The good news is that we all manage to escape that dreary, flu-ridden prison for a week. Rick isn't waiting around for Daryl and his away team to return from the veterinary college; instead, he takes Carol on a run to raid a neighborhood for supplies until Daryl and the others get back, even though he's unaware of the difficulties the away team ran into.
Fortunately they're still on mission -- even after being forced to abandon Zach's car -- managing to find replacement transportation in a nearby town. This isn't without its wrinkles, however, as it requires them to deal with the undead members of the family that ran the local repair garage. Tyreese is still displaying suicidal tendencies, and in trying to talk him out of them, Michonne admits that she doesn't know why she's still hunting the Governor. At the same time, Bob confesses to Daryl that he feels guilty about his part in the misadventure that killed Zach, but Daryl won't let him carry that guilt alone. When they reach the college, they collect all the needed supplies but have to fight their way out of the building…at which point the others discover that Bob loaded his bag with not medicine but booze. Amazingly, Daryl lets him live anyway, though it's a near thing. And Michonne tells Daryl that the Governor-hunt is over. We'll just see about that.
Because what happens with Rick and Carol on their run is that they end up encountering a young couple in love. Carol gives the young man some much-needed first aid, and Rick administers his Three Questions, so it looks like the prison will soon have a couple more residents. The four of them split up to cover more ground before returning to the prison, which is when Carol finally confronts Rick over his silence since learning that Carol killed Karen and David. She remains unrepentant -- nor is she heartbroken when their new friends don't make it back to the rendezvous. So when it's time to go back to the prison, it's a trip that is only going to be made by one of them, because Rick has decided it's time to cut Carol loose. He assures her that she's strong, and will survive, and will find others to join. Which is probably true. So…bets on whether any new people Carol encounters will be of the Gubernatorial persuasion? Carol may have become a dangerous friend to have, but I wouldn't want her coming back as an enemy, either.
It's pretty quiet in the prison right now. The show must have already blown most of its extras budget for the season, so just about everyone is laid up sick and besides we're not going to be spending much time here this week. While Rick is off by himself gingerly changing the dressing on the hand he busted up on Tyreese's face, Carol is in the visiting room, telling Lizzie through the glass that she's about to go on a run with Rick. Their conversation provides the soundtrack for Rick's ensuing movements as he discovers that there's not much gas for the Hyundai. Lizzie wonders if this means Daryl is dead, but Carol reassures her that they just aren't waiting for him and the others to get back, after losing all the food in Cell Block D. Lizzie tells Carol that nobody in quarantine is dead yet, but she thinks it's only a matter of time. "It makes me sad, but at least they get to come back," the idiot child says.
Carol tries to straighten her out and Lizzie argues that yes, they come back changed, but she'll be different when she grows up, too. Like that's going to happen. Meanwhile, Rick is making his way to the last place he saw a gas can -- the tiny exercise yard outside A Block where Carol burned the bodies of David and Karen after killing them. On the way, he passes the cell that Karen was isolated in, and has a vision of Carol coming to offer Karen comfort in the form of burying her wicked-ass knife in the back of Karen's neck. Anyway, Lizzie's point is that everyone changes. While Carol is reminding Lizzie to run if there's danger and not be afraid to kill if necessary, Rick finds the gas cans and then returns to the car to discover Carol's giant roll of humongous knives waiting in the back, like she thinks she's going into the Roman Coliseum and will be expected to grill the tiger afterwards.
Carol reminds Lizzie to keep her own knife where she can get it quickly. "Yes mom… I mean, ma'am," Lizzie says unconvincingly. Carol doesn't want Lizzie calling her mom. Would that be because she's a cold-blooded murderer? Rick is clearly having similar thoughts out by the car. Lizzie says she's afraid, and Carol tells her not to be -- instead, Lizzie needs to keep fighting and not give up and one day she'll change. "We all change," she says. Meanwhile, outside, Rick is giving this theme what looks like some serious consideration. Either that or he's got the same headache we all do after having it drilled into our skulls.
So far, the away team (Daryl, Michonne, Tyreese and Bob) seems to be alive, after being on the run overnight. Tyreese has found a creek to rinse his blood-soaked shirt, while the others make their plan for moving on and securing new transportation. But Tyreese seems in no hurry, saying everyone back at the prison has probably died overnight anyway. Who needs the morning when that ray of sunshine is around?
As Rick drives Carol down the road in the Hyundai, there's some brief discussion about how Maggie didn't come because someone had to stay behind and watch. "Someone you trust, you mean," Carol prods. Rick doesn't respond, and Carol says that she was just trying to end their suffering. I don't recall her saying that to Tyreese yesterday when he wanted to know who did it. Carol goes on that they were a threat, being the only ones who were sick at the time. "I had to try," Carol insists. "Somebody had to." Rick remains completely shut down, just muttering, "Maybe." Which clearly translates to, "You are completely full of shit but I don't feel like getting into it right now." And that's the best-case scenario for Carol.
While the original away team walks down a wide hiking path through the woods, Daryl stops to collect a jasper stone that one of the folks back in A Block requested for a loved one's grave marker. Michonne comments on how the color brings out his eyes, and actually smiles at him with her whole face. It's both startling and wonderful, but when she asks if he knows everyone back there, he says pointedly, "You stay in one place more than a couple hours, you'd be surprised what you pick up." Right, I forgot that smiles don't work on Daryl, Oh well, Michonne's is gone now anyway.
Rick and Carol have arrived in what looks like a quiet neighborhood with no visible movement, undead or otherwise. However, some wag has written on the dusty windows of an abandoned station wagon, "Pardon our dust." Which is odd given that the front window is spotless. Rick looks inside and notices the windshield is clean as well, which means the car can't have been there more than a day or two. The keys are in the ignition, too. Carol basically echoes what Lizzie wondered about Daryl and the others, and whether this trip is for in case they don't return. "Until they do," Rick corrects, and briefs her that they're just raiding medicine cabinets and first aid kits, plus anything edible. And does Carol really believe that is Rick's only agenda?
Okay, there's a regular Banksy at work in this episode, because whoever it is has also inverted and rearranged the numbers on a gas station sign at the edge of a town to spell out "h.ELL." The first away team arrives at this location, which has a full mom-and-pop repair garage as well. They find a car covered with brush and clear it off, but Daryl can't hotwire it until they put a new battery in it. And of course the garage to it is occupied by walkers. The gang starts hacking away at the thick greenery that has grown along the side of the garage. Tyreese gets a bit too overzealous with his machete and unbeknownst to him or anyone else, cuts through some wire that was all that was holding a door shut. Which means that moments later, rotting corpses are reaching out and grabbing at them from behind the foliage. And I thought I was a bad gardener. Soon they're all engaged with zombies through the leaves, with Daryl and Michonne acquitting themselves best. Tyreese, however, holds onto the arms of the one that reached for him, making it impossible for any of the others to kill it until he manages to haul it free of the vines and on top of himself, which is not really an improvement in his situation. Daryl pulls it off Tyreese and Bob shoots it -- really loud -- before they help Tyreese to his feet. "Why the hell didn't you let go?" Michonne demands, but Tyreese isn't in a talking mood. That's a shame, because I'm sure he would have had some uplifting affirmation to share.
Rick and Carol creep into a house that looks to be in pretty decent shape, with a fairly well-stocked medicine cabinet and kitchen, when a zombie starts coming (first walking, then tumbling) down the stairs at them. Carol freezes for some reason, so Rick has to pull her clear, but she recovers enough to stab the zombie in the head as it lies at her feet. Nice save. Rick draws his service pistol when they hear more sounds coming from upstairs, but it's two live humans who emerge from an upstairs bedroom, offering fruit and everything. The young man -- who looks like the bastard child of Jay Mohr and Eminem -- tosses one to Rick, saying, "Catch. Or, you know, don't," he adds when Rick, you know, doesn't.
After the ads, Carol is bandaging up the dude's scratched up shoulder, which they say he hurt in the greenhouse around the corner. (That explains where they got the fruit.) In addition to the cuts, the guy's shoulder is dislocated, so Carol has him lie on the kitchen table and hold a plastic bag in his hand while she slowly, but firmly levers the joint back into place. Seeing this, Rick looks like he might be reconsidering whatever he's been planning with regards to Carol… not that I'm saying he's actually planning anything, mind you. Their new friends, Sam and Ana, explain that they thought the house was clear until "the deadie in the PJs" drove them into the bathroom. Because of how they're low on ammo and terrible shots to boot, they've been playing it pretty safe lately. Ana has a bad leg, y'see, so her right turns inward and the compass rose tattoo that probably used to be on her right calf is now closer to her right shin. It happened when she was being trampled during a fire at a refuge center, and Sam saved her, and that's how they met. "It was worth it," she says, even though the leg healed wrong. They've kept moving ever since, "But it's getting pretty old," Sam says, ruefully looking at his still-sore shoulder. After exchanging a look with Carol, Rick asks them Question Number One: "How many have you killed?"
Daryl and Bob make their way into the repair garage and find a battery that should work, with a little cleaning up. While outside, Michonne doesn't see the irony in how she won't let go of the fact that Tyreese didn't let go of the walker, because she doesn't want to see him die. She says he has a right to be pissed, "But anger makes you stupid. Stupid gets you killed." He's not too stupid to turns that around on her, asking if she isn't still angry at the Governor. She says she'd cut him in two if he were here, "because that's how it needs to be, but I'm not angry. I was." Tyreese asks why she's still hunting him then, but she doesn't have an answer for that, so they go back to hacking the brush off a minivan. Which after all is a much more productive activity.
Inside the shop, Daryl spots a puddle of dried barf near an empty bottle of antifreeze, and he figures the "douchebags in the vines" were part of a suicide pact. They find one more un-survivor pinned under a collapsed section of ceiling, and while Daryl moves on, Bob hangs back to examine the family pictures over what used to be the guy's desk. Happier days and all that. Bob then mercifully takes the men's room key off its hook and uses the screwdriver it's attached to to ventilate the zombie's skull. Nice try with the antifreeze, though.
Carol and Rick have finished loading up and are ready to vacate the house, and when Sam excitedly asks if they passed Rick's test, Rick tells them about the prison. He warns them about the illness currently ravaging the place, which of course they've already exposed Sam and Ana to. Carol adds that they've lost a lot of people, kids. "Yours?" the girl asks. "No, thank God," Carol says, earning a double-take from Rick, but she says that one of her girls has it. "She's strong, she'll make it," she says. And if she doesn't, she'll get to come back. Sam and Ana are psyched to hear about the place anyway, so Rick tells them to hang out and wait for Rick and Carol while they grab more stuff. "Or you could help us sweep the rest of this neighborhood," Carol suggests, though Rick would clearly rather they didn't. They promise to be careful, and Sam points out that Rick doesn't seem 100% himself. "You a righty or a lefty?" He asks, having clued in to Rick's bandaged meathook and the right-handed holster hanging awkwardly at his left hip. Outnumbered, Rick finally agrees and gives each of them a gun, as well as his watch. The last item is so they can meet back at this house in two hours, but if you watched this on mute it would look like Rick is teaching them how to mug someone.
While hooking up the battery -- and while he and Bob are enjoying some smokes they must have found along with it inside the shop -- Daryl conversationally wonders about Bob's group. "Which one?" Bob asks. Okay, say no more. Bob does anyhow, though, saying that he almost kept walking the day Daryl found him, because he was tired of being a witness, but couldn't stand the quiet either. "Used to be, I'd drink a bottle of anything just so I could shut my eyes at night," he says. He thought the prison would help, and confesses that he had his own reasons for joining the Big Spot mission -- namely to get a bottle. "I picked it up, I held it in my hand, but I put it down. I put it down so hard it took the whole damn shelf with it. That's what brought on the walkers, and that's what got Zach killed." Daryl glares at Bob for a bit and says, "That's bullshit," then tells him to get in the van and make with the red and green wire. "Go on, it ain't rocket science." Neither is therapy, it seems. Lookie there, the car starts right up. Daryl whistles for Tyreese and Michonne and tells Bob that he and Sasha picked the spot and took Bob with them, and there was no way anybody could have known. "You ain't gonna be standing alone. Not no more." As an extra vote of confidence, he leaves Bob in the driver's seat as they drive off, leaving the garage family hung up in the weeds. Literally.
Rick and Carol have moved on to another house and are collecting another haul of expired pharmaceuticals while Rick asks Carol if she thought it was right to let the newbies come back with them. She thinks it was humane, which wasn't Rick's question. Carol remarks on the desperation of what they're doing right now and says, "If they're strong enough to help us, then yeah, I think you made the right call." Rick wonders, "If they're not?" "Let's hope they are," Carol says, which means, that if they're not, it's their own problem. She finally cracks and says, "Rick, I killed two people and you haven' t said a word about it." Well, he did say "maybe" earlier. Rick wonders what she wants from him, and she says it's about facing reality so they can live. "So that we can live," Rick says bleakly, which, of course, is exactly what she means. She also says that while he can be a farmer, he can't just be a farmer. She crouches down and says, "You were a good leader. Better than I probably gave you credit for." Now she tells him. Rick agrees, "I never murdered two of our own." "Just one," Carol reminds him snottily. Rick points out that Shane was going to kill him, though without mentioning his name. "So were they," Carol says. "They were gonna kill all of us." Rick says she doesn't know that, and she asks whether Rick would have done it if he thought it would save Judith or Carl. "Or would you have just gone back to your crops and hoped it'd all be okay? You don't have to like what I did, Rick. I don't. You just accept it." Okay, good talk?
The other away team has reached what looks like the college, and soon they're raiding a laboratory classroom. Or at least most of them are, as Bob seems to have found someone's bed behind the professor's desk with books stacked neatly on it. Not that he mentions this find to any of the others, hurrying to catch up as Michonne gives him a little stink-eye over her shoulder.
While Rick and Carol pause to gather some fresh tomatoes from a backyard garden, Carol asks whether she learned that shoulder-fixing trick from Hershel. "Internet," Carol says. "Easier than telling an ER nurse I'd fallen down the stairs a third time," she explains. So then did she make Sophia do the arm-moving? I'm not sure that's better. Rick says he's sorry and Carol says she was just fixing what needed fixing. "I actually convinced myself I was happy with him," she says. "Which wasn't all that hard considering my idea of happiness then was just not being alone." She realizes she was being stupid, and didn't think she could be strong back then. "Why don't you say her name?" Rick wonders, out of nowhere. Not that he mentioned Shane's name when Carol brought him up either. Carol says something philosophical about how Sophia is dead and "Somebody else's slideshow," whatever that means. Rick reminisces a little about Lori in a way that's supposed to be poignant, but only shows that she was pretty useless and deluded even before the zombie apocalypse. And then, as they come around the house, they're brought up short by a spilled bag of fresh produce in the grass. They follow the trail to a gate that stands ajar, and behind it find a twisted leg with a familiar compass rose tattoo. Well, the good news is that leg won't be giving Ana any more trouble, because she's currently being eaten by zombies in someone's front yard about a hundred yards away. "We should get back," Carol says mildly. "Sam's probably waiting." Rick seems to make up his mind all over again. There's strong, and then there's cold, and if Carol were as good at spotting threats as she seems to think she is, she'd by trying to get herself off what is clearly Rick's double-secret probation right now..
The away team at the college continues cleaning up, Bob telling Michonne to grab anything that ends in "cillin" or "cin" so they can dissolve them into IVs when the get back. I'm sure Michonne is fascinated by the planned methodology. Having finished shopping, it's time to clear out, which involves negotiating some darkened hallways, which in turn requires going past some open classrooms with walkers milling about inside. They soon find themselves seemingly trapped inside a dark storeroom full of animal cages, until Michonne finds a sign leading to a stairwell. Tyreese hammers down a zombie that grabs at him, and when the others reach the door to the stairwell, they find it locked and the crack clogged with zombie-fingers reaching through. A brief but intense debate about whether they should risk getting potentially flu-infected zombie-blood on themselves ensues, but since there are now zombies coming at them in force from the only other door, it's quickly moot. They bust open the door, take out the few blocking the way, and make it into the stairwell with the horde slowly following.
Rick stands at the kitchen window of the house where they met Sam and the late Ana, nervously tapping his wedding ring on the gun at his left hip. He might start wearing it on that side all the time just so he can keep doing that. From the kitchen table, Carol says it's been too long. Rick wants to give Sam a bit more time. Carol says he might be fine, but he's not here and they have to go. Rick stares at her dead-eyed for a long, long time, until she at last decides that maybe she should say something sympathetic. And she comes up with, "It was a nice watch." Wow, no wonder she hasn't gotten sick; most blood-borne pathogens can't survive in ice water.
The group at the college fights their way through a hallway, Bob knocking stuff down to slow down the walkers behind them. When they come to a dead end, Tyreese hurls a fire extinguisher through the window to create an exit. They climb out onto a wide, conveniently strong ledge that circles the building's second story, tough Bob flubs his exit and finds himself with one arm hanging over the edge into the newly-arrived crowd of walkers below. They grab at his dangling satchel, but Bob won't release his grip, even as the others -- trying to haul him to back to safety -- tell him to let it go. Finally the bag comes free and clanks against the ledge. Yes, clanks. Daryl looks inside and pulls out a bottle of booze. "You got no meds in your bag? Just this?" he asks angrily. "You should have kept walking that day." He makes as if to hurl the bottle out over the quad, but Bob says, "Don't," with a hand on his gun. Which is a mistake, because Daryl's about to show him how you fucking threaten someone. He charges up to Bob without a word and just presses his face against Bob's, backing him down and pulling Bob's gun from its holster, then putting the muzzle under Bob's head. "Let it go, Daryl," Tyreese says, suddenly the voice of reason. "Man's made his choice." Daryl releases Bob, who says he didn't want to hurt anybody. "It was just for when it gets quiet." You know, it's oddly quiet now given that they're right outside a window from which zombies are currently reaching out at them. Good thing these particular specimens don't know how to climb. Daryl pressed the bottle into Bob's chest and hisses, "You take one sip before those meds get in our people, I will beat our ass into the ground. You hear me?" Wow, look who turned out to be an enabler. Meanwhile, Bob picks up his bag and follows the others down the ledge, like they've all just had a touch of intramural drama on the way out of the mall.
Out by the Hyundai, Rick and Carol seem ready to go, but when Carol tries to open the door to the shotgun seat, she finds it locked. And Rick doesn't seem in a hurry open it for her. So that's how he's breaking the news to her? I guess Carol had one more thing to learn about coldness after all. "They might have lived," Rick lectures her. "Karen and David. They might have lived .And now they're dead. It wasn't your decision to make. When Tyreese finds out, he'll kill you. Damn near killed me over nothing." Carols says she can handle Tyreese, which even from her seems like so much bravado. I didn't see her stepping in last week when Rick and Daryl were tag-teaming the guy. Rick says the others won't want her around when they find out. "And if they don't make it back, if everybody dies of this thing and it's just the two of us, with Judith and Carl, and my… my children, I won't have you there." Carol says, "Rick, it's me." Yeah, it was. Not anymore. Everyone changes, remember? "No one else has to know," she says, which is never a strong argument that you did the right thing. She also says that she thought he was done making decisions for everyone. So Rick says he's making this decision for himself.
Carol remains unrepentant, saying she had to do something, but Rick says she didn't. She briskly wipes away a couple of tears and says she not going anywhere without Lizzie and Mika. Rick isn't even having that, asking her, "You want them to leave? To go out there with you?" After all, Lizzie is sick and Mika is ten and Lizzie is also a fucking moron who will get all three of them killed. Carol begs Rick, but all he says is that they'll keep the girls safe. "You're not that woman who was too scared to be alone," he says. "Not any more. You're gonna start over. Find others. People who don't know. And you're gonna survive out here. You will." Carol says maybe. And Rick drops her backpack at the curb. Is it just me, or is it bad juju to be talking about Carol finding other people out there when still nobody knows what has become of the Governor? And am I the only one who can see her joining forces with Phil and coming after everyone at some point down the road? I'm not, am I?
Back at the car, Michonne and Bob and Tyreese are planning their return route while Daryl fidgets with his jasper in the van's shotgun seat. Michonne gets behind the wheel to him and tells Daryl that he was right about the trail going cold. "I don't need to go out any more," she says. Daryl grumps, "Good," and slams his door. With that, they head on out.
Rick and Carol finish loading the "Pardon Our Dust"-mobile for her, including a gas can that he's letting her keep. You know, in case she comes across any other bodies that need barbecuing. I keep expecting Carol to come at Rick with her knife, but he clearly doesn't because he turns his back on her and everything. In fact, Carol reaches into her pocket to give him a watch that Ed gave her on their first anniversary. "Should have given it away a long time ago," she says. With that, she gets in her new car (which starts right up), does a loop around the cul de sac, and heads off on her way without even bothering to flatten Rick. But, you know, what the fuck were they doing parking in a cul de sac like a couple of goddamn rookies in the first place? Might as well lay on the horn and holler, "Hey, zombies, please come cut off our only exit!"
A sad song about change winds up on the soundtrack, as the first away team drives quietly down the road in what looks like a long ride home. They might as well be listening to "Tiny Dancer." Rick is also driving, with the car sporting not just one but three empty seats in an unconscionable waste of cargo space. As the road unwinds quickly ahead of him, he keeps glancing in the rearview mirror -- but of course there's nothing there but the double reflection of himself in the anti-glare glass. So, congratulations on another problem solved, then?
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.
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