil Asskicker cries for walkers? Why are they bothering to hunt for formula then? Hershel says they can't stay here, but Glenn says they can't run. Maggie splits the difference by stomping out of the room, and no one bothers to follow her. Instead, Glenn insists that they're going to defend the prison. He invites Carl to come down into the catacombs and help him find the breach (which I'm sure his parents would love), and declines Michonne's offer to help, saying she'll be needed up here if shit starts going down. Then he looks around the crowded room and snaps, "Who's on watch? Dammit." Well, I don't see Rick in this room.
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The Governor finds Milton in his lab, listening to his earbuds, and scares the bejeezus out of him by tossing something on the desk in front of him. Milton fumbles and babbles, all intimidated, but the Governor just wants to know if Milton is staying. Milton says he never considered doing otherwise, and the Governor's glad to hear it, saying he thinks of Milton as a friend. "I counted on Merle as well. Martinez, he's a good solder. He'd take a bullet if I needed him to. Would you?" Milton stutters unconvincingly that he would. The Governor says he's not so sure about Andrea, and asks Milton to keep an eye on her. Pretty two-faced for a guy with one eye.
Later, Andrea goes to look for Martinez on the wall, but nobody there wants to tell her anything. She goes on to intercept Milton, asking where the Governor is. Milton isn't in sharing mode either.
Glenn and Carl return to the cell block. Glenn's flak jacket is spattered with walker-blood, apparently from the two of them having just escaped a whole mess of the critters just outside the boiler room. Glad we didn't waste any time having watch humans fight zombies or anything. That area used to be clear, but apparently fresh walkers are streaming in from outside. That new information has more of the group coming over to Hershel's side on the question of staying versus leaving, especially with this risk of the walkers pushing into the cell block or showing up in a herd big enough to bring down the fence. Still, though, where are they going to find something better? Glenn wants to go scout the far side of the prison in a car. Axel offers to drive, but Glenn wants him working on the fortifications and says he'll take Maggie instead. "You sure she's up to that?" Hershel asks. Glenn doesn't answer, so I guess he's going to go find out.
He finds her crashed out on a bunk in one of the cells and asks her unsympathetically, "Where have you been?" Like it's some big mystery. He tells her about their new mission, but she barely moves, let alone speaks. [Note: Who does she think she is? Michonne? -- Rachel.] He says they need to talk about what happened. Barely rolling over to face him, Maggie tells Glenn about her encounter with the Governor in the basement back in Woodbury. She says again that he didn't rape her, and asks bitterly, "Do you feel better?" He doesn't seem to. She tells him that she could take off her shirt or he would take off Glenn's hand. "I'd just listened to Merle beating the shit out of you in the other room. What could I do?" Glenn makes a move to comfort her, but she angrily pushes him away and tells him to leave. So does this mean Axel's driving after all?
Nope; he and Carol are using wooden pallets and metal panels to fortify the fenced-in catwalk in which Rick kicked off the episode in. Axel admits to Carol that he was always afraid of guns, and even when he robbed a gas station he did it with a toy that he never took out of his pocket. Carol remembers Axel's reference to pharmaceuticals back when he and Oscar were begging for their lives, and Axel says he didn't want them thinking he was the violent type. He goes on to tell her the story of why he was in here in the first place: "day the cops found me at my brother's house." He still had the water pistol in his pocket and swore it was his only weapon, but the cops tossed his brother's house and found his .38. "There you go. Armed robbery." He admits to Carol that he doesn't even know how to use the automatic he's currently holding, so she shows him. "You're quite a lady," he tells her. She actually smiles, all, "Daryl who?"
The Dixon brothers are still wandering through the trackless woods, arguing about where they are and where they're going. Daryl thinks they're approaching Yellow Jacket Creek, which of course Merle mocks him for. They hear noises through the woods and argue about that too, but when they reach the bank of a creek, they spot a harrowing scene: at least one human standing on a wiped-out flatbed truck on a bridge, trying to hold off a crowd of walkers. "Jump!" Merle snickers helpfully. Daryl heads back up the bank to see what he can do, ignoring Merle's advice not to waste his ammo on strangers.
The scene on the bridge, now that we have a closer look at it, is looking pretty desperate. Now two guys, one older and one younger, are up on the bed of the truck. A woman with a baby is trapped in the drivers' seat of a nearby car, with walkers at every window and one crawling up toward them through the back. Presumably the men were out of the car trying to clear the wrecked traffic when the walkers showed up, or they left the car to draw them away from the mother and infant, which clearly didn't work. They're obviously not master zombie-fighters, though, because one of the men drops his gun out of reach while trying to pull the leg of his buddy (or younger brother, or older son, or whatever) out of the grasp of a walker that's just about to chomp down on it. Instead, that walker goes down with a crossbow bolt in its head.
Cut to a hero shot of Daryl, shedding his backpack as he casually joins the fight. That gives one of the men cover to retrieve his revolver as Merle wanders up, gun out but not raised, just taking it all in for now. Daryl takes out the walkers swarming the car, then hauls the one inside it just far enough out to slam the tailgate on its head, exploding the skull like nothing we've seen before. More walkers are still coming across the bridge, but as Merle cheerfully takes one down near Daryl, they've at least fought themselves an escape route. Not that they take it. Daryl sticks his knife in the head of the last walker that one of the men was prizefighting, apparently unaware of the "destroy the brain" strategy, and dumps the body over the bridge railing into the shallow creek below.
Merle goes to the car and opens the door, which pisses off the older man. He yells at Merle in Spanish, only to find Merle aiming both his gun and a racist epithet at him, saying, "That ain't no way to say thank you." Daryl tells Merle to let them go, but Merle proceeds to ransack the car while everyone watches tensely. Finally Daryl steps around and nudges Merle in the back with the point of his crossbow, then levels it and growls, "Get out of the car." He tells the strangers to get in their car and go, keeping his weapon leveled as Merle turns on him, until the car has backed over a zombie skull on its way off the bridge and out of sight. Daryl leads the way off the bridge, not bothering to try looting anything from the abandoned vehicles, pausing only long enough to yank his arrow out of the head of a fallen walker. Meanwhile, the camera pulls out on the sign identifying this as Yellow Jacket Creek, because Merle Is Always Wrong.
Returning to the woods, Merle yells at Daryl for pointing his crossbow at him and then not bothering to take anything from the people they helped. Daryl points out there was a baby. Merle ask if he would have left them if there hadn't been, and Daryl cuts to the chase, snapping, "Man, I went back for you. You weren't there! I didn't cut off your hand, neither. You did that. Way before they locked you up on that roof. You asked for it." Whoa, look at Daryl, getting allegorical. Merle laughs at Daryl for being so close to Rick, and bets Daryl never told him they were planning to rob the camp outside Atlanta. First I've heard of it, that's for sure. Daryl says it didn't happen, which Merle agrees with, "because I wasn't there to help you." I don't think that was the only reason. Daryl accuses Merle of leaving when they were kids, and the reason Merle lost his hand is because he's a "simple-minded piece of shit." I don't know, Merle's mind is many things, most of them unpleasant, but simple isn't one of them.
Daryl tries to storm off, but Merle angrily grabs him by the shirt -- which rips wide open, revealing old, deep scars on Daryl's back, the sight of which take the fight right out of Merle. He stutters that he didn't know, but Daryl doesn't buy it. "He did the same to you. That's why you left first." Merle says he would have killed "him" otherwise, and asks Daryl where he's going. "Back where I belong," Daryl says. Merle, almost pleading now, says he can't come. "I tried to kill that black bitch! Damn near killed the Chinese kid." Daryl says he's Korean, and Merle says it doesn't matter; he can't come along. "I may be the one walking away, but you're the one that's leaving. Again," Daryl says. Merle is left standing alone in the woods without so much as his bayonet attachment, and after a moment, he helplessly moves to follow Daryl.
At the prison, Hershel catches up with Glenn, who was about to drive off solo. "You're not going back to Woodbury, are you?" he asks. Glenn assures Hershel that he's just going around back to check things out, and refuses to let Hershel come along. Hershel reminds Glenn how his formula run turned out, which Glenn takes rather personally. Hershel says he still trusts Glenn with Maggie's life, but "this rage is going to get you killed." Glenn insists, "With Daryl gone and Rick wandering Crazytown, I'm the in charge," and gets into the pickup. "What are you proving?" Hershel asks. I guess Glenn is trying to prove who's fourth in the order of succession. Glen drives on through the gates, which are obligingly opened for him. His work here done, Hershel turns his gaze to the outer grounds, where Rick is still walking around outside the fence. I was starting to wonder where that dude had gotten to.
Inside the cell block, Beth asks Maggie for help feeding Little Asskicker so she can feed their dad. Maggie takes the baby and fumbles with the bottle as Beth walks her through the process and then leaves her to it. Maggie's mood seems almost instantly improved. Too bad there's not another baby for Glenn.
Rick continues wandering around the edges of the woods beyond the outer fence, his hair sweaty and hanging over his forehead. Hershel is calling his name in a choked voice from just inside the inner the fence, and Rick reluctantly goes to meet him. Exhausted from his journey down here through the tall grass, Hershel asks Rick if he's coming back soon. "Glenn's on a warpath. Smart as he is, he can't fill your boots. I'm afraid he's reckless. We need you now more than ever." Rick invites Hershel to lead, then. Hershel asks what Rick's doing. Rick stutters something like a high-schooler about how he's got "...stuff." He doesn't know how much longer he needs, and when Hershel offers to help, Rick just looks at him with haunted eyes. Hershel seems ready to give up and turns away, and Rick admits that he saw something. "Lori. Saw Lor.--I'm seeing Lori. I know it's not really her, but there's gotta be a reason. It's gotta mean something, you know?" Yes, Rick, it means the world is trying to kill you. Try to keep up. Hershel asks if it was her on the phone. "Shane, too, in the town," Rick confesses. Hershel asks if he sees them now, Rick says he's waiting, repeating that it has to make sense. Hershel tells him to come in, saying he needs rest and reminding him that it's not safe out there. "I can't," Rick says, and shambles back into the woods. From her post near the bus, Michonne watches him go.
In the prison yard, while Carl and Beth loiter nearby, Axel talks to Carol about Rick, being understanding about the stress getting to him. He can even relate, saying he did better on the inside, where there were rules and life was simple. Carol asks if he missed his brother, and Axel scoffs that he didn't, what with the man's money problem: "He didn't lend me any." They laugh at this awful joke as Axel continues, "One time that sonofa--" But we never find out what that sonofa did, because Axel's story is rudely interrupted by a bullet through his brain. And that'll do it for the prisoners. He's dead before he hits the ground. Carol, Carl and Beth get low, Michonne creeps around her bus to see where the shot came from, and Rick turns around in the woods. And outside in the yard, standing to an SUV with all its doors open so we know he didn't come alone, the Governor lowers a rifle scope from his one good eye. I hope for his sake that's not all he's got.
It's not. After the ads, Rick unslings the rifle from his back, and suddenly the footbridge where he made out with his dead wife is raked with gunfire. He dives for cover, so I guess the good news is that this has brought him back to the land of the living. Machine-gun bullets are pouring into the yard as well, as Carol rolls behind Axel's body to use it as a shield. If he hadn't been dead before, he would be now. One of the Governor's men has somehow climbed one of the guard towers and soon has Carl and Beth pinned down beneath some metal bleachers, no matter how much Carl tries to return fire with his little peashooter. Michonne, who has a rifle now, exchanges gunfire with the Governor at his position near the vehicle parked just outside the outer fence. Hershel's crawling through the tall grass, which is getting a much-needed mowing from the lead whistling over his head. Rick manages to get a few shots off at Martinez, but misses and nearly gets hit himself. Carl tries to get closer to the guy in the guard tower who's still shooting up Axel so much that his blood is splattering up onto the camera lens, and the Governor decides to quit shooting for a while and just enjoy the show.
Maggie, having presumably parked Lil Asskicker in her mail bin, comes running out into the yard with more guns. She joins the battle against the guard tower gunman -- who, honestly, is proving to be a worse shot than I am -- to give cover to Carol so she can get up and join them behind the corner of a solid structure. Shooting continues, until they all hear the roar of an engine and pause to listen. Something is indeed rolling up the dirt road at high speed, but it's not Glenn in the pickup -- it's a big, boxy delivery van that crashes through both front gates, smashing them aside. Now you got a breach to worry about, Glenn.
The truck comes to a stop in the yard. Everyone watches, the Governor smugly and the prison group fearfully, like they don't know exactly what's going to come out of there in a minute. Finally the gate-ramp at the back drops open and every walker that the Governor and his men could cram in there comes pouring out into the yard. A slim, obviously female figure in a paintball mask climbs out of the cab and starts shooting. That had better not be Andrea. Rick raises his rifle and pulls the trigger, but he's empty. Worse, Martinez barely misses him again. The delivery driver runs past Michonne and her bus, supplying her own cover fire as she goes.
Carl, Carol and Maggie are still exchanging gunfire with the crashingly incompetent man in the guard tower. Rick yells unhelpfully at Hershel to get out of there, and the Governor just watches the scene in contentment, barely pausing to dispatch the walker coming up out of the woods behind him. Maggie finally gets pissed and takes down the man in the guard tower, who must have been almost out of ammunition anyway. Rick, switching to his service revolver, guns down three approaching walkers before finding that gun empty as well, and has to retreat from the crowd coming out of the woods behind him, obviously drawn by the noise. Martinez falls back, and joins the Governor and their passenger back in the truck, the Governor pausing to empty a clip into the prison grounds for good measure. Hershel has begun picking off the walkers inside the yard because why not, while Rick finds his return route to the gate cut off. Yep, dead Lori turns out to be just as helpful as the live one.
Glenn returns in the pickup, his truck nearly colliding with the Governors' on its way out. With only the walkers in the yard left to deal with, our heroes start shooting into the grass, while Michonne wades in through them toward Hershel, splitting skulls with her katana-fu as she goes. Outside the fence, and Rick is reduces to using his empty revolver as a club and a knife, neither of which do much good against the big dead guy who son has him pinned against the chain-link. Hershel gets to his feet, and Glenn drives the pickup back onto the grounds, looking angrier than ever, but at himself this time. Either he's upset that he was gone at the worst possible time, or, like me, he's disgusted that he thought the Governor would go through all the danger and work of coming at them through zombie-infested tunnels when he could just... do this.
Rick is now struggling vainly to hold two walkers at bay with his bare hands, when suddenly a sharp point comes out of the forehead of the one closest to him, nearly blinding him. Yes, it's Daryl and his crossbow to the rescue again. He and Merle rush in to save Rick while Michonne and Glenn bundle Hershel into Glenn's pickup, which Glenn drives clear and back into the inner yard, where the still-intact gate is quickly pulled closed separating most of the group from the walkers outside. Rick and the Dixons finish with the walkers outside the fence, and contemplate the walkers wandering around inside it, separating them from their group.
Well, this is a fine how do you do. But, you know, it could have been worse. Yes, it's too bad about Axel, but the Governor lost a guy too. And if that guy hadn't been the most incompetent man in Woodbury, Axel would have been far from the only casualty. As for the walkers in the yard, they've cleared that area before and they can do it again. If they find a way to repair the gates, all the Governor has really accomplished is an extremely nasty prank. Which, I guess, makes me worry a bit about what he's got planned for when he really attacks.
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.