Warning Spoilers Ahead

After a slow episode last week, this week’s episode bounces back with a tense episode harkening back to classic black and white zombie movies of the past.

The tension ramps up in this episode as the body count piles up both inside and outside the prison. With disease raging within the prison, individuals die left and right, some coming back as zombies and threatening from the inside. Outside the prison Rick and Carl have to stop the heard outside the prison as the fence crashes down.

The episode’s main focus is Hershel Greene and his work attempting to save as many as possible. Early in the episode he pulls an infected individual into a room to finish them off and throughout the episode he bounces around between saving individuals and killing walkers. All throughout you can see the worry and concern in his eyes.

Hershel throughout the series has had the idea that there’s some greater plan and this episode seems to focus on that, challenging his faith. There’s an important scene where he attempts to read his bible and struggles to read it, his faith and belief in a greater plan challenged.

Overall, the episode is a solid entry full of tension and shot in the dark, harkening back to the great classic horror movies. Everyone seems to have key moments in the episode, showing the series is very much about the people who inhabit this world and not the walkers that roam it.

Credit also needs to be given to director David Boyd who uses imagery to drive the narrative as much as dialogue. Whether it’s a close up of a gun or pea pod, Boyd shows that what’s not said and just shown can be as powerful as any word.

The end of the episode ends with a tease of the return of a threat from the previous season which only promises to ramp up the action and death count.

Directed by: David Boyd
Writer Credits: Frank Darabont, Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard, Scott M. Gimple
Overall Score: 8.25

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