The foursome of Michonne, Daryl, Bob and Tyreese are making their way on foot, still trying to reach the vet school for medicine. Tyreese is acting strangely, though, and doesn’t appear to be completely with the group. They have to push him along and he’s barely responding to their calls to him. Back at the prison, Carol is talking to Lizzie about how to handle death and the zombies. Lizzie is certain that the walkers are just the same people, only in a different form. Carol tells her that isn’t true and then Lizzie calls her “Mom”, which Carol doesn’t want to hear. She just wants to make certain that the girl isn’t afraid to kill when and if it becomes necessary. She says that Lizzie can’t be afraid, she has to take of herself and her sister – you fight the feelings and then, one day, it’ll change. Rick is having visions of Carol carrying out the murders of Karen and David, including dragged their bodies out and burning them.
Carol and Rick go out to find supplies and stop in what once was a neighborhood of houses. They plan to go through each house, looking for whatever is usable – food, drugs, first aid equipment, and bring it back to the prison. They see a car parked at the curb with “Pardon My Dust” drawn on the window and suspect that someone may be nearby. They enter one house and are met by a walker. After dispatching him, they hear noises and a young couple appear from the door of the upstairs bedroom. They offer Rick and Carol peaches from a nearby orchard and tell them they’ve been moving from place to place after being separated from their group. The man has a dislocated shoulder and Carol snaps it back into place – something she learned to do when she was being abused and didn’t want to explain to another ER nurse that she’d fallen down a flight of stairs again. After a few moments, Rick starts to ask them the three questions, beginning with how many “skin-eaters” have you killed. Carol, against Rick’s better judgment, accepts their offer to search the houses and they go their separate ways, planning to meet up in two hours. Rick gives them each a gun and hands the man a watch.
The foursome of Michonne, Daryl Bob and Tyreeses have come across a garage and found a car. Before they can get to it, some walkers attack them, but Tyreese hesitates and while one of them holds him, Michonne is forced to save him. Daryl tries to hotwire the car but the battery’s dead. They enter the garage and find what looks like vomit. The couple who ran the garage decided to ends their lives on their own terms by swallowing antifreeze. Daryl thinks they’re douche bags for doing it but Bob says that they were just going out together, the way they lived. Tyreese and Michonne are outside and she wants to know what he’s trying to do. She tells him that he’s angry, which makes you stupid and being stupid gets you killed. He asks her why she’s still angry with the Governor but she says she isn’t angry and doesn’t know why she’s still looking for him. Carol wants to know about Bob’s old group and Bob tells him that he almost didn’t get into the car when Daryl found him along the road. He was tired of being a witness to their deaths. He couldn’t take being the last man standing, time and time again, as if he was cursed. He tells Daryl that his drinking problem is what got Zach killed. He was the one who slammed the liquor bottle back down on the shelf that caused the zombies to attack them. Daryl just says that that’s bullshit and, after getting the car started with the new battery, tells Bob that he’s not alone any more.
While going through one house, Rick asks Carol if asking the young couple to help them was the right thing to do. She says it was the humane thing to do but Rick still wants to know if it was right. Carol then looks at Rick and says, “I killed two people and you haven’t said anything about it. You can be a farmer, but you can’t be just a farmer. You were a good leader. ” Rick says that he killed two of their own but Carol tells him that he had to do it. She then says that he doesn’t have to like what she did, but he does have to accept it. Rick says that she never says “her” name. Carol says it’s because she’s dead – Sophia. He lets her know that he sometimes hears Lori’s voice calling him and Carl for breakfast. Lori made awful pancakes every Sunday and did it, even though she knew they were awful, because she wanted to the kind of family that had pancakes on Sunday mornings. As they walk towards a gate, they see the tattooed, severed leg of the young girl. Across the street, walkers are noshing on her remains.
The other foursome has made its way to the vet school and are quickly filling the list Hershel gave them. They’re exit isn’t going as easily, though. They come across zombies, behind doors and locked cages. What did Bob mean when he made a distinction between infected walkers and regular zombies? I think, but I’m not sure, that you can tell the difference by looking at their eyes. The group hits a dead-end and can only get out a window that Tyreese has smashed with a garbage can. Bob is the first to jump and , when the others make their exits, they find Bob hanging over the edge of the roof, holding onto his bag which is in the clutches of a throng of walkers. Freeing him, and the bag, Daryl sees a bottle and realizes that the alcohol was what Bob was afraid to let go of. He tells him that he should have kept walking the day Daryl found him but Tyreese says let it go, the man’s made his decision. Bob, thoroughly humiliated, tells Daryl that it’s just for the times when it gets quiet. Daryl warns Bob that if he takes one sip, he’ll beat his ass into the ground.
Rick and Carol are packing up what they’ve retrieved and are getting ready to leave, without the young man. Rick says that Carol had no way of knowing whether Karen and David might have lived. It wasn’t her decision to make and when Tyreese finds out, he’ll kill her. He also says that the others won’t want her there and he doesn’t want her around his children – or any children. She’s surprised by his comments and tells him that she thought he was through making decisions for everyone. She feels that she had to do something but Rick thinks she didn’t. Carol wants to go back to get Lizzie and Mika, knowing that Rick is sending her off on her own, but Rick says that they’ll take care of the two girls. Before they part, he tells her that she’s not the woman who was afraid to be alone, and that she’ll find others and will survive. She says, “Maybe.” They fill another car with gas cans and supplies for her, and the two of them part ways. Rick is driving back to the prison alone and the foursome are also are their way with the antibiotics.
Aside from the virus infected zombies versus non-infected zombies thing, I have a few more questions. Is the group back at the prison going to accept Rick’s decision to banish Carol? He’s not even a member of the council. Isn’t Tyreese going to be angry that Carol was allowed to just leave – with precious supplies, to boot? He was the one who raised the issue of whether murder had become okay. Have we seen the last of Carol? (I hope not. It just seemed rather dismissive of a central character) Will she come back to try to get Lizzie and Mika? She did promise their Dad that she’d take care of them. Did Rick have her go with him on the trip just so that he could send her away? How did Daryl and the others get to the vet school without coming across the thousands of zombies they encountered on their first attempt? If Carol gets banished for killing David and Karen, why does Carl get a pass for killing the young man in the woods who was surrendering his gun – or, even more, what about Rick killing Shane? Lastly, how is Daryl going to react to the missing Carol or has he already moved on to Michonne?
Empress
realhousewifeofaiken 
Rick may not tell the truth about why Carol didn’t return with him. He may make up another story.
Hey BB, All of my questions regarding Rick and Carol assume that he’ll tell the truth, but you have a good point. He could concoct some other story which would save Carol’s reputation and protect himself from the wrath of the group. I’d like to hear what he comes up with as for why Carol would just leave, especially when she’s so devoted to the kids.
Maybe he’s going to say a Walker got her, not that she left of her own accord. Or they got separated and he couldn’t find her and had to come back without her. Maybe Daryl will go out looking for her, find her and they will set out on their own. You know the producers are working on a spin off.
If Rick lies about it, then he’s no leader at all. Carol owned up to what she did and took Rick’s punishment – deserved or not – like a trooper. She’s a much better and bigger man than he.
I haven’t watched it yet. too many shows on my dvr. Maybe tonight. I’ll be back.
Good enough Lainey! I look forward to hearing from you. 🙂
Rick making the decision to send Carol away really bothered me more than Carol just accepting it. The conversation with the young couple was uncomfortable to watch because Carol is/was on the council and in my mind – the decision maker and Rick should have deferred to her decision regarding whether or not the young couple should accompany them back to the prison. His “three questions” is his way to determine a stranger’s worthiness to join the group. Carol also had a conversation with the couple and decided they were worthy and they insisted on pulling their own weight. IMHO, it was Carol’s call, not Rick’s on including the young couple.
My biggest question is, “When did Rick go from farmer Rick to despot Rick?”? I missed that. Carol’s evolution has been interesting to watch. Her practicality isn’t cold hearted and she said she fixes problems (taking care of Judith when Rick went into the twilight zone, the stopped up well, disposing of infected bodies, teaching the children how to defend themselves, etc) and for some reason that really bothers Rick.
Carol takes responsibility for her actions and knows there will be consequences. Rick seems to forget the incidents that he and Carl were responsible for when he gave her the reasons why she couldn’t come back to the prison. Daryl (among others) will not react well to Rick’s “decision” and this maybe the set up for the spin off series coming next year.
You’ve raised a few of the issues I had included in my questions. I don’t know how Rick gets off judging her when he’s zoned out on more than one occasion. She’s willing to make a decision, right or wrong and stand by it. I watched Talking Dead this morning and Chris Jericho made an interesting observation about Rick. He said that Rick still wants to believe in the family that has pancakes on Sunday mornings. Carol, on the other hand, understands that her daughter is dead – I think she said “that’s someone else’s slideshow” – and is trying to make sure that no child is going to be vulnerable or in danger if she has anything to say about it.
Rick forgets that he was the newcomer to this group. If it weren’t for them, he would still be baking in that tank surrounded by walkers. When it comes to how Darryl will react to Carol being gone, let’s not forget about his brother Merle, who Rick left chained to a pipe on top of a roof. Yeah, I know, old news but his lordlike behavior is going to bite him in the ass.
It may be old news, but I don’t think Daryl’s forgotten – or even completely forgiven Rick for it. Rick should pay a little more attention to his son who is turning into one cold killing machine.
This could play out so many ways. It’s why this show is one of my favorites.
Interview with Carol (Melissa McBride) about last night’s episode. http://www.today.com/entertainment/melissa-mcbride-walking-dead-was-floored-ricks-decision-8C11522154
Oh my, I feel a little more optimistic after reading that she’s not sure whether Carol is gone for good.
BTW, both you and windy mentioned a spin off. Thanks to both of you – I hadn’t heard that and now I’m off to find out what I can. 🙂
They are actually calling it a companion series, so there may be no crossover.
I read it was to be the story of another set of survivors.
Melissa McBride is an incredible actress, given they never know if they are being handed the last script they will be in!
For all we know, Carol may well be on her way back to the prison because she isn’t the abused, submissive wife of anyone now and she knows it. She has two little girls to take care of and that obligation alone is enough for her to return regardless of what Rick said to her.
I don’t think that Rick is going to get the same reaction for his verdict of banishment without a challenge this time. Dale kind of got the group past that while they were on the farm and had to deal with the kid from town. Carol has unique relationships with the entire core group and they will all have something to say about Rick’s behavior.
windy, I’d love to see Rick pull up to the prison and have Carol open the gate for him, and yes, Rick shouldn’t get a pass for his decision. Carol served a greater purpose than his feeble attempts at being a farmer. I’m really hoping we’ll see her again. Her departure was so abrupt.
ITA
The most important question to me was the one we were left with on the previous episode. All those zombies at the the end, Where Are They????? How come this week’s episode wasn’t about how they were all on the move again…. to escape the MASSIVE GROUP OF ZOMBIES!!!! I am flummoxed and concerned.
I also have another question. When they stab crush or otherwise ends these zombies “lives”, and all that yucky crap comes flying out how come they never get infected by it. I mean they never get any in their mouths (total ughh!) or in an open cut. I’m glad that they don’t but my goodness! It is all just so gross and I imagine the smell of death is everywhere. Which makes me wonder, again, about the Massive Horde of Zombies being able to surprise our intrepid survivors the way they did.
This show makes me nervous and uncomfortable. Where’s Downton Abbey? 😀
disgrazia, You’re cracking me up!!! 😀 You’re asking the same questions I am. I do have to say that watching all of those zombies being eliminated has cut down my TV snacking.
Downton Abbey is the perfect antidote – some prim and proper British parlor drama to balance the zombie carnage.
You would think with all the walkers they kill at the fence there would be a huge pile of them that the others could just use as a hill to climb over the fence.
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