'The Walking Dead' S04E03: 'Isolation'
Welcome back to the Zombie Apocalypse, where featured extras go to die. Here you’ll find the recap and review for “The Walking Dead” S04E03, titled “Isolation”. My digital cable listing sums it up thusly: “A group leaves the prison to search for supplies; the remaining members of the group deal with recent losses.” So, every episode of “The Walking Dead” since they reached the prison.
Okay, so S04E02 wasn’t the deepest episode in the series, but it had loads of gruesome zombie kills, undead Harry Potter, and the return of Rick as a decision maker. We’ve gotten a survivors-vs-walkers episode out of our systems, so now it’s time to get back to the more nuanced aspects of surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. Namely, the survivors dealing with one other. This means Tyreese sleuthing out who killed Teen Wolf’s mom, and dealing with him or her.
Also, finding out who’s been feeding the zombies, and dealing with him or her. I’m still thinking Carl, since the zombie-feeding took place in the dead of night. The Zombies Are People, Too girls had no sense of shame regarding their adopting the walkers as pseudo-pets.
Will we see the death of the prison democracy and the return of the Ricktatorship, or will the council force a budget crisis to make Rick look bad?
Spoiler alert, everybody, because it’s Story Time!
Hulking out
Starting with a gardening scene is so S04E01. Now it's all about starting with a grave-digging scene. Junior psychopath or no, Carl's really good at making grave markets. Glenn and Maggie are also pretty good at digging graves, managing to smile wanly at one another as they do so.
Inside the prison, Dr. S, who really should be wearing a mask, readies his knife for another Violet Flu victim. Was the victim already dead, or is this euthanasia?
Meanwhile, Rick, Daryl, and Carol have caught up with Tyreese. He's seven shades of pissed about the death of Teen Wolf's mom, and he demands answers. Tyreese insists Rick use his police powers to apprehend the killer, unaware that Rick's police powers extend only to sweating profusely and barely maintaining a grasp on his own sanity.
Tempers flare, and even Daryl is unable to defuse the situation. Tyreese unloads on Rick's face. As Daryl restrains Tyreese, Rick responds in kind, following up with some serious ground-and-pound. Carol is like,
This may sting a bit
Hershel is patching up Rick's sprained right hand, which is pretty banged up, what with the repeated impact from Tyreese's skull. He's also working on Rick's morale, now that the prison community is slowly falling apart.
Even as the survivors are menaced by walkers from without and disease and distrust from within, Hershel compares Rick's little episode with his own brief return to booze; saying that Rick must keep moving forward, blah, blah, blah. He doesn't remark on how Rick managed to find an identical shirt to the one he burned the other day.
Meanwhile, Tyreese, his face a full-on mess, is digging a grave for Teen Wolf's mom and that other guy. Bob comes out to check on him. Tyreese refuses medical attention until he's buried his lady love so Bob grabs a shovel and helps Tyreese dig.
Glenn is pressing Hershel for reassurance of the prison's future, sick of just digging graves. Hershel responds by saying that everything might still be okay, but he's interrupted by Sasha, who's having an ominous coughing fit.
House of horrors
Sasha, whose condition has deteriorated rapidly over the course of about 28 seconds, makes her way through Cell Block A. There's a redshirt coughing up blood, and another who's already died and come back as a walker. Then there's Dr. S., who's not looking too hot himself. See? Should've worn a mask. #HateToSayIToldYouSo
Operation: Animal hospital
Prison council meeting: Hershel exposits that all of the redshirts who survived the Harry Potter attack is now infected with Violet Flu. Cell Block A is now the isolation wing, conveniently pre-stocked with patients. He says that there's a veterinary clinic about 50 miles away, which should have antibiotics they can use.
Daryl gets ready to saddle up, and Michonne immediately volunteers to join him, while delivering a dig at his personal hygiene. Hershel himself volunteers, but Daryl points out their atrocious track record when it comes to supply runs: "It's always the same. Sooner or later, we run." With his artificial leg and correspondingly slow pace, Hershel relegates himself to drawing them a map.
Hershel also suggests using the prison admin building for the children; the rest of the council suggests he reside there as well.
911 is a joke in your town
Carol and Rick are pumping water with their cleverly-MacGyvered water system. It's all bunged up, though, clogged with mud from the creek. Carol volunteers to go clean the hose, but Rick says they should put it off until tomorrow.
Carol suggests Rick go make peace with Tyreese.
Rick starts by apologizing, and then by asking if Teen Wolf's mom and that other guy had any enemies. He thinks maybe the perp was acting for the greater good.
For his part, Tyreese isn't buying it: he doesn't think Rick gives a crap about Teen Wolf's mom, or about getting justice.
More redshirts are trooping into the isolation wing, coughing up blood as they go. Tyreese eyes each of them as the potential killer.
Meanwhile, Carl is livid about having to go into the admin building with the other kiddies. The silver lining, though, is that he can bring his gun in case one of his peers dies and zombifies. When Rick warns him to only fire if he needs to, Carl replies, a bit too hopefully, "You know I might need to, right?"
Why can't he just learn to enjoy Story Time like the rest of us?
Elsewhere, Maggie walks into her cell to find Glenn showing symptoms of Violet Flu.
Sallying forth
Daryl is getting a Dodge Challenger ready for Operation: Animal Hospital. If it's good enough for Walter White, it's good enough for Daryl. He tells Michonne he's glad she stuck around. He puts in a good word for me, too. Even with Bob joining them, Daryl wants another body for the mission.
We're running out of main cast-members, so that means Tyreese, who he finds down at the doors to Cell Block A. He doesn't want to abandon Sasha, so he turns the opportunity down.
So that's where Hershel gets all his platitudes: motivational posters and coffee mugs! He's sat in an office somewhere in the admin building under a poster reading, "Smooth seas do not make good sailors", contemplating a mug that reads, "Java saves". Okay, so the latter isn't too motivational. Anyway, Hershel thinks to himself, "I totally look like Seasick Steve."
Then he gets up to sneak out of the prison in a little mission.
Carl catches Hershel getting ready to take a jaunt into the woods to be all Lord of the Rings and find soothing herbs. For a second, I think Carl will end up killing Hershel, but no, he ends up insisting upon accompanying Hershel on his excursion.
Ninjas don't cry
Carol is shepherding redshirts into the isolation wing, wearing a sort of green ninja mask in lieu of anything actually useful against a virus. Alas, she has to send Redshirt Daddy's daughter into the sick bay, where the remaining redshirts are shuffling around and basically rehearsing their walker routine. The little girl wants Carol to tuck her in. Carol has to handball this one to Glenn, who's already sick; no matter how much it breaks her heart.
And break her heart it does: Carol has a poor track record in keeping her young charges alive.
Meanwhile, Maggie is talking to Beth through the admin-area door, as Beth keeps little Ass-Kicker company. Maggie tells her sister that Glenn is sick. Beth is repeating her mantra of "we don't get to be upset," even as she gets pretty upset.
A walk in the woods
Carl is twitchily standing guard as Hershel picks elderberries. They hear the rasping of a walker, and find a legless zombie leaning against a tree, grasping helplessly at them. Another walker shambles up, its leg caught in a bear trap. It's not Clara from S04E01.
Carl wants to bust some caps in some zombie asses, but Hershel implores him to save his ammo and just enjoy the peaceful sounds of Tree Zombie Bear Trap Zombie. How's the serenity?
The Fellowship of the Dodge Challenger
Tyreese tries to comfort Sasha in her time of despair, and ends up talking himself into joining Operation: Animal Hospital.
On his way to grab his stuff, Tyreese corners Carol, tasking her with watching over Sasha. She agrees, and Tyreese goes on his way.
Now alone, Carol has a small breakdown, knocking over a cistern and sitting down in tears. Oh, yeah, I bet she's the one who killed Teen Wolf's mom. I also notice that she's graduating to ever-more-badass knives.
Worth the risk
Maggie catches Hershel as he tries to sneak back through the prison. So busted. She's livid that her father is risking the Violet Flu (and the walkers). Rick isn't exactly thrilled, either.
Hershel busts out the speech he's probably been preparing the whole day, saying how every moment is life-endangering, so they risk their lives just by breathing, they may as well use that breath to help each other.
Maggie has no comeback to that, so she throws open the door for her dad as he ninjas up to enter the isolation area.
Maggie is breaking the news to Beth that their dad has gone into the isolation wing to distribute elderberries. This is really testing the limits of Beth's we-don't-get-to-get-upset mantra.
Actual police work
Rick is finally investigating the death of Teen Wolf's mom. He's communing with the crime scene like in Mad Detective. He spots something in the doorway... a bloody handprint, smaller than his.
Hosed
Carol decides, screw it, she's gonna go unclog the hose anyway. The bike-wheel noisemaking apparatus is keeping the walkers occupied as she mucks around with the nozzle. However, she's a bit distracted, probably wondering what happened to Agent Coulson between "The Avengers" and "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", because she doesn't notice a convergence of zombies until it's nearly too late.
Luckily, Rick comes to her rescue, and they fight their way back inside the prison fence together.
Radio gaga
Operation: Animal Hospital is underway. Daryl tells Michonne that, had the trail of The Governor not gone cold, he'd be out there hunting for him as well. Then he turns on the stereo to play a CD. Hang on, there's something on the radio...
It's voices. What are they saying? "Sanctuary"?
As they listen, Daryl takes his eyes off the road for a sec. This of course means he'll nearly hit a walker. Or, in this case walkers. Hundreds of them, if not thousands. Our heroes find themselves surrounded by a massive herd of the grasping undead.
Turns out that, when run in reverse, the Challenger's rear wheels get stuck in mountains of zombie flesh. Dodge will have to add a warning about that to the owner's manual.
Daryl, Michonne, Bob, and Tyreese will have to run for it.
Unfortunately for Tyreese, "run for it" means "sit in the back seat and fret for ages, and then get out of the car to hack at walkers and scream at them." That goes about as well as you'd imagine, and Tyreese is swarmed by the undead as the other three make it to the woods.
With Bob getting more than five lines, you knew this was coming.
Wait, no! Tyreese managed to fight his way through the zombie swarm and rejoin the Fellowship of the Challenger. His death wish was more of a wish for the walkers' deaths.
The Fellowship lives to fight another day, or at least for another ten minutes.
You got to hoooold on, for one more day
Hershel is tending to Dr. S., who's about two seconds from death. Maybe that Lord of the Rings elderberry concoction will buy him some time, help him to be the last Woodbury refugee standing? Dr. S. coughs a mist of blood into Hershel's face.
Hershel responds by taking off his face-rag and cleaning up the blood, exposure be damned. #YOLO
Next we see Hershel comforting Glenn, who's understandably depressed. I don't quite retain what Hershel says, it's more you-gotta-have-faith-a-faith-a-faith stuff. Writers, please don't let these conversations become the "Where's Carl?" of S04.
I did it, guilty as charged
Rick confronts Carol, and not just about the water pump incident. He asks, "Did you, uh, kill Teen Wolf's mom?"
Carol is like, "Yeah."
Dang.
Okay, do you think Carol really did it, or do you think she's covering for someone else? What if one of Redshirt Daddy's girls took Carol's lessons too close to heart and actually killed Teen Wolf's mom and that other guy; and then Carol covered it up? Credible theory, or am I just a sick, sick bastard? I don't even know anymore.
'The Walking Dead' S04E03 review
The zombie apocalypse so fascinating not just because you don’t have to set an alarm and commute. Well, that’s part of it. In a larger sense, we’re fascinated by the opportunity to hit a worldwide Reset button. No matter who you are, no matter how badly you’ve screwed up, you can be somebody brand-new tomorrow.
You don’t have to face the music for that report you screwed up, or that order you got wrong. No more impatient customers. You don’t have to worry about staying inbox-zero, or about that job interview. If something tries to eat you, you stab it in the head. Simple.
Also, we all kind of see ourselves as freaks. Outcasts who barely pass as normal. Come on, admit it. In a world where society has gone *pfft*, none of that matters. Everyone starts over from Level 1.
This dynamic was previously most clearly depicted on “Lost”. John Locke was a survival fantasist, and all those skills he learned in preparation for his walkabout made him the MVP of the island. This has been borne out in “The Walking Dead” by Daryl, who found redemption in his separation from his toxic (yet admittedly awesome) brother.
Strangely enough, Carol is in better shape surrounded by the shambling flesh-eaters than had she just stayed with her family in suburbia. I reckon she’d be dead by now if left long enough to her husband’s mercy.
What about Michonne (Graphic novel readers know a bit of her backstory, so I’m thanking you not to give anything away)? Was she a katana expert before the dead rose, or did she pick up that particular skill as she went? (Incidentally, I googled "Michonne awesome" and found this.)
Carl’s obvious psychopath indicators would have been even more blatant in a zombie-less world: he’d be torturing cats or something.
As for The Governor, he confirmed the notion that antisocial tendencies would position one to survive the death of society. The Governor is on an Axl-Rose level of both sheer single-mindedness and antagonism toward his colleagues.
Actually, Axl Rose’s my-way-or-the-highway attitude would position him to thrive in the zombie apocalypse. The only two beings left on earth would be Axl Rose and Zombie Steve Jobs.
This all gets kicked in the nuts, though, if your entire rebirth metaphor is screwed up by a garden-variety virus. Then we get back to something like Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", which leaves one with the impression that those who survive a cataclysm will just be marking time until they, too, are dead. The survivors haven't really survived in any meaningful way; they only put a few ticks back on the clock.
Oh, this week's episode of "The Walking Dead"? We could have had a full hour of CSI: Zombieland intercut with Operation: Animal Hospital. Instead, S04E03 just went back to S02-era "The Walking Dead": a series of scenes that felt like riffs off one another, before getting to the juice of the episode within the last ten minutes.
I give "Isolated" two judiciously-plucked elderberries out of a possible five.
What do you reckon? Am I too harsh on the "Walking Dead" writing team? Will the Fellowship of the Challenger fail? Will Carol graduate to a chainsaw?
Hit up the comment field below, but please avoid spoilers.
I won't be whacking walkers for the next few episodes, as I'll be covering the International Robot Festival in Tokyo. Seriously. If you like robots, keep an eye on the Vancouver Observer over the next few weeks.