***SPOILER ALERT*** if you have not seen this week’s episode, do not read any more!!!!
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We left off last week in the cafeteria with Rick performing a black market amputation of Herschel’s leg after his achilles tendon was eaten off like Vinny Testaverde back in the day with the New York Jets. As the amputation is taking place, Daryl notices prisoners in the kitchen and has his crossbow ready to fire. Glenn runs into the kitchen and grabs a metal cart to throw Herschel on, in which the group rumbles through the dark, walker infested hallways, back to their cell. As this happens, the prisoners slowly creep out of the kitchen and just stare at Herschel’s leg in horror.
The prisoners make their way to the entrance of the cell block where T-Dizzle, Daryl and Rick confront them. We find out that the prisoners have been locked in the kitchen/cafeteria for 10 months (262 or 264 days, depending who you ask). Rick, T-Dizzle and Daryl inform the prisoners what’s going on in the world and tell them, “There’s no government, no hospital, no police…It’s all gone.”
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They take the prisoners out to the yard to see the carnage, where Tomas takes on the role of leader for the prisoners. Tomas tries to play tough guy with Rick, telling him that the prison is theirs. “We were here first”. Rick one ups Tomas and tells him, “We took out these walkers; this prison is ours,”. Rick eventually agrees to help clear out another cell block for the prisoners in exchange for half of the prison food.
When they go back to where the food was, I was convinced that the prisoners were going to attempt to kill Daryl, T-Dizzle or Rick. It looked like they were luring them into the cage that the food was in, but it wasn’t to be. There was a TON of food in there and could sustain this group for a long time.
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Now the first of a few sappy moments start with Glenn comforting Maggie about her dad. She says to him, “He can’t even walk…all we do is run.” WOW. Powerful use of words Maggie. Way to tie in walking and running. Pure Shakespeare. When Maggie is done with her Def Comedy Jam routine, she does back to Beth and basically tells here that she’s preparing for if their dad doesn’t wake up.
Rick and T-Dizzle come back with sacks of food to the cell block and Lori reports to Rick that Hershel still hasn’t woken up but has no fever. Rick then instructs Glenn to handcuff Hershel to the bed, just in case….OH EM GEE…he might wake up as a walker!!!
Rick and T-Dizzle drop off the food and Lori starts in with her “I still want to save our marriage psycho babble”, after Rick tells her about the plan to clear out another cell block for the prisoners. ” If that’s what you think is best,” Lori says. Please, save the rah-rah shit for another day Lori. God she makes me want to vomit.
The girls attend to Herschel and his bleeding is stopping.
Maggie gets a few moments alone with her father and urges him to just let go, and go to a safe place. With tears in her eyes, she “thanks him for everything” , then leans in and kisses him on the cheek. And then WHAM!!! Herschel stays asleep. Ha ha, gotcha. It would have been a perfect way for Maggie to go, but Herschel stays with us, in a coma.
Now Rick, T-Dizzle and Daryl have given the prisoners a crash course in how to kill the walkers. They are told repeatedly to go for the head and that’s the only way to kill them. Tomas, the gang banger that he is, is asking why bother when he’s got a gun? He’s told that it makes too much noise and walkers are attracted to it. RTD (Kinda like MVP, Mike Vinny and Pauly of Jersey Shore), only Rick, T-Dizzle and Daryl are way more savvy, and the prisoners come upon their first group of walkers in a dark hallway. Daryl has everybody hold their places till he can see how many there are, but naturally the prisoners charge the walkers, shanking them in the stomach repeatedly. Rick and Daryl look on with total What The Fuck? looks on their faces.
While the shitshow in the dark hallways is going on, Carl saunters in to Herschel’s cell with a huge bag of medical supplies that he’s just snagged from the infirmary. Now instead of telling him what an awesome job he did, or telling him how brave he was, Lori takes the time to talk down to the kid…again. “You went by yourself? Are you crazy?”, Lori says to him. “No big deal, I killed two walkers,” Carl says. I can’t wait till season 6 when Carl has enough of his mother’s shit and just ices her like Walter White did to Mike. Just give me a scene where they are alone, sitting down by a newly found, clean river bed. Lori sitting on a rock, taking in the beautiful scenery and then BOOM! Carl executes her and leaves her exploded cranium along the rocks. That would make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
RTD and the prisoners go deeper into the darkness where they brace for another wave of walkers. Rick tells them, “stay in formation, enough of this prison riot crap”. As they fight the next wave, the blood and guts are going everywhere. The prisoners finally get it and start going for the head. But as shit gets hot, Big Tiny pussies out and tries to do the dip, and gets slashed down his back by a walker. Great job with this scene by the writers. The walker comes around the corner still in handcuffs and manages to rip his hand off, just exposing the bloody bone. He gets up behind Big Tiny and rakes the bloody stump down his back. After killing the walkers, Big Tiny tries to ensure RTD and the gang that it’s just a scratch, but Tomas knows the deal. He gave him the back-end of a hammer to the back of the skull and then just goes to town on him. This is one of the most brutal kills in the history of the show. You can tell that Tomas is getting all of his anger out on Big Tiny’s poor skull. After Tomas is done mashing, Rick has a look on his face as if a light bulb has gone on. He likes what he sees out of Tomas and I get the feeling that Rick would welcome someone as fearless as him.
Carol asks Glen to come with her out to the yard. Lori and the girls tell Glen to go and that they will be fine looking over Herschel. I was curious to see what this was all about, but soon it became evident. Carol needs a female walker to practice cutting open so that she can deliver Lori’s baby. Carl was delivered via c-section and with Herschel in his state, Carol is the closest thing they have to a doctor. I am praying that it doesn’t come down to this…wait, yes I am. Yes, please! I want to see Carol cut Lori open. This might be the greatest moment of The Walking Dead’s history. So Carol pierces the skull of a female walker and Glen attracts the other walkers. Carol opens the hole in the fence that they cut and brings the dead female walker into the yard.
Would you trust Tomas?
RTD and the prisoners reach the new cell block. Rick specifically tells Tomas to open only one door only. So naturally Tomas opens both and pure mayhem ensues.During the mayhem, Tomas pushes a walker on top of Rick, but Daryl jumps in to save Rick. After the dozen or so walkers are iced, Tomas insists that throwing the walker over to Rick was purely self-defense, telling him shit happens. Rick agrees, then puts his machete through Tomas’ skull. You don’t fuck with Rick Grimes. Pissed off that Tomas was killed by Rick, Andrew tries to crack Rick in the skull with a bat, but misses and takes off through the doors. Rick chases after him down the hallways into uncharted territory. The remaining two prisoners, Oscar and Axel, stay behind with Daryl and T-Dizzle. Rick chases him down into the prison yard, but it’s full of walkers. Rick locks him in there and tells him, “you better run”, then closes the door.
Back in Herschel’s cell, he’s stopped breathing. Lori preforms CPR and he grabs her. Carl has his gun cocked and ready to fire, but he falls back asleep after starting to breathe again.
Axel and Oscar, the two remaining prisoners, insist that they were not allied with Tomas. Rick throws them in their new cell block that is covered in walker corpses. “You just gonna leave us in here?” asks Oscar. “Take it or leave it,” Rick says. “That was the deal.”
Rick gets back to the group and it’s just as Herschel is waking up. Satisfied that he’s not a walker, Rick un-handcuffs him and all the girls sob for joy.
Back out in the yard, Carol is playing “Operation” hoping that the walker’s nose isn’t going to light up red and buzz at her when making an incision. Unbeknownst to her, someone is watching her from the woods. Who is it? We don’t know yet, but my money is on Merle.
In the final scene Rick joins Lori on the prison catwalk and gives her credit for saving Hershel’s life. She tells Rick that she had hoped he’d come to talk about their relationship. Rick then puts his hand on her shoulder and says to her before walking away, “We’re awful grateful for what you did”. Lori naturally starts to tear up. News flash Lori. You fucked up and Rick isn’t about to let you high school romance crap get in the way of him keeping this group alive.
Body Count: From my count, we’re up to about 90 right now. Less kills this week, but it was quality over quantity this week. We can also throw in 3 human kills as well.
In this episode there was no mention of Angela or Michonne, but from the trailer for next week, there seems to be a good amount coming up. We will get to meet “The Governor and Merle.
