Walking Dead Series Blog: The Grove & Us

14: The Grove

It’s the one of the final episodes of season 4 and ‘The Grove’ centres around, in my opinion, the most interesting group of this half of the season. Carol, Tyreese, psycho Lizzie, Mika and a conveniently quiet Judith find a small house and decide to shelter in it for a while before continuing to Terminus. There are more red flags thrown up regarding Lizzie’s sanity when she continues to try to bond and play with the walkers even after constantly being told why it’s wrong, but her sister Mika isn’t so well-equipped for the apocalypse either. Carol tells her that she’s being too nice to survive; but this reminds her of Sophia, her dead daughter, which brings Mika and Carol closer together.

Soon Lizzie has another breakdown when a walker comes at them, and is both scared of it and then sad when it’s shot in the head. Carol gets a hint that Lizzie’s problems were around before the apocalypse, when Mika tells her to look at some flowers and count to three after the incident. Apart from ‘the Lizzie problem,’ life at the little house is going well and Tyreese tells Carol that he thinks that they should all stay there. There’s a recurring theme in all the episodes so far that the groups are forced out of their shelters, and onwards to Terminus, so it looks like Tyreese won’t be getting his dream house this time.

After some quality bonding time, Carol and Tyreese arrive back at the house to find Lizzie covered in blood. No, she hasn’t killed an animal or a walker, she’s killed her sister Mika and was about to kill Judith too, so that they could come back as walkers. Like trying to have to deal with a rebellious child, Tyreese and Carol sit down to decide what they should do with her. Everything from feeding rats to walkers at the prison, to splicing animals open and sticking them to walls, and now killing her sister forces them to make a very hard decision.

In a scene reminiscent of ‘Of Mice and Men’, Carol takes a distraught Lizzie to the woods, where she tells her to look at the flowers. She then shoots her in the head as Tyreese watches from the window of the house. Distressed from Mika’s death and her shooting of Lizzie, Carol confesses to Karen and David’s murder and hands Tyreese a gun, telling him to do what he has to do. Thankfully Tyreese forgives her; I’m not sure he could take any more death and it’s debatable whether or not his decision will hold, but this time it worked out to Carol’s advantage. The two head off in search of Terminus, leaving the graves of Mika and Lizzie behind.

There’s a recurring theme in all the episodes so far that the groups are forced out of their shelters, and onwards to Terminus

This was an amazing episode, there were moving performances by both Melissa McBride (Carol) and Brighton Sharbino (Lizzie) and it was a surprising and risky twist that pushed the boundaries of the show. Tyreese’s reactions to Lizzie zombie-loving were perfect; he seemed to mirror viewer’s complete and utter confusion and won me over in his forgiveness of Carol. Kid’s deaths on TV are definitely up there on the most shocking things to can do on TV, right next to killing off a beloved pet. I think that they handled this storyline well, although it would have been interesting to see how Lizzie fit in with the other groups if they all met up at Terminus. Hopefully Judith will be reunited safe and sound with Rick and Carl soon; she has had way too many close calls this season.

15: Us

Daryl, now without Beth, is stuck with a gang who have some strict rules and tough consequences. It was a nice change to see Daryl amongst a new group, he had to keep a part of himself locked away with Beth, but with the new group, you get a glimpse of the Daryl that was out surviving on his own.. That’s not to say that his part in the episode did not add to it; the story that follows him was tense, consisting of men threatening and beating each other, with Daryl no closer to finding out what happened to Beth.

We get a small peek at how Rick, Carl and Michonne are doing, which is surprisingly well. Michonne keeps Carl optimistic as they head to Terminus, something that Rick wasn’t able to do throughout the season. The three are starting to look like a real family and their group presents the audience with a glimmer of hope.

the story that follows him was tense, consisting of men threatening and beating each other

Glenn finally finds Maggie, after making the stupid decision to go into a dark tunnel, and he’s joined by Tara, who makes the even more stupid decision to go along. The tag-alongs who are transporting their scientist to Washington present an appealing choice to Bob and Sasha, who decide to go with them after Terminus if they don’t find Tyreese there. Glenn and Maggie’s reunion means that the whole group can start getting back together (presumably in preparation for the season finale next episode). I’m glad to see them back together, but their fight to find each other got a little long and drawn out amongst the slow journeys this half of the season. Now that they’re back together maybe they’ll stop acting so off-the-wall.

At the end of the episode we finally get a glimpse of Terminus and it doesn’t give off too much of a creepy vibe. It has relatively low security, with only a gate and a sign at the entrance. Just like the Governor’s sanctuary turned sour, this new shelter is likely to go south too. There are so many new characters along for the ride now, I wonder if they’ll try and deal with the numbers by killing them off, or by having them stay at Terminus if the original group decides not to trust them. Either way, next week’s finale promises to be spectacular.