The Walking Thread

[Content Note: Violence. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]


LOL.
In this week's episode of The Walking Dead, everyone is still totally sick with the Icky Poopoo Cough Flu, and everyone jerks each other off about what heroes they are. Plus: Hershel reads the Bible!

When last we left our ragtag band of doomsday survivalists, Grimes had told Carol to hit the road, and the Vet Team was on their way back with a buttload of meds and a bottle of booze. Back at Grimes Jail, everyone is definitely very sick! Cough cough cough. Spurt spurt spurt. Gross gross gross.

Hershel, Sasha, and Glenn intubate a nameless Unpleasantvillager, and Hershel cracks wise about how they should make some new rules while the other board members are away. "I propose we have Spaghetti Tuesdays every Wednesday. First we just have to find some spaghetti." Shut up, Hershel. You are terrible comic relief.

Some dude is dead, so Hershel and Glenn wheel him out of the cell block on a gurney, so they can kill him where no one can see, because fates forfend that people who are battling the flu get dispirited by something they've all seen fully one biebillion times. Personally, if I were hanging on to dear life by a thread, I think I'd be buoyed by evidence that, as I lay coughing my bloody guts out on a prison cot, at least the people who still have enough energy to lift their arms will protect my prone ass from being set upon by my zombified neighbors. But that's just me.

Maggie drops by the sick bay to ask after Glenn, and Hershel assures her that he's totes fine. Then Glenn thanks him for lying to her, because if there's anything over which these two dipshits can bond, it's denying Maggie her agency through transparent misdirection.

Grimes return to Grimes Jail, where Maggie opens the gate for him and then asks what happened to Carol. They have a terrific conversation in which she totally agrees that Grimes did the right thing by casting her to exile, because even as people dying of the Icky Poopoo Cough Flu turn and murder the fuck out of healthy people, it's still somehow considered a grave infraction that Carol stopped that very thing from happening by killing two people who were never, ever, going to get meds in time to survive.

Because, among other things, they had the terrible luck of not being primary characters. Sucks to be you, Karen and Rick from Accounting!

Grimes goes to visit Carl the Hat, to make sure he's okay, and—good news!—he's still a total brat. He gives his dad guff (albeit pretty reasonable guff) about trying to shield him from the zombiepocalypse, and Grimes says he has to try. Yawn etc. It is at this point we know that Grimes will yield and let Carl the Hat be the man he is destined to be at some point in this episode, because the only thing lazier than the writing on this show is a zombie with a belly full of brains in the hot Georgia sun.

"I'll just lie here and digest for awhile."—Some zombie, probably. Definitely wearing a plaid flannel.

Hershel has a Meaningful Conversation with Dr. S, which is so goddamn boring that it would hardly be worth mentioning, except for the fact that Dr. S, with his medicine and science, is TOTALLY RIGHT, and Hershel, with his gumball-flavored bullshit fantasies, is TOTALLY WRONG. Dr. S is realistic that people are going to die before the Vet Team gets back with meds, and that it will result in a clusterfucktastrophe in the cell block if Hershel doesn't get his shit together and be realistic about the need to lock people in their cells. And guess what?! THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS!

Nonetheless, Hershel is told by pretty much every single primary character at some point that he is awesome and brave and tough and a hero. Because this show is garbage.

More wheeling people out on gurneys. Grimes shows up to have an insufferable conversation with Hershel, during which Hershel actually quotes fucking Steinbeck OMG, and Grimes tells him about Carol. Hershel takes it all in stride, because apparently there is literally not a single person who has a problem with Grimes making a unilateral decision to ostracize Carol for doing what is arguably a pretty sensible thing and, at worst, still not a heartless, cruel, despicable thing. I mean, maybe instead of being sentenced to the sort of lonesome survival that has, any other time on this show, resulted in certain death, she just needs to go to jail HA HA BOOM.

A murmuration of zombies presses up against the fence, again, so Grimes and Maggie start trying to shore up the fence with logs, again. Maggie is feeling melancholy about not being allowed to help in sick bay, but then, as if on cue, a zombie grabs Grimes' ankle and pulls him down. Maggie severs the zombie's hand and Grimes is saved! And Maggie feels useful! Huzzah!

BUT OH NOES! There is a shot from inside Grimes Jail, and Grimes gives Maggie permission (!!!) to go see what it is, then, AS PREDICTED, gets Carl the Hat to help him reinforce the fence.

Meanwhile, all hell is breaking loose inside. Zombies zombies zombies. Munch munch munch. Glenn is near death—the kind of near death from which Dr. S JUST SAID EARLIER IN THE EPISODE is unrecoverable!—and Hershel has to wrestle a zombie for the equipment to intubate Glenn, because it's still HA HA HA HA HA hanging out of the zombie's face. Hershel is rescued by Maggie, who manages to shoot the zombie in the head but not deflate the bag. PHEW.

Zombies zombies zombies. Fight fight fight. Finally, everything is calm inside Grimes Jail. But OUTSIDE! Uh-oh! The zombies have broken through the fence, and Grimes and Carl the Hat make a run for it. Grimes quickly shows his child how to use an automatic rifle and they take out the zombies. Carl the Hat is hardcore, and Grimes watches him with a mixture of admiration and horror. WELCOME TO HOW I WATCH THIS SHOW, GRIMES! Minus the admiration.

They take care of business, and, by this time, the sun is coming up and the Vet Team returns with medicines. Yay Glenn will be fine, because of course he will. Dr. S never knew what he was talking about, anyway! Except for every single time he did!

Something something Hershel reads the Bible. Something something Tyreese is happy to see Sasha. Something something Michonne loads up all the zombie remains onto a truck so they can burn them, because "this is what it's come to." Of all the things the zombiepocalypse has come to, somehow cremating bodies instead of burying them does not seem all that alarming to me. But what do I know.

"Have you ever lived through a zombiepocalypse, missy? I DIDN'T THINK SO."—Grimes.

Daryl sees Hershel and asks about Carol, and Hershel WHO IS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE tells Daryl that Carol is "fine" but he needs to go talk to Grimes about it. Yeah, MAYBE she's fine, or MAYBE Grimes just essentially condemned her to death by banishment! SHUT UP, HERSHEL. GO READ YOUR BIBLE AND QUOTE HEMINGWAY AT YOUR OWN ASS!

As the episode closes, Grimes and Carl the Hat are awkwardly chillaxing in the garden, and Grimes plucks a peapod from its stalk. The shot tightens on the peapod as he cracks it open, revealing the peas inside. GET IT? THEY'RE TWO PEAS IN A POD, THESE GUYS.

They each eat a pea, and, as the camera pulls back in the distance and starts to pan left, I'm all: 'Ello, Guv'nah! And sure enough—there's Governor Cyclops, lurking at the edge of the forest. Oh boy. This show.