I’ll be honest with you, the season premiere of The Walking Dead left me wanting more. It definitely wasn’t bad, but I couldn’t help walking away from the episode with a feeling of disappointment. With that said, I do see that they’re slowly building up this season and introducing us to these new characters, but at season 4, it almost feels extraneous.
Interestingly enough, we get a cold open to start this episode that shows someone feeding rats to the walkers surrounding the prisons fence. It’s seemingly random as who would possibly do this, but there’s so many new people in the prison, who knows who we are dealing with.
We see Tyreese and Karen reflecting on the death of Zach last episode, slowly growing closer together, which is never a good sign in a show like this where everyone is expendable. Karen narrowly avoids a nasty encounter with zombie-fied Patrick, who is roaming the shower halls. The rest of the prison group aren’t as lucky as Karen (for now) as zombie Patrick finds his way into a prison cell and bites into one of the deepest sleepers possible known to man. It’s amazing to me to think that anyone would sleep with their cell doors open, but I guess they got too comfortable, clearly for their own good. Soon Patrick spreads the zombie state across the cell, and the fun is ready to begin.
There’s a simple but great scene between lovers Glenn and Maggie, who are truly one of the best aspects of the show. One of the shows strength has been watching these two blossom into fully grown characters and lovers. It’s really gonna break my heart if anything bad happens to either of them.
The transformation of Rick and Carl has been an interesting change this season, but we can tell that Rick will soon assume his rightful role as leader soon. While tending to the crops, Carl asks Rick about helping out clearing the zombies near the fence saying “If you don’t want to, I couuld,” which strikes a nerve with Rick. Guy Ferland, the director of this episode, “Infected”, does great work after Carl asks this question. He zooms in on Rick’s hand, full of dirt and soil, as Rick contemplates his sons question, pondering what his rightful role still is on the farm. He wants to tend to the soil that his hand is full of, but he knows its only so long that he can prolong his rightful role. Carl asks for his gun back and Rick denies him, but suddenly there are gun shots. We see Michonne almost get taken out by Zombies but Carl saves her from a looming zombie, looking almost relived to have finally gotten a gun to use.
In the prison Patrick has cause full out chaos, as the crew has to fight them off in a panicked scene that has some of the intensity that the show has been missing. We also have the walkers on fence continuing to grow in numbers, leaving some to tend to the prison, and others to try and keep the walkers from pushing the fence over.
The crew realizes that some of the infected are not bitten, but rather died due to illness. This causes them to come to a meeting, deciding to quarantine those who are sick away from the others. This includes Karen, which doesn’t please Tyreese.
Carol tries to save the life of a man named Ryan, who unfortunately is bitten and will soon be on the way out. Carol who has become a cold bad-ass over the shows duration, tells Ryan’s daughters (Lizzie and Mika) the news. Lizzie wants to be the one to do it, but can’t quite bring herself to do the deed. Carol coldly tells her this is because she’s still weak. Damn, Carol. Losing Sofia really has done a number on you.
Beth tends to Michonne who is wounded, and is quite hard on herself for almost getting bitten by the walkers. We learn a bit of information about Michonne when Michonne is irritated by Judith’s crying and when Michonne resents holding Judith. It seems like she’s just putting on her tough act at first, but soon we realize that Michonne was once a mother herself, and likely lost a child at some point during all the chaos of the new world. It’s a good bit of depth to Michonne’s character that was quite well done.
Daryl and Rick have a heart to heart about Rick’s time off as leader, and Rick continues to avoid resuming it. However Maggie, Glenn, and Sasha have a hard time fighting off the zombies near the fence which is slowly going to collapse. It’s then that Rick gets an idea, which leads to him finally taking over again. He has Daryl drive one of the trucks outside near the walkers, and he has to cut open the pigs he’s been raising in order to draw out the walkers away from the fence. And it works. It was painful to watch Rick to do, as the final cut he makes on a pig leaves his face completely covered in blood. It was powerful imagery, and a sign that Rick will never beable avoid the things that come with the leadership role in a time like this.
the girl has to be the one to kill her dad, Carol, who come to Carl and pleads with him not to tell Rick, does so, making his own decision as his father likely would have. Carl promises that Rick doesn’t bring it up to Carol, as he believes she is right in her efforts. Rick agrees to it, and it seems like they are both growing together in ways. Rick realizes that either they infected the pigs, or they infected them. He gives Carl his gun back, brings back his gun/holster, and burns his shirt with the pigpen.
We then see Tyreese on the way to visit Karen who is isolated from the others, but he see that there is a bloody mess near her room, and the trail leads him to two burned bodies, of both Karen and David, a man who was mentioned to be coughing as well. It seems someone took things into their own hands. This horrible sight leaves Tyreese devastated on his knees, not likely to take too kindly to this on the next episode.
This was a much better episode than the pilot, and although it wasn’t amazing by any means, it’s slowly building towards what will be some crazy upcoming episodes of zombie telivision.
Random thoughts:
Who is feeding the zombies rats? My guess is Lizzie, who is giving off an odd vibe. Not quite sure why she would do it, but she seems like a better guess than someone working on the inside for the Governor.
Who burned the bodies? Could it have been Sasha, who seemed the most concerned about the sickly contaminating them? Or could it be someone who we have yet to really think about, such as the new character Bob, who is ex-military, and may not be up for messing around. We’ll see.
Rick has been farming on the land where countless number of zombies have been killed, and dead (infected) bodies have been buried. Could this be a reason this infection has spread, as they have been harvesting off this land?
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