Episode Title: “Infected”
Writer: Angela Kang
Director: Guy Ferland
Previously on “The Walking Dead”:
Episode 4.01 “30 Days Without an Accident”
Three things are clear from the latest episode of “The Walking Dead.” There’s a rat within the prison who may or may not be a murderer as well. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) is back in his role as protector whether he wants it or not. And the disease that claimed the life of Patrick (Vincent Martella) may prove to be more deadly than anything else the survivors have encountered.
The Governor (David Morrissey) is still out there somewhere in the world. But at this rate, the combined prison and Woodbury survivors may not last long enough for the Governor to get his revenge. Although we may have gotten the first taste of the Governor’s vengeance in the opening moments, as someone from inside the prison fed rats to the walkers and helped weaken an already damaged section of the prison fence.
I still suspect Bob (Lawrence Gilliard, Jr.), but there’s nothing to back that up in the show itself. Bob only appears briefly to remind us that he’s on this series. The discovery that Tyreese (Chad Coleman) makes at the end of the episode suggests that there may be a murderer among the survivors as well. Unless you think that two people literally dragged themselves outside and immolated themselves.
There’s a possibility that the person who fed the rats to the walkers and the person who killed two people are separate individuals. A grim argument can also be made that the killer was trying to protect themselves and the other survivors before the illness spread. However, there are no obvious murder suspects at the moment.
From this point on, there are full spoilers ahead for “Infected,” so if you missed last night’s episode of “The Walking Dead” then you should probably skip this review or else Rick will offend PETA.
The opening moments of the episode were suspenseful, but I didn’t think that Karen (Melissa Ponzio) would die so soon after being fully integrated into the group. That’s the problem with introducing cannon fodder characters. If the audience doesn’t have time to get to know them then it’s hard to care when they die. For example, I was barely sure who Ryan Samuels (Victor McCay) was before Carol (Melissa McBride) saw that he had been bitten twice.
However, the audience does care about Tyreese and his pain is apparent when he finds the burnt bodies of Karen and David (Brandon Carroll) at the end of the episode. And that was only the close of a truly horrific day within the prison.
Patrick’s silent rampage through the cell block was almost vampiric. He bit the throat of one of the other survivors who didn’t even get a chance to scream. And one scream could have been enough to awaken the others and save several lives.
Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus), Rick and Glenn (Steven Yeun) helped end the immediate threat inside the prison, but Hershel Greene (Scott Wilson) and Dr. Subramanian (Sunkrish Bala) quickly realized that Patrick and at least one other survivor were killed by a virulent strain of the flu that may have originated from Rick’s pigs. Or the survivors may have made the pigs sick. Either way, the prison isn’t equipped to handle an outbreak and several characters may have already been exposed to the illness.
Along the way, some interesting revelations about Michonne (Danai Gurira) came to light. For once, Michonne isn’t able to come riding to the rescue and she needs help herself after injuring her ankle. And rather than be grateful for the rescue, Michonne seems upset that Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Carl (Chandler Riggs) put themselves on the line for her.
But Michonne’s reaction to Rick’s baby girl, Judith was even more telling. We know so little about Michonne that I’ve never even considered that she had a child of her own. And yet the way that Michonne handled Judith definitely suggested that she was a mother in the past. The loss of her child may be one of the reasons that Michonne has been so emotionally closed off since we met her.
At the same time, Carol finds motherhood thrust upon her once again when Ryan dies, after she agrees to look after his daughters, Lizzie (Brighton Sharbino) and Mika (Kyla Kenedy) as if they were her own. I think on some level, Carol wanted to have a family again. If Carol had been this hardened when Sophia was alive, she may not have lost her daughter. Without a child of her own, Carol embraced the idea of educating the remaining children about survival in their new world even if the parents definitely aren’t aware of what she’s teaching them.
Carol tries to get Carl to keep quiet about the knife lesson he saw in the classroom, but of course he was going to tell Rick. Rick’s decision to pull back from his violent life and embrace his role as a farmer did pay some dividends for him… at least in terms of repairing his relationship with Carl. But when Rick hands Carl his gun at the end of the episode, it’s not a happy moment between father and son. Instead, Rick is so upset that Carl wisely walks away without lingering.
To keep the walkers from collapsing the weakened prison fence, Rick brutally sacrifices all of his pigs to lead the zombies away. The slaughter of the pigs doubles as a symbol of Rick’s personal sacrifice. Rick can’t run away from who he is any longer. Rick is not a farmer, he’s a leader and a cop at heart.
Some of the moments between Carol and her new surrogate daughters were a little weak, but “Infected” featured strong turns by most of the regular cast. The current storyline is intriguing and the threat to the main characters is high enough that the Governor may no longer be needed as the big bad. There’s a real sense of danger on “The Walking Dead,” and that makes the show riveting to watch.
