The shoe is now on the other foot! Or some such nonsense. Since someone, who shall remain nameless, forgot what time The Walking Dead starts, I’ll be filling in as your host and reviewer for this week’s action-packed episode. If you recall previous descriptions of Walking Dead fans, I fall into a bit of a hybrid category. There’s something oddly satisfying about seeing loads and loads of zombies getting thrown into a woodchipper, but the human elements and character development make a nice bridge between zombie annihilation. But I digress. The newest episode is called Four Walls and a Roof, or “what to expect when you’re expecting cannibals.” Keep reading for the skinny on last night’s episode.
We open this week’s episode with another monologue from everybody’s favorite psycho cannibal hipster, Gareth. He waxes philosophical about the walkers just outside of their camp, and continues to explain to Bob how they’re really not bad people, since they did such a good job of removing his leg and eating it. The last laugh might belong to Bob’s Burgers however, as Bob reveals the secret that practically everybody saw coming: he’d been bitten, and all of the Terminians now had a bad case of Tainted Love, err, Meat. Bob had a good laugh while most of our Fine Young Cannibals panicked, threw up, etc. all while the Leader of the Pack tried to reassure his purple (they’re sick, get it?) people eaters that tainted meat can apparently be rendered clean by cooking. Having not eaten any people – zombified or otherwise – I guess we can just believe him for now.
Next we get back to the church, where Sasha is concerned about Bob. She takes a quick stroll out in the yard (in the middle of the night, great idea), and seems to notice one of the markings left on the tree (oh yeah, the bad guys left those to help track our heroes) before Rick and Tyrese talk some sense into her – suddenly notice that Darryl and Carol are missing as well – and everyone goes back inside. Since it seems increasingly likely that Father Gabriel has some part to play in this whole mess, Sasha and Rick confront the good father. By confront, I of course mean “threaten and berate until he spills his (figurative) guts.” Turns out the father just liked to lock the doors to his church at night. No big deal, except that his congregation was hoping to come into the church rather than get eaten by zombies. I think you can guess what actually happened.
After discovering that the Father still really just seems to be an exceptionally lucky coward, and so far not any sort of real evil, someone conveniently notices something has been deposited in front of the church. It’s Bob! Well, most of Bob, he’s still missing his leg. He explains where he was held captive as best he could, the good Father confirms the location where the Terminians have been hiding, and plans start to take shape. Several different plans, as Rick and our other main characters want to get some revenge, while Abraham wants to take Eugene to Washington – again, in the middle of the freaking night… sheesh – right away. Some words are said, we’re nearly brought to fisticuffs, but cooler heads prevail. It’s determined that Abe, Rosita, and the mulleted genius will stick around for a few more hours to help with the current issues, and in trade Glen and Maggie will leave with them in the morning.
A plan is hatched, most of the able-bodied depart, and in the least surprising – well, maybe second least surprising, more on that later – turn of events, a group of six shadowy figures emerge from the forest opposite where the main characters entered. The Terminians enter the church, Gareth spouts some more generally evil stuff, they pinpoint where the rest of the crew is hiding, and prepare to have a feast with Carl, and the rest. For once, Carl ACTUALLY stays where he’s supposed to stay, even after Gareth offers sanctuary (fitting) to Father Gabriel and even Judith if he just gives up the rest. Remember that other not-very-surprising turn of events? I won’t spoil it here, but suffice to say Rick keeps his promises, and in possibly my favorite scene from this young season, an important piece of equipment is returned to one of our characters.
The next morning, Abraham makes good on his promise, they break rule #1 of the Zombie apocalypse and split up. The rest of our crew pours one out for Bob (maybe a soda or something, Bob was a recovering alcoholic after all), and fast-forward to the evening. Michonne is sitting on the steps of the church, when Father Gabriel steps out to talk to her. Their discussion is broken by a noise in the woods. The obvious choice for Michonne is to go check it out (again, dumb!) though it turns out to be OK, it’s just Darryl. Michonne asks about Carol, and Darryl turns to the dark forest and says “Come on out” (or something similar) and we’re left to the ending credits.
Who was with Darryl? Is Father Gabriel still hiding something? Will our rag-tag group of survivors meet up again now that they’ve split up? If I had to guess I’d say I’m not sure, probably something bad, and almost certainly at some point. All in all, I enjoyed this episode thoroughly. Plenty of the plot and episode was somewhat predictable, but it was still enjoyable.
Last Updated on January 12, 2019.
