The Walking Dead - S4E13 - Alone
Previously on The Walking Dead, ‘Still’
This episode began with a flashback of Bob wandering alone. Can we take a moment to discuss this brother’s ‘stache situation?
And where are his eyebrows? Was he in an industrial fire? Oh, Bob.
Anyway, Bob is about as low as it gets: drinking NyQuil like it’s lemonade, eating cake frosting out of the container, and just shuffling along, waiting to die.
And then Glenn and Daryl show up. Daryl’s on his motorcycle and his hair is blowing in the breeze like that of a Pantene angel. They’re cautious. They ask him The Three Questions. “How many walkers have you killed?” “A couple of dozen.” “How many people have you killed?” “Only one.” “Why?” “She asked me to.”
“Want to come with us?”
“Yes.”
“Got any questions for us?”
“No. It doesn’t matter who you are.”
And that, ladies and gents, is how Bob joined the group. Was anyone else waiting for him to ask about the liquor situation at the prison? Just me?
Next we get the scene teased to us last week on The Talking Dead. Bob, Maggie, and Sasha are back-to-back-to-back in the woods, fog as thick as chowder all around. You can hear the groans and growls of walkers, and the trio is on high alert even though they can’t see more than a foot in front of them. When the attack comes, they each make quick work of taking out the walkers and there’s a small scare when Sasha thinks Bob has been bitten. He has, but it was on his bandage from the gun wound. Hmmm. I still think they should have insisted on double-checking, but okay.
Beth is learning to track and it seems she’s getting good at it. She is able to tell from the foot patterns on the ground that they’re tracking a walker because they’re zig-zaggy. Or we’re tracking a drunk, Daryl says. Hey, I didn’t know they were actively looking for Bob. I kid. I kid. Anyway, they come upon the walker, but before Beth can take a shot with the crossbow, she gets her foot caught in a trap. Daryl kills the walker and they continue on to a cemetery and a house beyond that. He offers up a Daryl Dixon piggyback ride because Beth is limping. Lucky girl. They take a moment to gaze at the headstone of a “beloved father.” It’s clear Beth is thinking about her dad. Daryl holds her hand for support.
Maggie, Sasha, and Bob find the railroad tracks and the sign for Terminus. Maggie wants to go, and Bob agrees. Maggie reasons that if Glenn saw the signs, he’d go there looking for her. Sasha isn’t so sure, but she eventually gives in.
Daryl and Beth enter the house off the graveyard (mortuary) and find that someone dressed up some walker corpses as you would a person who has died. Daryl finds it creepy; Beth finds it beautiful that someone cared enough and remembered that they were once people.
While Maggie is off getting firewood, Bob questions Sasha as to why she wants to give up. She thinks their close calls have been warnings and they should pretty much quit while they’re ahead: find a town along the tracks, find a building and some higher ground. Glenn is probably dead, and they will probably be dead soon, too. Bob doesn’t agree with her, but he doesn’t say anything when she asks him to think about it.
Daryl and Beth find food in the kitchen. Because it’s free of dust, Daryl realizes it’s someone’s stash and they should only take a little of it. They set up their tin-can alarm system on the porch and Beth sings and plays the piano. I’m pretty sure that’s a really dumb thing to do. Daryl gets comfy in a casket and tells her to keep singing.
The next morning, Sasha and Bob awake to find that Maggie has left. A message in the dirt reads, “Don’t Risk Your Live 4 Me. Good Luck.” Bob thinks they can still catch up to her because they know she is following the tracks. Sasha reluctantly goes along. Maggie comes across a female walker, kills it, and then cuts open its stomach and digs her hands inside. At this point, Twitter exploded in a haze of WTF?
Sasha finally calls Bob on his damn grinning! He explains that he’s not smiling because he’s alive, but because he’s not alone. He broke the streak from losing his past two groups. They find the spot where Maggie killed the walker and see that she used the blood to paint a message to Glenn: “Glenn, go to Terminus. Maggie.”
Daryl and Beth are playing house when they hear a noise outside. He investigates, but it’s just a dog. Beth seems disappointed that it wouldn’t come in the house and just ran off.
That night, neither Sasha or Bob can sleep because of the growls of a nearby walker. Sasha thinks it may be trapped on something. She tells him he needs to sleep in order to heal. He tries, but can’t. He asks her why she thinks Tyreese is dead when she knows he’d go for Terminus. He thinks she’s afraid to go to find out that Tyreese isn’t alive.
Beth is leaving a Thank You note for the food they’ve eaten. Daryl says they won’t have to leave a note if they stay and maybe try to make it work with the people when and if they come back. Beth is surprised that Daryl seems to be admitting that there may be some good people left in this world. She wants to know what changed his mind and after a”you know” and a Daryl mumble/growl, it’s clear through his silent stare that she changed his mind. “Oh,” she says.
Be sure to listen to our podcast for this episode to hear my thoughts on ALL OF THAT. ^^^
They hear a noise outside again, but this time when Daryl opens the door it’s walkers. Beth tosses Daryl his crossbow and he tells her to grab her shit and run. He leads the walkers down to the basement prep room where he uses knives to take out as many as he can while pushing them off with the gurney between him and them. He eventually breaks free because he’s a badass, and runs upstairs. Outside, he finds Beth’s bag on the ground with the contents spilling out and then a car peels off. Daryl runs after it, calling Beth’s name.
Daryl has been walking all night, following the road, but he falls down in despair when he reaches a crossroads with three possible directions the car could have gone.
Bob and Sasha enter a town where Sasha spies a building they could set up in, but Bob refuses to stop. Even though Maggie made her choice, she’s out there alone and he’s not going to leave her that way - the way he was. Sasha refuses to join him. He kisses her, but it doesn’t work. His ZA breath kiss didn’t sway her? Imagine that. She tells him he doesn’t have to do it. He doesn’t have to be alone. “I won’t be.”
Sasha enters one of the buildings and prepares to set up camp on the top floor. She looks out the window and spies Maggie lying on the ground between two walkers. When she leans against the window, it falls out and to the ground. This causes Maggie to sit up, but it also attracts the walkers nearby. She rushes downstairs and between her spear and Maggie’s street sign, they take out a group of walkers. Maggie tells her she was looking for another walker (I guess for writing guts) and she was lying there thinking about what she overheard Sasha say about Glenn being dead. She didn’t think she could ask them to risk their lives, but she was wrong because she knew what she’d be asking them to risk it for.
Daryl is still sitting at the crossroads when he’s approached by the guys Rick was hiding from a few weeks ago. The leader, Joe, talks his men out of killing Daryl while Daryl has his crossbow in Joe’s face. He tells him, “Why hurt yourself when you can hurt other people?” And just like that, Daryl found a new group though I’m sure this is all about self preservation and finding Beth… but mainly not dying.
Maggie and Sasha catch up to Bob, they hug, and head for Terminus. Glenn finds a sign/map for Terminus.
