"The Grove"
directed by Michael Satrazemis
written by Scott M. Gimple
This is the first actual episode of the popular television series The Walking Dead, that I've reviewed in a while. A few weeks back I wrote a bit of a diatribe regarding the behavior of certain longtime characters after the mid-season break, but I enjoyed this episode so much (although perhaps "enjoyed" isn't the right word) that I felt it deserved a proper review.
Since the attack of the governor (David Morrisey) that resulted in the invasion of the prison by walkers, Rick Grimes's (Andrew Lincoln) community of survivors has scattered, with each of the episodes focusing on a different group of the scattered survivors. This time around the focus is on Carol (Melissa McBride), Tyreese (Chad Coleman) and the Samuels sisters, Lizzie (Brighton Sharbino) and Mika (Kyla Kennedy), who have with them Rick's baby daughter Judith. This group were the first to find the signs along the railroad tracks leading to the as-yet unrevealed "Terminus," which is consistently described as a place of sanctuary and where nearly all of the other groups are now headed. The road to Terminus seems long, however, and several stops must be made along the way. The group stops at an abandoned house to take rest, but they have a lot of demons to grapple with; unbeknownst to Tyreese, Carol killed his girlfriend Karen (Melissa Ponzio) earlier in season 4, when a disease outbreak and the resulting walker rampage threatened to kill the entire population of the prison. Meanwhile, Lizzie still believes, as she did when her character was introduced, that walkers still have some humanity in them and can be befriended. Both these plotlines come to a head in this episode, in one case with deadly consequences.
In my humble opinion, this episode was one of the best written of the last few years. Season 1 was, for me, still the best of them all, but season 4, while it has had its ups and downs, is perhaps the "purest" the show has been in a long time. Having Rick and his friends holed up in a prison for over a season took a lot of the edge off of the show, even with the threat posed by the governor and not just one group of his lackeys but two. The Rick vs. Governor storyline dragged out, in my opinion, a bit longer than it should have, but now that the show's creators have torn the whole prison community apart they've brought back the fear and tension that every episode of a television show about the zombie apocalypse should have. This episode, while it has a fair share of zombies, is more about character than outright scares; anyone looking for something more traditional like the zombie siege that occurred in the episode where Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Beth (Emily Kinney) holed up in a funeral home will be somewhat disappointed.
On the other hand, people wondering what direction the show's writers would take with both Carol's and Lizzie's storylines will find definitive answers here. I'm sure this episode will be debated in view of the actions of the characters, but that's what really makes this show so utterly addictive: the characters, from the adults to the children, defy the usual archetypes, and the things they can do sometimes can absolutely blow the mind. The truth is that no one can really say how people would behave while living in a world populated by hordes of mindless, carnivorous, living dead, and this show explores some truly chilling possibilities. What the actions of the characters here portend for future episodes is something that will surely be fascinating to watch.
It's hard to discuss too much about the story without risking spoilers so I'll leave it at that, but suffice it to say that I was quite satisfied with the way this episode came together; the director and all four actors really did a sterling job realizing this story and delivering a powerful, and truly disturbing twist.
4.5/5
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