For the first two acts of the show, I figured “Home” was another episode full of moving all the pieces into place. And then things exploded. While the game-changing last few minutes of the episode were as exciting as anything we’ve seen on the show thus far, lets start back at the beginning, shall we?
Poor Rick starts the episode chasing the same ghost he saw at the end of last week. Only this time, instead of yelling like a madman, he chases her down. Rick finally finds Lori outside the prison walls (he left the gates unlocked in his pursuit). From there, Rick decides to live outside the walls, chasing down ghosts until, well, something happens.
Inside, an increasingly frustrated Glenn is trying to shore up defenses in preparation for an inevitable incursion from Woodbury. Unfortunately for him, the only one who seems interested in helping is Carl. Maggie is still getting over her experience with the Governor, and Hershel is convinced that packing up and running is the only thing to do. Eventually, Glenn gets mad and drives away. We never learn where he went, or why. Perhaps this will factor in next week. He does come back with something tarped in the back of his truck, but it might be that was there when he left and I just didn’t notice.
Carol and Axel work on setting up places to duck behind in a firefight, and grow a little closer. Axel turns on his white trash charm, and Carol seems to be flattered by his attention. It’s a cute scene that lends a lot of weight to what happens later in the episode.
Back in Woodbury, the Governor is scheming all over the place. One minute he tells Andrea that she’s the leader Woodbury needs, and the next he’s telling his worming associate that she can’t be trusted. Then, he just sort of disappears, along with several cronies. Andrea is understandably concerned about this – despite the Governor’s assurances that he plans to leave the prison alone.
Meanwhile, Daryl and Merle are having some much needed bonding time. Merle tries his normal antics to get his brother in line, but it becomes more and more apparant to everyone that Daryl no longer needs his big brother. In point of fact, it’s looking like Merle is the needy one these days.
The two happen upon a group of survivors who are stuck on a bridge, being attacked by zombies (I just refuse to use the term “walkers”). Merle, of course, doesn’t want to help, but Daryl runs in and plays the hero. After a good deal of cross-bowing, and a bit of knife work, the zombies are gone and the survivors are safe. Well, safe from zombies anyway, Merle does his best to intimidate them. Once again, Daryl takes charge, and holds his brother at quarrel-point until the others can escape.
It’s a pretty great sequence, with a couple really fantastic zombie kills (closing a zombie’s head in a door? yes please!). It’s all a setup to help get the brothers back to the prison where they’re needed, of course, but The Walking Dead goes about it with aplomb.
Speaking of being needed at the prison, things aren’t going so well there. We get another scene of Axel sweet talking Carol, only this time he gets shot through the head. The yard explodes are multiple shooters start tearing the place up, and our heroes are all over the place (Rick’s outside the fence and Glenn is MIA). After a lengthy firefight, during which no one can seem to hit anything, the Governor’s secret weapon arives: a bread truck full of zombies, which also takes out a set of gates.
When all was said and done, both sides lost one person. Poor Axel is no more (and was used as a human shield for quite a while), while the Woodbury folks lost some anonymous stooge in a guard tower. However, this event likely did more good than harm. Here’s a quick summary:
- Glenn is back, and ready to protect his group
- Rick shook off all that crazy looks to be ready to fight
- Michonne helped immensely, and hopefully earned her ticket into the group permanently
- Daryl and Merle show up just in time to save Rick, which should earn them the right to stick around
- Maggie had to let go of her fear and trauma and fight for the group
Of course, Rick might get crazy again, or Merle might make things difficult, but for now they should be united behind a common cause. I’m curious to see how long that lasts. I really hope this settles Glenn down a bit. I’m not really a fan of him being in angry teenager mode. It seems like The Walking Dead is always looking for a reason to send people off on their own, and I just can’t buy into this one for Glenn. It was the weak part of the episode for me.
One thing I’m curious about is what happened to Tyrese and company. Did they really leave after Rick’s episode? Are they coming back? I really hope we haven’t seen the last of them. I’ve always been a fan of Tyrese, and I think he could bring a lot to the group.
Grade: 
I’m looking forward to this episode a lot more than Suicide King (last weeks), due to the fact they actually continued to set a whole lot up last week. What will happen with Merle and Daryl? I reckon Daryl has “outgrown” Merle in the months they have been apart, so that will be fascinating. And the big one for me is what is going to happen with our prison occupiers… Rick has lost it in front of group, what will become of Tyrese and the gang? And Glenn… interesting to see where they go with the post torture stress.
I get it a day later than you guys… So I’ll be hiding from BoTD for that day so I don’t stumble on any spoilers
I too looked forward to this one more than the last. The last was clearly an episode full of setups. It was okay, but a little dry. I’m not digging the whole “Rick seeing ghosts” thing either.
When Daryl finally stood up to Merle I was hopping around my living room with joy! lol
He called him on all of his crap and that was awesome. I know Merle is an ass but if they reel him back a bit, he may be a good asset to the group. Or they could decapitate him and feed him to the zombies. That would totally work too.
I’d like to see him humanized a bit. He can be cartoony, but there’s a nasty past there that I’d like to see explored.
Human Vs. Human = Stormtrooper Accuracy
Human Vs. Zombie = Pin point sniper fire with a sling shot
I mean really? I could of at least killed all of those guys, especially with the ACOG and I don’t have any -formal- training. I do like what happened with Daryl and Merle.
I can sort of get the terribly accuracy we were seeing. Zombies don’t shoot back, so they all had a lot less ability to take their time and aim. But it did get a tad ridiculous after a while. It almost felt like the Woodbury people were just trying to sap all their ammo or something.
Yeah… with the stooge, they should have been able to have pinpointed and nailed him sooner. Same with a guy out in the forest that had Rick pinned down for a short bit.
The guy Rick had pinned down is a named stooge. I think he’ll be around for a bit.
Calicade I was thinking the same and Dave I was thinking the same. Still seemed stupid.
Hah. It was a little stupid. I get panicking and getting shot at, but still.
Full review posted now.
“Yellow Jacket Creek” sign on the bridge foretold everything for Daryl and Merle. Brilliantly played out after the battle on the bridge.
That was a great little moment, wasn’t it?
I came close to missing it. Caught it out of the corner of my eye and rewound it a few seconds.
I really like how they let it stay in the background. It could have easily been missed.
So anyone have any guesses where Tyreese and his group is?
We’re having various breakdowns across the prison. I think they are held up somewhere.
I really hope they’re holed up somewhere. I was surprised to see Michonne living in that bus, so maybe Tyrese and co. are elsewhere on or around the grounds.
I am glad she had a bigger role. She wasn’t being utilized whatsoever. She was just this oddly glaring useless entity until now.
If I recall Tyreese said they entered in through the administration side of the building so maybe they are back there. Eating leftovers in the employee apartment housing? Or whatever you call where guards and staff live if there is a lockdown riot.
I’m still on the fence with her. “Glaring” seems to be her dominant personality trait, other than swinging a sword around. She seems like a badass fan-service delivery system at this point, so I’m really hoping she gets a bit more development in the weeks to come.
But then, I’ve never been a fan of the character.
I figured they would be the group on the bridge at first but where would another baby come from?
I’m really dissapointed in the Michone / Governer story line. It really doesn’t make sense for her to hate him so much.
“I’m really dissapointed in the Michone / Governer story line. It really doesn’t make sense for her to hate him so much.”
This is one of my biggest gripes. They made a major change from the comics, and it almost completely robbed her of motivation.
The accuracy of the group against the Guvs soldiers was a bit of a let down, but like you said, you have to factor in the fact that humas shoot back, that most of them had never shot a human before and that they were probably in shock since they were taken by surprise.
However, Rick should have killed the stooge that was shooting at him, that’s the one that really bothered me.
What seemed like another boring “bridge” episode, turned out to have one of the best action sequences yet, it literally left me on the edge of my seat.
Yay! it aired in New Zealand last night, so I’m all caught up.
Awesome episode, the Daryl/Merle story line was done very well, I was getting very anxious with that zombie in the car with the mother and baby… I really don’t want to see that happen to a baby.
The governor stuffed up. The prison group was falling to pieces, there was tension everywhere, people were going nuts…. and now, they have had an event to snap them out of their funk, they will now be motivated, united, and ready to go (what they are going to do is anyones guess). And also…. why fill the prison with zombies…. then drive off?
Oh and I thought another unamed Woodbury cronie got nailed near the Governor by the truck… it was very fast so maybe I saw things.
By my count it was a win to the prison even though they were attacked, prison group lost one (kind of) member, governor lost two (tbc), yes there are zombies in the prison, but they have also gained a couple of well trained zombie killers in Merle and Michonne compared to when they last cleared the place… and Tyrese and the gang will appear next week after hearing the gun battle and coming out of whatever whole they were in
This program continues to hold my attention very very well
“The governor stuffed up. The prison group was falling to pieces, there was tension everywhere, people were going nuts…. and now, they have had an event to snap them out of their funk, they will now be motivated, united, and ready to go (what they are going to do is anyones guess). And also…. why fill the prison with zombies…. then drive off?’
Well said here, Mad.
I really hope you’re right about Tyrese showing back up.
As a big fan of the graphic novel (don’t worry no spoilers!) the TV show is beginning to annoy me in specific areas. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the ending was great, but there are a few basics that seem to be occurring.
1) yes Rick has gone crazy, but he’s still got a son (and a baby) to look after. I can understand him losing his mind but there has got to be some instinct in there that says “walking around outside the prison (with no one on look out to let me back in) while hallucinating is likely to leave my son without a father”. I struggle to see how such a strong leader has forgotten his dad duties!
2) is anyone else reminded of the first world problems meme with this show? Waaawaaawaaa I was forced to take my top off, waaawaaawaaa me and my brother had daddy issues. Seriously people, it’s the zombie apocalypse! Your family is dead, your friends are dead, the world has gone to s**t and you’re really worried about these things? You could die at any minute people stop your whining!
3) how stupid is Andrea? Oh yeah I’ll take your place as temporary leader. You aren’t going to make a big public speech to announce it, that’s fine-even though I know you’re nuts and lied to me about my friends last week. Please!
Rant over, still love the show, but zombie survivors need to toughen up!
Really good thoughts here.
1. The Crazy Rick thing really gets me too. I don’t like the way they’re doing it on the show versus in the comic. In the comic it worked a lot better because it was subtler. That made it more uncanny and unnerving.
2. I have to disagree about the Maggie thing here. The threat of rape would be enough to shake up someone something fierce. I’m no psychologist, but I think her reaction is more or less plausible.
3. Andrea bothers me so, so much. I really dislike what they’ve done with her character on the show.
Seems like we are in agreement on 1 and 3, the comic did a much better job at handling these matters.
As for 2, I understand its tv and they want us to care for the humanity of these characters, but sometimes I’m sat here thinking will somebody please tell these people to toughen up-bigger problems people, the dead are rising and eating us!
Rick lost his wife, they had fallen out and now she’s gone and he’s crazy. The rest of the group saw this-you think it might be a kick up the backside to put things behind you and enjoy what little time you have left.
I forgot 2 points on Glenn alone. Why didn’t he drive his car into the governer? We’re led to believe he is fuelled with hate for him, then he returns, basically gives way to him and drives off to help Marshall – which is nice and all but take the guy down! At least a minor side swipe on the way past! And last week he was opening car doors without checking for zombies first (in a car that wasn’t on the road a few hours before, don’t get me started on that). How did this guy survive the winter if he still doesn’t do spot checks before putting himself in dangerous situations!
First day on this site and I fear I may get a reputation for being miserable! Hahaha!
“First day on this site and I fear I may get a reputation for being miserable! Hahaha!”
Nothing wrong with having a critical eye at all, especially when you get into stuff like this where there’s so much blind fanboyism going on.