The Walking Dead - Recap: The Deer Hunter

The Walking Dead doesn't always focus on mental disorders, or the ways in which this unique setting can exacerbate existing conditions. In a world without law, Lizzie (Brighton Sharbino) can do whatever her psychotic mind demands. Lizzie's actions tonight go much farther than simple naivete about the world in which they live. While Lizzie might not fully comprehend what being a "Walker" entails, Mika (Kyla Kenedy) insists she has a complete understanding that these are dead people with no remaining sense of personhood. The sisters are like opposite ends of a coin, with Mika still as hopelessly optimistic and incapable of hunting deer as ever, and Lizzie completely broken beyond all conceivable repair, looking to make friends with walkers to the exclusion of other people. The episode makes no bones about the likelihood that one of these girls will be dead themselves by the end of the hour. But both? And like that? In retrospect, it seems inevitable that this would happen. But the true success of the episode is in making the final outcome as necessary as it is horrific, and as unavoidable as it is tragic.

Credit: AMC

The episode centers on Carol (Melissa McBride) and Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman) discovering an abandoned homestead at which they and the girls (Lizzie, Mika, and baby Judith) could potentially form a new life, as opposed to heading on towards the Terminus. It's an idyllic place with spacious living areas, plenty of canned peaches in the pantry and edible nuts growing on the trees outside, and even a water well and a working gas stove. Of course, there are still walkers in the area, including one inside the house that Mika begrudgingly takes care of once Lizzie proves incapable of bringing herself to do it. But, for the most part, the living is easy. At least until Lizzie decides she wants to be friends with a walker. Carol spies the perplexing scene from the kitchen window and springs into action, killing the undead thing before it can tag Lizzie "it". However, instead of being grateful for being rescued from being zombie lunch, Lizzie flips out on Carol for killing her "friend." Carol is left stunned as Lizzie just spouts out one condemnation after another, shrieking at the top of her lungs and crying hysterically. It's a powerful scene that is close to being the culmination of the ongoing story of Lizzie's fragile psyche, which is an arc that has been going on ever since the fall of the prison, and has only gotten worse since she's been separated from people her own age, against whom her sociopathic tendencies might find greater contrast. Ever since the fall of the prison, Lizzie hasn't exactly encountered other children, and kids were presumably just as few and far between before then. For her, this child walker probably was the closest thing she'd have to a friend her own age, other than her sister, whose ideology was vastly different from her own. In a way, it makes sense that she would have this reaction, though the sense of it doesn't make it any less chilling.

On the subject of the difference between the sisters, Carol takes Mika out into the woods to teach her how to hunt deer, and it's a scene that serves as a window into the little girl's persistent optimism. Carol tries to instill in Mika the understanding that, in order to survive, one has to get "tough". In Mika, Carol sees a version of her own daughter, Sophia, who didn't have "a mean bone in her body" (In a chilling moment early in the episode, Lizzie hears this description of Sophia and asks Carol, "So is that why she's not here?"). For Carol, softness is weakness, and so she seeks to grind it out of Mika by having her hunt. But Mika, who follows her late mother's mantra of "everything works out like it's supposed to," can't bring herself to shoot the deer. It's a moment of foreshadowing that seals Mika's fate, as her youthful innocence prevents her from doing anything she doesn't feel is necessary to survive. There's always another way, with Mika. As she tells Carol, by way of apology, "We still have peaches."

But peaches won't protect against walkers, and so the group has to defend the homestead against a horde of walkers who've come out of the forest, burned by the forest fire that spread from the house Beth and Daryl set ablaze. This sequence shows that Lizzie and Mika actually are quite capable of taking care of themselves when there's no other alternative, as they take down the walkers with uncharacteristically accurate gunshots to the head (everyone's a marksman on this show, apparently). Lizzie, who was hardly minutes removed from feeding a mouse to another pet walker of hers on the train tracks (and nearly offering herself as a sacrifice out of curiosity/madness), is just as effective at walker-killing as Carol and Tyreese. In fact, this display is enough to have Carol wondering if maybe she hasn't gotten the girl pegged all wrong. They have a heart-to-heart, in which Carol makes certain Lizzie understands what a walker is, and that she can't go keeping them as playthings. Lizzie seems to understand in that moment, saying, "I know what I need to do now." The chilling way in which the line was delivered should have been enough of a clue to what was coming, but man, did I not expect this...

After Carol and Tyreese have a private discussion about possibly making a new home as a family as a way of putting to rest the ghosts of what they've both lost, they return home to find a horrific sight: Lizzie has murdered Mika, having stabbed her in the abdomen and preparing to do the same to baby Judith sitting nearby. Lizzie, who is bathed in blood, proudly declares, "I didn't hurt the brain!" Her reasoning being that Mika will now come back, and it will prove that walkers are still people. When Carol tries to take the gore-stained knife away from the girl, Lizzie pulls a gun and forces her to stay back, insisting that they all wait for Mika to turn. Yet this is something Carol can't allow to stand. She has Tyreese take Lizzie inside while she finishes off Mika, and it's an absolutely harrowing bit of business, as Carol breaks down in tears. McBride and Brighton are terrific pretty much all the way through, which is really saying something when you consider the irrepressibly dark nature of this episode, and how easily it could have become a macabre caricature of drama had this story been in the hands of lesser performers. Here, Carol's pathos is as identifiable as Lizzie's sense of guilt-ridden dread is palpable. It isn't necessarily that Lizzie understand she did something wrong, but that she can tell Carol and Tyreese are mad at her. She instantly reverts back to a little girl in these moments, and it's almost enough to have one wondering if perhaps there's some way around having to do what's next. That maybe this little girl can be rehabilitated. That she and Judith can sleep under the same roof. But nope: after heartbreaking consideration, Carol and Tyreese conclude that Lizzie simply cannot be around other people. And so she takes Lizzie out into the woods, and tells the confused girl to look at the flowers and count to three, as she always has when her panic attacks set in. With the sound of a single gunshot, the Little Kid Body Count for this episode jumps to two, and like that, The Walking Dead reaches its darkest point.

And yet we're never really meant to question whether or not it was necessary to kill Lizzie. The presence of a baby in the household necessitated Carol pull an Of Mice and Men on the girl, and as awful as it was, the narrative strangely never takes a judgmental stance against Carol in the way it did when she killed Karen and David. In that instance, while she had been killing for the greater good of the group, it was before anyone knew what the illness was, and whether or not it could be successfully treated. Carol's impulsiveness was rightfully punished then. Yet once Lizzie killed Mika, there likely would have been greater judgment against Carol had she not put the girl out of her misery. In a lawless world, the job of judge, jury, and executioner falls to the common man and woman. Lizzie could not be imprisoned any more than she could be institutionalized and rehabilitated, and so Carol did what needed to be done. But Tyreese never judges her for it, he understands. Perhaps this is why Carol feels compelled to finally tell Tyreese the truth about Karen and David. Chad L. Coleman is a better actor than the material often allows him to show, but when Carol confesses to Tyreese that she killed Karen and David, a rush of emotions flood Tyreese's face. Coleman makes Tyreese's internal dilemma feel real, as he clutches the gun and considers whether or not he, too, might do something that needs doing. Yet Tyreese has seen enough bloodshed for one day. "I forgive you," he tells Karen. He explains that while he's never going to forget what she's done, it's clear to him that it's eating her alive inside, and that's enough for him. Tyreese's forgiveness illustrates that he wasn't just paying lip service to the notion of leaving the past in the past, and so he and Carol forge a new future, leaving the homestead -- and the two fresh, tiny graves for the Samuels sisters, Lizzie and Mika.

Credit: AMC

"The Grove" is arguably the darkest episode in the history of the series, but it's one that is done with a fair amount of maturity and tact. Granted, some might not think it kosher to have the killing of a child seem like such a necessary act, but that's simply the kind of moral ambiguity in which the show couches its best storylines. Not everything is as cut-and-dry as it should be in this world, any more than things were cut-and-dry before the fall. The Walking Dead might not always be this narratively effective, but I think the show really found its mark here, thanks to a compelling story, and four talented actors anchoring it (Kyla Kenedy deserves a shoutout too. What a find, those two child actresses turned out to be). Only two episodes are left this season, and those episodes will have a hard time topping this.