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EPISODE 13: Alone
THE HOOK: In the wake of war with Woodbury, Rick and his group have turned the prison into a working community, but danger continues to stir on the outside as well as from within.
The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS, so I don’t recommend reading this if you haven’t watched this episode
THE LOWDOWN: Despite what the promos for this week would have you believe, things were actually pretty tame for most of the tonight’s episode. I liked the look back at Bob’s meeting with Glenn and Daryl, but it doesn’t exactly fill in any blanks to speak of. We still have no idea what went on with these two groups he mentions, but all things considered, I liked how Bob stepped up tonight. No matter how beat down Maggie and Sasha are feeling—and damn does Sasha ever have a grim outlook on things—he still manages to keep smiling and keep the dream alive. I dig that, especially considering I thought it was going to end up getting him eaten. Before tonight I wouldn’t have cared, but now I find myself rooting for the guy. And the fog fight…not as awesome as I thought it would be.
For Daryl and Beth it’s like a new dawn—that is until they wander into a “looks too damn good to be true” type scenario. The traps on the ground were the first red flag for me. Someone put them there, and although they’d snagged one walker, you can tell they’re changed regularly because there’d be more than one if they weren’t. The house itself was creepy, but that’s just me, because growing up a friend of my sister’s turned his basement into a mortuary and had embalmed bodies down there all the time. The idea makes my skin crawl in real life, let alone in the zombie apocalypse. Daryl sees all the signs—clean house, lots of food, but due to their recent night together, Daryl and Beth get a little too cozy. That dog made me realize it was all a setup. Whoever owns that dog sent him there as a scout, then herded the walkers there, and then kidnapped Beth. At first I thought maybe it was The Hunters—the group Rick had a run-in with, but as we see in the closing moments with Daryl, it wasn’t them, but I’ll come back to that.
The whole Bob, Sasha and Maggie dynamic felt a little weak. There’s no reason at this point for those three to separate, and based on their current plight, I can’t see why they wouldn’t try to find Glenn with Maggie until something happens. The whole Terminus thing feels a little too convenient for my liking. I know it needs to be, as these characters need a (believable) means in which to all reunite, but it just feels like all this stuff appeared out of thin air—signs for Terminus, The Hunters, the house guy(s), and the many other groups of people over the past few episodes since they left the prison. I get that there had to be more survivors and whatnot, but Rick and his crew were out there in the wilds before the prison and then combing the area during the prison time for supplies, so how did they not cross paths with any of these people? It’s just a little farfetched as now, they seem to be tripping over more and more survivors with every step. This makes me very interested in seeing what’s waiting for them at Terminus.
THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 4’s thirteenth episode does have a couple highlights—Daryl’s meeting up with Joe and his hunters (and his battle royal in the basement), and Glenn finding a Terminus sign at the end, but other than that it felt a bit like a filler night to me. It wasn’t a terrible filler night, I’ve seen worse, but with only three episodes left, I guess we were bound to get one. I really hope we don’t lose Daryl to these hunter guys, I mean wow, is that ever the wrong group for him to end up with at this point (a group of Merles). Daryl’s smart though, he’ll use these fools to his advantage and to be honest, they’ll probably cross paths with Rick and them (simply because of the bed incident), and Daryl will end up helping Rick, Carl and Michonne take these boys down to Chinatown. That’s my guess, but either way, I’m pumped to see where the next three hours take us.
ZOMBIE KILL OF THE WEEK: Maggie beheads a walker with a street sign. Badass.
BLOOD AND GORE: There’s a fog fight, a house fight (Daryl whooped some mean ass) and then an open brawl outside an abandoned building. It’s quite a body count for a night when nothing much happened.
WTF CHARACTER MOMENT: Sasha. Like I said before, I don’t get why she was so damn keen on splitting up. Okay, I get you might not initially go with Maggie, but when it’s down to you and Bob, Bob kisses you and asks you to come with him…you turn and go your own way? WTF girl?! Not cool. I was happy to see them all end up back together by night’s end.
COOLEST SCENE: When Daryl getting surrounded, but still jumping up and putting Joe on his ass with one punch was epic badassery if I ever did see it. It was the coolest villain intro (I know we saw them a couple episodes ago but it’s a proper introduction) scene I’ve seen in this show since the Rick and Hershel bar scene.
FINAL VERDICT:
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