The Walking Dead S4 Ep15 – Us

In this episode: Glenn takes a step forward, while Daryl takes a step back. Well, okay, most of this episode is just people walking, so to be fair, everyone takes a lot of steps forward, but in the case of Glenn and Daryl, I’m talking figuratively.

Recap!

Early in the morning, Daryl leaves the group of bandits who had taken him in the last time we saw him to go hunting. He and another member of the gang shoot the same rabbit at the same time, but the other guy, Len, ‘claims’ it’s his. Daryl ignores him, and Len taunts Daryl, guessing that it was a ‘piece a’tail’ that got away that has Daryl all messed up.

Daryl is about to draw his knife on Len when the leader, Joe, intervenes and explains the rules of the group: All a guy’s gotta do to make sure he gets what he wants is ‘claim’ it. If he’s the first to say he ‘claims’ it, it’s his. Len wants to ‘teach’ Daryl for not following the rules, but Joe lets him off, since Daryl wasn’t yet aware of the new rules. As a compromise, Joe chops the rabbit in half and gives the front half to Len.

Joe later explains more as the group of men travel along the train tracks. None of the men are friends, and no one in the group needs to be nice, but they do need to follow the rules: 1) You claim. 2) If you steal, you ‘keel’. 3) You don’t lie. And 4) If you break the rules, you will be punished by being beaten. Daryl is reluctant to throw his lot in with this merry band, but it’s already too late in the day for him to split.

They make camp in an abandoned garage.  One by one, the comfy cars are ‘claimed’, and Daryl, unwilling to play along with the new rules, is forced to sleep on the floor. Len confronts Daryl, ‘claiming’ that he stole the front half of the rabbit from him. Daryl denies it. They search Daryl’s things and find Len’s half of the rabbit in his bag, but Daryl is adamant about his innocence.

Tension is running high, and it looks like Daryl is in for a beating, until Joe turns around and punches Len in the face. He orders the other men to ‘teach him all the way’, and explains that he saw Len plant the rabbit in Daryl’s things, but didn’t stop him because he wanted to let Len ‘play that out’. The men continue beating the tar out of Len as Joe hands Daryl the head-half of the rabbit.

The next morning, the bandits pack up and move out. Daryl finds Len’s body deposited in the grass by the door of the garage, beaten just short of being unrecognizable, with an arrow through his eye. Daryl’s first instinct is to cover Len’s body with a large scrap of cloth he finds, but then he thinks better of it, and throws the cloth away.

Later, Daryl asks where the group is heading, and Joe begins telling a familiar story. The bandits had earlier found a house, but someone was hiding in it and strangled one of the group members in order to escape, leaving the poor man to turn and attack his friends. They were able to track the killer to a Terminus sign and another bandit, Tony, caught a glimpse of the killer’s face. Thus, they’ve set their sights on Terminus to find (and probably kill) the guy, who by now most people have figured out is Rick. (They’re the group of men who invaded the house he and Carl had set up shop in, in episode 11, ‘Claimed’!)

If you need more proof that Daryl’s new buddies are gunning for Rick, they step over a familiar candy bar wrapper, which was dropped by Carl as he and Michonne shared it in their very brief scene early on in the episode.

Hm… Daryl… with a group of people who are fighting against Rick… that sure sounds familiar.

*****

Glenn is leading Tara, and Ford & Co. (Abraham, Rosita, and Dr. Eugene), on an arguably hopeless journey to find Maggie. He spots a map to Terminus, which has been scribbled over in blood. It’s one of Maggie’s messages, directing Glenn to go to Terminus, and signed also by Sasha and Bob. This is the first sign he’s seen that Maggie survived the Fall of the Prison in the first place, and it spurs him on.

Ford insists they stop and rest during the day, as none of them has slept well since meeting each other, but Glenn is unwilling to stop, even when Tara injures her knee. Rosita is angry at Glenn for being so willing to risk Tara by forcing her to continue with her injury, but Glenn ignores her and gives his riot gear to Eugene in exchange for the group continuing on.

They arrive at a long, dark train tunnel, and hear the moans of many walkers coming from inside. Glenn decides to go through the tunnel, since Maggie’s latest blood-note on the wall of the tunnel is still wet, meaning he can’t be too far behind her. Ford is unwilling to risk Eugene’s life by going in, opting instead to head back to the first road they cross and find a car to take them to D.C.

Glenn and Tara soon discover that the tunnel has been partially caved in, and the growls and moans are coming from all the walkers that have been partially buried by the rubble. Glenn climbs carefully to the top of the rubble pile, and on the other side of it finds large group of walkers. He’s relieved to see Maggie is not one of them, and no bodies on the ground that could be her, so he resolves to continue down the tunnel.

Using the flashlight to distract the walkers, he and Tara pick their way down the pile of rubble, but Tara’s foot gets caught. The two of them try, ineffectually, to free Tara, but after the walkers start noticing the newest items on their menus, she tells Glenn to leave her behind. He refuses, and uses their last few bullets to take out as many walkers as he can, before preparing himself to confront the remaining half-dozen or so.