The Walking Dead - Recap: The Other White Meat

Credit: AMC

As the episode opens, we see a mysterious figure feeding rats to the walkers outside the prison gate, leaving the carcasses on the ground on the inside of the prison fence, essentially compelling the walkers to keep pushing against the gate in order to get the rats on the other side. After a brief moment of calm before the storm, in which Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman) serenades Karen (Melissa Ponzio) with a rendition of "I've Got You Under My Skin," we launch right into the chaos. Patrick, turned at the end of last week following his death as a result of a mysterious, flu-like ailment, invades D Block and immediately begins feasting. As Patrick turns one person, and that newly-turned walker turns another, we soon have an all-out crisis on our hands, prompting everyone to either retreat to safety or fight back. Daryl (Norman Reedus), Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) do their damndest to clear out the lot, while Carl (Chandler Riggs) commandeers a rifle to rescue Michonne (Danai Gurira), who is trapped by walkers just outside the entrance gate. Maggie (Lauren Cohan) rushes to help, killing one of the walkers crowding in on Michonne, and drags her to safety with Carl's help. But even with the threats neutralized, things are far from safe.

Credit: Gene Page/AMC

Hershel (Scott Wilson), Bob (Larry Gilliard, Jr.), and a third man determine that the cause of the outbreak was Patrick, who must have died as the result of some flu-like illness. And now we're presented with our first major decision: how to deal with the outbreak of an illness to which everyone has already been exposed. The decision is made to quarantine those who are showing symptoms of the illness in the Death Row block, and the potential-infected include Karen, whom Tyreese is uncomfortable with letting out of his sight. This also separates Glenn and Maggie, who try to keep away from one another, only to be reunited once the walkers outside the prison nearly bring the fence down. This setpiece in particular is one of the strongest of the episode, as the group has to figure out a way to neutralize the crush of zombies bearing down on their defenses, since the walkers seem to be multiplying faster than the group can kill them. So Rick makes the episode's next major decision: to sacrifice the remaining pigs to draw away the walkers long enough for Maggie and Glenn to raise wooden plank reinforcements.

Credit: AMC

Rick is clearly gutted to have to cut open these pigs and toss them to the hungry herd of ravenous walkers, but by this point, it's already been an episode of increasingly difficult decisions for the ol' sheriff, who he has yet to return Carl's gun to him, rationalizing that the boy is still not ready to wield it. Of course, this all changes by episode's end, once Rick recognizes the sacrifices that need to be made in order to keep the prison safe. It also helps that Carl is subtly reinforcing the righteousness of Rick's rule among the survivors, saying that he can make things law if he wanted to, particularly Carol teaching the children how to use knives. It's uncertain just to what degree Rick has been compelled by Carl's motivational speech, but he not only returns Carl's gun to him, he also burns down the makeshift pig pen they'd erected, burning with it whatever possible infection the pigs might have carried. It's hard enough to deal with walkers, and it's worse to lose a valuable food source, but as a leader, this is Rick's lot in life.

Credit: Gene Page/AMC

But Rick is not the only one faced with a difficult road ahead. Carol (Melissa McBride) discovers that the father of two Woodbury exiles, Lizzie and Mika, has suffered from a bite wound on his arm. She takes him into a cell to amputate the arm to prevent the infection from spreading, but as she prepares to perform the operation, she discovers he already has a scratch on the back of his head. And so, faced with the inevitable, Carol brings Lizzie and Mika in to say goodbye to their father. It's an utterly devastating scene, despite the fact that we know almost nothing about Lizzie, Mika, or their father. We don't really need to be familiar with the newbies in order to identify with why this would be such an emotionally harrowing moment for everyone involved, particularly once Lizzie offers to be the one to put their father out of his misery, only to lose her nerve at the last moment and leave Carol to finish the job. Carol, for her part, has been trying to secretly teach these kids how to survive, and Lizzie's failure is invariably Carol's. In her new role as the girls' protector, she lets Lizzie know she's weak and has to learn how to block that fear out, but it's a tall order for any young girl.

Credit: AMC

With that said, it's Michonne who ends up offering one of the more quietly devastating moments of the episode. As Beth (Emily Kinney) tends to little Judith, Michonne attempts to rehab her leg, which was injured in the attack she endured from the walkers while out searching for the Governor (for some reason, she's the only one who seems to care that he's still out there somewhere). When Judith throws up on Beth, she hands the baby to Michonne, who is adamant about not holding the child. However, Michonne inevitably relents, and for a moment it looks as though this is going to be a sweet scene of a woman bonding with yet another member of the Grimes family. And while that's certainly the case, it takes a bit of a darker turn, as Michonne's smile dissolves into a torrent of emotions. She hugs Judith close to her face and weeps, with Beth watching in the background, completely confused and uncertain how to break the tension. Baby Judith, for her part, simply watches Michonne's emotionally-ravaged face with complete stoicism, in one of the episode's most striking visuals. The natural assumption would be that Michonne had a child whom she lost, and being confronted with a baby brought out all of those past emotions. But I wonder if that isn't too easy a solution. Hopefully, we'll find out soon enough. And, with any luck, Danai Gurira will get more opportunities to showcase the full range of some of her more underutilized acting talents, as she does here. (Also, can we get more Emily Kinney singing strange lullabies, please?)

Credit: AMC

In an episode full of heartbreak, it's only natural that heartbreak would the note on which we'd end. Tyreese comes by cell block A to deliver flowers to Karen, quarantined for her potential exposure to the flu illness. Yet once he makes it to Karen's cell, Tyreese finds a blood trail leading from her cell, all the way down the hallway and to the outside. Once outside in the courtyard, a horrified Tyreese discovers the charred remains of Karen and one other potentially-infected survivor. They have been doused in gasoline and set on fire, leaving no other identifying marks but the wrist bracelet Karen never seemed to take off. Tyreese is a wreck, and though we can't be sure just who did this, it's clear there's a saboteur among the ranks of the prison, operating on his or her own terms, without consideration for the democracy of the group. Of course, I do like the theory that this could be the doing of the Governor, attempting to sow discord among the remaining survivors in the prison. But again, I wonder if that might not be too simply a solution?

Regardless of where the story eventually ends up, it remains compelling right now, in this instance. Really, that's the best thing I could possibly say about "Infected," that it stands on its own every bit as much as it stands within the context of last week's premiere and next week's followup. It's both a continuation of the premiere and a table-setting episode for next week's fallot. All in all, I'm impressed with the storytelling here, both narratively and thematically. In its fourth season, The Walking Dead is arguably stronger than ever.

Thanks for reading my recap and review of The Walking Dead - Season 4 Episode 2, "Infected"!