Rick and the gang finish clearing out the prison, but can they trust a new group of survivors?
Hershel was bleeding out through his leg-stump.
A walker was beating down the door.
Credit: Gene Page/TWD Productions
It was a high-stress situation.
But Rick focused on Hershel.
The prisoners followed them home, staring straight into Daryls crossbow the whole way.
They asked if they could borrow a cell phone to call their parents.
There are no cell phones, said Rick.
They asked if they could borrow an iPad, so they could check in to The Prison on Foursquare.
The Man with the Mullet henceforth Tomas finally got the message.
He was kind enough to offer the Grimes Gang a spot of land in the field outside.
Rick offered a counter-argument: We took out these walkers.
The prison is ours.
Before things turned violent, the two gangs came to a compromise.
You pay, we play, said Rick.
In the abstract ungoverned world of the post-apocalypse, this amounted to a social compact.
Rick has turned his ragtag team of survivors into a specialist strike force.
They have no material wealth no food but they have a very specific set of skills.
Inside the cellblock, the Women and Children were gathered to help Hershel through his sudden-onset bout of Stumpitis.
Boy, I sure am glad that Hershel has been teaching you some of his doctorin stuff!
said Lori to Carol.
Hershels children reacted to his newfound Stumpitude in different ways.
Maggie figured that the old guy was as useless as a pretty horse with a broken leg.
He cant even walk, she said, And all we do is run.
Beth gamely started cutting the bottom off his pant-legs.
I know hes your girlfriends dad!
Glenn: Hes my girlfriends dad!
But those long winter months have brought a sense of order to their little society.
Any new arrival would threaten that order.
The fact that Tomas and his gang were already criminals pre-zombie only made trusting them more difficult.
Lori took Rick aside and tried to give him some advice.
Do whatever you gotta do to keep this group safe, she said.
Rick took Daryl and T-Dogg with him into the neighboring cellblock.
It makes sense: Theyre clearly the most valuable members of the Melee Squad.
)Together, they gave the prisoners a mini-boot camp.
Never fire a gun if you dont have to.
Strike at the head.
And they do not hesitate.
He backed away…and ran right into a pair of zombies.
He bit Big Tiny on the back.
Big Tiny insisted that he was fine.
Rick apologized to the other prisoners, and was preparing for an awkward moment.
Then Tomas walked up and bashed Big Tinys brains in.
He shared a Rick with look.
In light of what came afterwards, you could call that look the beginning of their face-off.
I think it went a bit deeper, though.
I think Rick recognized a bit of himself in Tomas.
And the last time Rick met somebody like himself, his name was Shane and it didnt end well.
Back in the cellblock, the Woman and Children were all reacting to Hershels coma in their own way.
Maggie spoke to her unconscious father and told him he didnt have to fight anymore.
Carl reappeared with medical supplies and said he found an infirmary.
No big deal, he said, I just killed two walkers.
Lori told him he couldnt just run off like that.
Carl told his mom to stuff it.
said Beth, Dont talk to your mother that way!
Carl ran off, squealing, Moommmm, youreembarrassingme!
Meanwhile, Carol asked Glenn to kill a lady walker outside.
It was for practice: If Hershel died, she would need to deliver Loris baby.
But I have to admire just how completely the writers have set about rebooting Carol.
She used to be the shows most obvious hanger-on.
Her two character traits were worrying about her lost daughter, and then mourning for her dead daughter.
Im not sure she really has a personality yet, but at least she has a function.
(Whole years of theDeadcomic have been spent building tension and farming.)
The great series premiere was like an old-fashioned western shot by a decomposing John Ford.
The visit to the CDC felt like one of thoseTwilight Zoneepisodes with a great sci-fi set-up and zero follow-through.
Season 2 took an unfortunate detour into Off-Broadway Morality Play.
Last weeks premiere was basically a war movie: Commander Grimes, leading his ragtag squad through enemy territory.
As somebody who loves television,Deads manic evolution has been half the fun of watching it.
But it also means that every new development is cause for concern.
In this sense, my reaction to Tomas and his gang was similar to Ricks.
I figured that we were staring down a long season of tension between Rick and Tomas.
Ive never been so happy to be wrong.
The Melee Squad and the Prison Gang reached a set of double-door with walkers on the other side.
Rick told Tomas to open just one door thereby constricting how many walkers could get through.
(Same trick that Leonidas used at Thermopylae.)
But Tomas opened both doors and let the killing fields fly.
He took a wide swing at one walker, clearly intended to hit Rick.
When that failed, he threw another walker on top of Rick.
Rick stared Tomas down.
Tomas stared Rick down.
Rick said he understood: S happens.
And then he totally cut Tomas brain in half, possibly eradicating the last living mullet in America.
This was a good, tough storytelling choice.
It confirmed that Rick as a person andThe Walking Deadas a TV show have both become far less sentimental.
Were a long way fromhosting re-enactments ofTwelve Angry Menevery time theres a big moral decision.
The old man actually stopped breathing at one point.
Lori gave him CPR.
When she went in for mouth-to-mouth, Hershels arm flared up and grabbed her.
Now, fellow viewers, I didntliterallyscream Yes!
at my TV screen, but lets just say that I would not be averse to a Lori-freeDead.
But Hershel just foolin around.
Ol Stumpy, youre such a kidder!
NEXT: The case for LoriThere were two prisoners left alive.
Axel pleaded for their lives.
They werent violent criminals, he insisted: I like my pharmaceuticals.
Hes a B&E guy, and hes not very good at it!
Oscar was stalwart: I aint never pleaded for my life, and I aint about to start now.
Axel seemed a bit unglued by the sight of so many dead: I knew these guys!
They were good men.
Oscar stayed quiet, intriguingly inscrutable.
(IMDB check:Axel is played by Lew Temple, recently seen inUnstoppableandLawless.
Itll be interesting to see how the pair of prisoners will live alongside of Rick.
The question is: Did Dexter grow a mullet and become Tomas?
Or did he just get a bit quieter and become Oscar?
Rick and the Melee Squad returned to the cellblock.
Hershel woke up and smiled, and shook Ricks hand.
Truthfully, any day when the Greenes successfully dont lose a member of their family is a good day.
Everyone in the medical cell smiled.
But outside, Rick and Lori had a much more serious conversation.
Rick assured Lori that he didnt think she was a bad mother.
He didnt say anything about her wife skills.
What are we gonna do?
But Rick just couldnt do it.
Listen, Ive complained about Lori as much as the next person.
Fellow viewers, that was a dynamite second episode of the season.
The prison has been officially colonized.
The undead people arent walking anymore; the potentially villainous living people are dead.
What did you think of the evenings events?
