AMC’s The Walking Dead is returning on Sunday, February 9th. Here’s your refresher of what happened in the first half of Season 4.
Some of you probably had a few questions after The Walking Dead‘s mid-season finale aired back in December. Questions like “who’s been leaving dead rats around the fences?” and “why did the writers waste six episodes on a silly plague that had no real effect on the main cast members, only to revive the Governor storyline just in time for the mid-season break?”
These are valid questions, but I certainly can’t answer them. Luckily, The Walking Dead returns on Sunday, which means that we only have a few days to get reacquainted with our favorite characters. Except Hershel. That dude is totally dead.
Sorry. Spoiler alert. Seriously. Do not read this recap if you do not wish your Walking Dead experience to be spoiled.
The fourth season started with a classically disheveled Rick Grimes trying to regain his sanity after losing it somewhere in the middle of the third season. For Rick, things are different these days. He’s traded his gun for a shovel, spending most of his time tending a small garden inside the prison yard. He’s traded his wife for a daughter, and he no longer has any interest in being a fearless leader. Unfortunately, leadership is in short supply during the zombie apocalypse and Rick’s hesitation only emphasizes the need.
Rick’s role as a reluctant hero, instead of a mopey ghost hunter, was finally reestablished in first few episodes, which is good, because Rick has been off the rails for far too long. When The Walking Dead originally aired, he was supposed to be show’s main character, but it’s impossible for a sane audience to connect with a dude who spends a lot of time talking on the phone to people who don’t exist.
Things are relatively peaceful around the prison until some new kid with glasses (who only lasts two episodes, so I’m not going to bother Wikipediaing his name) becomes ill with an aggressive flu strain. He eventually chokes on his own blood after everyone goes to sleep and turns into a zombified version of Rivers Cuomo.
The reason that the prison was so attractive to Rick and his team of zombie-slaying crybabies was because the fences kept the walkers out. But this sense of security quickly becomes an Achilles heel when a zombie is inside. After zombie Cuomo chows down on a few of the non-essential cast members, the flu that took his life spreads quickly. Karen, who’s now dating Tyreese, becomes infected and is quarantined with David, someone we’ve never heard of. Hershel seems optimistic about containing the outbreak, but before anything could be done, David and Karen are mysteriously murdered and their bodies burned.
Tyreese discovers the barbecue, which eventually leads to a cathartic fist fight with Rick, because Tyreese doesn’t think that people are taking Karen’s death seriously. And he’s right. Solving this murder mystery means investigating the other group members, and that is going to be a disaster for morale.
Even with a whodunit hanging over the crew’s heads, the flu epidemic takes precedence. Darryl enlists all of the black cast members to help him search a nearby veterinary college for antibiotics (you know, like you do to medically treat a virus…), but promptly crashes into a horde of walkers. Tyreese barely manages to escape due to a newfound death wish, but the posse eventually makes its way to the school and collects the supplies.
Now let’s step back for a moment. One of the things that I’ve always loved about The Walking Dead is the way that the writers shy away from zombie-heavy story lines in favor of interpersonal relationships. Zombies are always in the vicinity, sure, but they’re only a backdrop. Unfortunately, with such a large cast, character development is typically an afterthought to basic plotting, which is why is takes so long for the characters to evolve.
Carol Peletier joined the group before Rick was even around, and her character has undergone, perhaps, the most well executed transformation on the program. After her abusive husband, Ed, died in season one, she started becoming more and more confident in her ability to take care of herself and Sophia, her daughter. Unfortunately, when Sophia died, that confidence was gnarled into a scary kind of emotional vacancy. Secretly, she started educating the group’s children in survival techniques and weapon’s training.
So, when Rick realizes that Carol is responsible for Karen and David’s death, it clicks; she has run out of compassion. Staying alive is just a numbers game, and killing two infected people is a small price to pay for the group’s safety. Unfortunately for Carol, Rick doesn’t agree and sends her packing, thus reestablishing the Ricktatorship.
It was actually a huge bummer to watch Carol drive away, but it was subtly brilliant on the writers’ part. Carol inadvertently helped Rick rediscover his role, and her character arc came to its logical conclusion.
Back at the prison, the flu is spinning out of control. Glenn is really the only infected character that anyone cares about. But Hershel, in a backwards kind of heroism, has locked himself into the quarantine zone in order to care for the infected. People are dying, which means that newly-minted zombies are attacking. Just as Hershel is on the verge of losing the facility, Rick and Carl burst into the room like the Kool-Aid Man and mow down all of the walkers with a pair of automatic rifles.
Then Darryl’s group returns with the antibiotics, which means that Zombie Cuomo’s devastation has officially come to an end.
Now, this is where things get a little weird. Remember all of those complimentary things that I just said about The Walking Dead‘s writers? Well, I suddenly don’t feel good about them. For some reason AMC decides to spend an entire episode trying to convince the audience that The Governor is a sympathetic villain.
Here is a list of things that The Governor does during his standalone episode:
- Wanders around long enough to grow a big beard.
- Returns to Woodbury and burns it to the ground.
- Rejects a bowl of Spaghetti-Os.
- Lifts a cancer patient out of an easy chair.
- Tries to save the cancer patient.
- Shoots the cancer patient in front of his granddaughter after he dies from cancer.
So, The Governor spends one episode befriending a pair of attractive sisters and their cancer-ridden father and we’re supposed to forget the fact that he spent an entire season being a creepy psychopath? And then, in the very next episode, he returns to his old, psychotic self.
Once cancer dad is finally buried, The Governor steps into a surrogate husband/father role for Lilly Chambler and her daughter Meghan. The Governor, Lilly, Meghan and Lilly’s sister Tara, eventually leave the apartment where they were holed up, and run across a group of survivors that’s led by Caesar Martinez, The Governor’s only remaining henchman.
Bonus points, Martinez has a tank.
After killing Martinez, The Governor takes over the group and convinces them that their best chance for survival is a war with Rick’s crew-remember, we’re supposed to feel a connection with this character, because he was lonely and grew a beard.
While he’s scouting the prison, old One Eye runs into Hershel and Michonne. So, obviously, he kidnaps them. Now he has the bargaining chip he needs to manipulate Rick’s crew into leaving the prison. And, if that doesn’t work, he’s got a tank.
Well, it doesn’t work. Rick suggests a peaceful solution, but The Guv isn’t interested so he decapitates Hershel with Michonne’s katana.
KaBoom.
The resulting firefight, goes south quickly for The Governor’s crew, due to some tank-disabling grenade work on Darryl’s part. Even though Carol has is no longer part of the group, her little trainees expertly dispatch several attackers and make their escape. Michonne finds her katana and uses it to put one hell of a hole in The Governor’s chest, but it’s Lilly who ultimately ends his political career with a bullet to the head.
Rick and Carl frantically search for Judith, Rick’s daughter, but only find an empty, bloodstained car seat.
In the end, Hershel is the only central cast member who doesn’t survive the battle, but Team Rick will never be the same. The fray has scattered the group’s members in every direction, and the prison is burning in the rearview mirror.
It’ll be interesting to see where AMC takes The Walking Dead in the second half of season four. Rick seems willing to take on the leadership position again, but if Judith became a delicious zombie snack we might have another ghost hunter situation on our hands. And without the safety of the prison walls and Hershel’s medical expertise, surviving the zombie apocalypse won’t be easy.
