Walking Dead - 30 Days Without An Accident Recap

The fourth season opens on a new co-oppy prison.  If there weren’t walkers outside of the fence, I could totally see a little roadside stand selling organic produce happening in the next few episodes.  Rick wakes up and goes outside, passing some gardens and farm animals to do some random digging.  He finds a gun buried outside and casually tosses it into his wheelbarrow.  Rick doesn’t seem to pay it too much mind.  He must not know what Chekov says about a gun introduced in the first act.

At breakfast, it appears that Carol has taken on the job of camp cook, and Daryl has taken on Rick’s old position as leader. Carol lays on the flirty eyes, reminding Daryl that while he’s adored by the entire camp now, she liked him first.  Poor Daryl just looks a bit overwhelmed.  A doe eyed kid in glasses named Patrick walks up and thanks “Mr. Dixon” for the deer meat dinner.  Uh oh Patrick.  Introduced with a name in his very first scene.  Sorry kid, you’re doomed.

Carol interrupts Daryl’s admiring fans and brings him to see the horde of walkers clawing at the gate like there’s a Black Friday sale inside.  

Personally I'd take my chances with the zombies...

Meanwhile, Maggie and Glen snuggle inside.  Why do they get to rest?  Is this what a post zombie honeymoon looks like?  Guess they can’t fly off to Hawaii or even vacation at the shore for a few days.  Glenn's asking Maggie to take a pass on going to search for supplies today.  More laziness from the newlyweds.  C’mon kids, everyone’s gotta pull their weight. 

Back at the horde fence, a team of prison denizens violently skewers a never ceasing tide of zombie skulls.  Tyrese and Karen have a chat about killing walkers and exchange a smooch.  Super romantic.  This episode seems to be setting up all sorts of couples for the coming season.

As the gang packs for the supply run, a new Aussie kid named Zack (oh kid…hate to break it to you but you’re probably not long for this earth…) gives Beth a kiss and tries to say goodbye.  She’s all detached and won’t do it.  She’s a brat.  What does she even do anyways?  The resident sullen teenage girl who sings creepy songs every now and again?  Larry Gillard Jr. from ‘The Wire’ fame is introduced and wheedles his way into going on the run.  Let’s all take a minute and notice how there's no overt reference to his name.  I’m pegging him for a survivor.  For a few episodes at least.

As Hershel gives Rick a basic gardening lesson, Michonne returns on a horse that she magically found alive in the woods somewhere.  Hopefully this one doesn’t go the way of Rick’s trusty steed in the premiere.  She brought back super important things like…..comic books for Carl.  She's found no trace of the Governor.  Carl wants Michonne to stay, and she says she will for a few days.  There’s an interesting dynamic going on between Carl and Michonne here.

Rick starts to leave to collect what’s been caught in the snares before the walkers get to the sweet game meat.  Hershel stops him and implores him to take a gun because the council says so.   (Side note – How the eff has Sasha already gotten herself onto the council?  Sure she’s scrappy, but we certainly haven’t seen her do anything spectacular.   Maybe she was an overachiever in her previous life.  I could definitely see her running for Class President, Tracy Flick style.)  Rick takes the gun, and thank goodness because he runs into a lady that looks strikingly like the girl from ‘The Ring’. 

OMG in retrospect, THIS CHICK WAS TOTALLY A ZOMBIE!!!

Creepette looks at Rick with blank eyes and asks him to help her.  She wants to bring the boar in the snare to her camp for her husband.  Rick’s all like, “no way, but here’s a consolation sandwich”. (Side note - The practical side of me wonders where they got the bread.  Bread is super labor intensive, and I definitely didn’t see a mill or even any wheat growing….maybe it’s Wonderbread?  What’s the shelf life of a Wonderbread loaf?  But I digress….)   Creepette accepts the sandwich and tells Rick that she and her husband aren’t doing very well, and can they come with him?  Rick is cautious.  He says that once he meets her husband he will ask them three questions to see if they can cross the bridge join the camp. 

The supply squad arrives at Big Spot, which had been set up during the first few weeks of the outbreak as a safe army base. As the squad cases the superstore, Zack is trying to guess what Daryl did before the apocalypse.  Zack’s quite cavalier and chatty which makes me believe that he was definitely not someone with good sense back then or now.  Daryl humors him and says that he was a homicide cop.  Michonne laughs and calls him ‘Detective’.  (Side note – I wish that every now and then the WD writers did LOST style flashbacks for the characters, showing a bit of their lives prior to the virus outbreak.  Oh, also I’d definitely watch a show in which Norman Reedus plays a homicide detective.  But, let’s be honest, I’d watch a show where he just read entries from the phone book.)  The three go inside, and the camera pans up to a downed helicopter on the roof.  Seriously?!  How did they miss that as they drove up? 

Inside, Michonne casually rolls around a shopping cart.  She comes upon a ‘Monster Savings’ sign and swiftly slashes it with her katana, further solidifying her status as awesome.  Glenn’s peruses the electronics department and looks at a frame for a baby.  Op!  Is Mags prego?

New guy is in the liquor section.  Ominous music comes on as he selects a red wine and struggles with it.  Some demons aren’t zombies.  He’s successful in abstaining and puts it forcefully down on the shelf.  He’s rewarded by the shelf collapsing on top of him, which in turn opens up a chasm in the ceiling, the roof weakened by the helicopter and water damage.  Walkers start to fall from the sky. 

Rick’s missing out on the storm of the century because he’s still on his day hike with Creepette.  She asks if he thinks that people get to come back from bad things they’ve done while she picks at the foil on her sandwich.  She really hopes that she and her husband have the right answers to Rick’s mystery questions.

Back at Big Spot…..walkers continue to rain down from above and the riper ones explode on impact.  Things move fast, and at one point Daryl is directly under the helicopter and Glenn swoops in and saves him as it comes crashing down.  The sky is literally falling, and Zack is eaten.  Ah Zack, we hardly knew ye.  The rest of the squad races out as the ceiling caves in.

Back in the woods, Rick and Creepette finally get back to her camp. She introduces him to Eddie, a burlap sack of a walker head.  She coos at it for a minute, and then lunges violently at Rick with a knife.  He handily disarms her and she falls to the ground.  Defeated, she explains that she wanted to bring Rick there to feed Eddie, because he was “slowing”.  Wracked with guilt, she stabs herself in the stomach and collapses.  Even as she dies, she’s still curious about the three questions.  So Rick humors her dying wish and asks them.  “How many walkers have you killed?”, “How many people have you killed?” and “Why?”

Creepette says that she killed herself because she felt she couldn’t come back from horrible things that she has done.  However, it’s perplexing because unless she’s lying with her answers to the Big Three, she hasn’t really done anything too horrible.  She says her husband killed all the walkers until he turned, and that the only person she killed was herself.  Rick waits for her to pass, and appears to grant her dying wish to leave her brain in tact so she can come back and be with Eddie.  He does however take the sandwich back. 

Back at the co-op, everyone is in the library.  They must’ve transferred it from Woodbury.  Carol is reading for story time.  Carol ends the chapter in a cliffhanger and then whips out a bunch of knives to teach the kids how to be effective “how to stab and slash”.  Carl comes out and Carol asks him not to tell.   Why not?  Shouldn’t Carol have some clout by now?

Rick returns and sees that a pig that was sick at the start of the episode is now bloated and dead.  This can’t be good. 

Maggie tells Glenn that shes not pregnant.  But she doesn’t want to be afraid of being alive.  Well she’s not doing any sort of living hanging out in that jail cell all day.

Apparently neither of the farmer’s daughters are pitching in lately because Beth is lying on her bed and casually writing in her journal when Daryl comes to tell her the news.  Zack is dead and she has an underwhelming reaction.  She goes to change the ‘This Workplace Has Gone __ Days Without An Accident’ sign.  Where on earth did she get that?  I wouldn’t think she would be selected to go on supply runs, so someone must’ve gifted it to her.  She says she was just glad to get to know the kid.  Daryl says he’s tired of losing people.  Beth hugs him and lingers just a little too long, giving him a weird longing look as she finally lets him go. (Side note – I know that the lingering hug is definitely the point of focus in this scene, but I couldn’t help but notice that Beth has a light in her room?!?  Where is that coming from? And why does Beth get to be the recipient of light?)

Rick and Hershel chat while spending some QT with Judith. It’s nice that Rick has someone to talk to, and worries that he is capable of Crazy Town, just like Creepette.  Hershel reassures Rick and says that he couldn’t help because she was too far gone.  He says, “You get to come back, you do.” (Side note – Hershel had some ‘coming back’ of his own to do when the world was still sane.  He seems comfortable with having redeemed himself with his children and his God after a period where alcohol ruled his life, and I think he truly means what he is saying here.)

That night, Patrick is sick.  He stumbles to the bathroom, leaving a trail of bloody footprints in his wake.  He pumps the shower and then collapses.  Ooooo a mystery.  There’s barely time to wonder, “Why are people getting sick?” when…..ZOMBIE!!! Patrick ‘wakes up’ on the floor of the shower, bleeding from his eyes and nose, and grins a big jack-o-lantern grin.  Is he a sentient walker?  The other walkers don’t smile or show any emotion, so this is really odd.

Questions for next week:  Who is Patrick going to kill?  He’s going to most certainly attack someone in the next episode.  Where is the sickness coming from?  The water? The ground?  Does it have something to do with the buried gun Rick found in the opening scene?  What’s up with the new possibly alkie guy?  Will Hershel help him? Is Tyreese ever going to be interesting??