by Sarabeth Pollock:
The Walking Dead: “Killer Within”
Original Air Date (AMC): Sunday November 4, 2012
Season 3 Episode 4
With a title like “Killer Within,” you know there are at least a dozen things you can infer about tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead before you even watch it. Is it referring to division within the group? Let’s get right to it….
A deer has been slaughtered. Somewhere in the prison, the Walkers are brought to the carcass, which has been dragged inside, effectively leading them on a path through the now cut-open gate. Someone is sabotaging the security of the prison. Whoever it is knows what he’s doing. He has a plan. But what is it? Who is he working for? (Note: Yes, I did just assume a man did all of this even though I don’t know that for sure. The hands and feet look kind of feminine to me, but as a girl I’m going to blame this mess on a guy….)
T-Dog, Rick, Carol and Daryl are working to rid the grounds of the dead Walkers. They’re going to move the vehicles to a more secure location. But they will need help. Where the heck are Glenn and Maggie? They’re up in the guard tower (apparently for the second night in a row). Bemused, Daryl calls to them and a half-dressed Glenn steps out. The group exchanges a laugh. You can see that the gang has settled into a somewhat comfortable routine at the prison, and the guard tower has become a love nest for the two young lovers.
Axl and Oscar, the two inmates banished to the other side of the prison, come through the gate to talk to Rick. They don’t want to stay on their side anymore. They tried cleaning up the bodies, but they knew those people. It’s like having ghosts all around them. “I’m not going to pretend to be a saint, but believe me, we’ve paid our dues,” Oscar says. They’d rather face the unknown than go back there…so Rick locks them up on their side while the group deliberates on their fate. T-Dog wants to give them a chance, to bring them into the group. Maggie and Carol worry about allowing strangers into their little group. Daryl knows that he could have been one of them, but even he’s reluctant to let them into their fold. Rick tells a story of a boy he arrested for attacking his girlfriend. The kid played the jury so that he was acquitted, and then two weeks later he shot another girl. They don’t have the luxury of taking chances on this. They cannot risk letting Oscar and Axl into their circle.
Back at Woodbury, Michonne surveys the perimeter. She comes across the vehicles that the ambushed army men had been driving. She sees the bullet holes and fresh blood on them; you can see the wheels turning in her head. As she turns to leave, the Governor is standing there. He’s sorry that she and Andrea are going to leave. Michonne would make a fine soldier. She’s curious about the bullet holes on the trucks. Did the Biters learn to use weapons? Why didn’t one of the soldiers drive away from such slow-moving attackers? And it sure is a shame about Welles…. The Governor has a response to everything. The men probably came under attack by bandits (if only his team had reached them sooner…). They would never leave a man behind, so they all died together (how convenient). And their doctor couldn’t bring Welles back, so Merle ended his misery with a bullet in his head. Thankfully, though, no one knew him so he won’t be missed. “Thank God no one knew him,” he says. “Thank God,” she replies before turning and walking away. She’s not playing his game.
Rick decides to give the prisoners a week’s worth of food before sending them on their way. T-Dog says that they won’t last a week, and Rick wants to know whose blood he’s rather have on his hands, theirs or Maggie’s, or Glenn’s. “Neither,” T-Dog replies. He’s not happy with this arrangement. Axl watches Daryl on his bike. He has experience working on bikes, which he offers in hopes of being allowed to stay. “Grow some balls,” Oscar tells him, shaking his head. Oscar knows that they aren’t going to be allowed to stay no matter what. There’s no sense in kissing ass now.
Beth and Lori bring some crutches to Hershel, who gets up and wants to take a walk. He can’t stand looking at the bottom of the bunk any longer. Lori helps guide him, praising his progress.
Michonne tells Andrea that their best bet is to head for the coast. The ideal thing is to find an island. Andrea wants to know what they’d do there…will they just grow old and die? Michonne is willing to take her chances. Andrea presses her for the unspoken truth—is her desire to leave founded in her lack of trust in the Governor? Is it just too good to be true in Woodbury?
Glenn gives Axl and Oscar their food. “Thank you, bro,” Axl tells him. Oscar mocks him again. Rick, Daryl and Glenn go out into the perimeter fence to start clearing out the bodies. Carol, T-Dog and Maggie move the cars inside to a safe location. While the all work, Lori, Beth and Carl bring Hershel outside for a walk. Glenn sees them and comments that Hershel is one tough son-of-a-bitch. The relief in their expressions is evident. The group parking the cars stops to watch Hershel’s progress as well. Everything is serene and almost idyllic, which is a really bad sign for this show. Lori and Rick share a happy smile from across the yard. Then Carl turns and sees Walkers coming at them. These are the Walkers that were released by the unseen saboteur. Rick, Glenn and Daryl run toward the prison. They have to pass through multiple locked gates, which makes it damn near impossible to get to the others in a hurry. Hershel and Beth lock themselves into a fenced walkway, while Carl takes aim at the approaching Walkers. My God, his shot has improved. Even pregnant Lori is a crack shot.
Maggie leads Carl and Lori into one of the cell blocks. They run across the day room but find a herd of Walkers waiting for them. Turning back, they head for a hallway. Maggie shuts the door behind them, but that can’t hold them off for very long.
Outside, Carol and T-Dog make their way through the Walkers. Carol’s shot has improved as well. She wields a gun with the kind of confidence that comes with a seasoned shooter. I bet Daryl has been giving her lessons.
Rick, Daryl and Glenn finally get into the yard. They passed through the gate that held Axl and Oscar, and when they don’t close it, the two former inmates are left to ponder their next move. “Hey bro, what about us?” Axl yells as they both move to follow the other men.
Inside the yard, Carol makes it through the gate and T-Dog moves to follow. As he turns to lock it, a Walker jumps him from behind and rips a chunk of his shoulder out. Carol screams. He manages to shut the gate, shoot the offending Walker, and follow after her. He may be bitten, but T-Dog isn’t out for the count just yet….
Andrea gives Merle directions to Hershel’s farmhouse. He knows the area. What he really wants to know is why he never hooked up with Andrea. She points out that he called her a whore. He did have a way with words, right? Merle wonders why she doesn’t want to go with him to find the group. He correctly guesses that she doesn’t want to find them because she doesn’t think they went out of their way to find her. They were both abandoned by the same group, Merle muses. Andrea doesn’t disagree. She asks if he ever considered leaving Woodbury. Why would he do that? Merle points out that he was in bad shape when the Governor found him. They didn’t have to save him, but they did. So why would he leave?
Rick and company finally get into the yard. Hershel and Beth are still safe in their little fenced in cubicle. Glenn tells Rick that the lock was cut on the gate, which allowed the Walkers access into their yard. But who would have done that? They turn to see Axl and Oscar standing nearby. The inmates could have run away, but they didn’t. Why? As the gang moves to go after Lori and Maggie, an alarm starts blaring out from the speakers all over the prison. The sound catches the attention of the Walkers outside the fences, making them come out of the woods and into the clearing between the trees and the outer fence. Where is it coming from? Oscar tells them that the backup generators must have been turned back on. He’d worked a few days in the area and can lead them there. Rick points out that if the power comes back up, the gates could start opening on their own. They have to turn them off, which means they’ll have to trust Oscar and Axl.
T-Dog isn’t dead yet. He’s trying to help Carol get back to their secure cell block. She tries to tell him to stop, but he knows his time is limited.
Back in cell block C, Carl leads the way through the darkened hallways while Maggie and Lori follow. There are Walkers at every turn, it seems. Suddenly, Lori gasps in pain. There’s something wrong with the baby, she says. It’s coming. Carl finds a door leading to an electrical room. They’re safe there…for now. The baby is coming.
The Governor is practicing his golf swing from atop one of the barricades. The balls are hitting the Biters and knocking them down. Evidently, he has been practicing. Merle joins him on top of the barricade and they share a joke about going to Augusta and letting people in who weren’t allowed in before. Merle, however, seems to take issue with letting go of those traditions (outdated as they may be). He wants to know if he can take some men out on a scouting mission to find Daryl. The Governor trusts Merle’s tracking ability but points out the risk of someone getting hurt, especially after such a long period of time has passed since they were at the farm. He can’t risk losing Merle, telling him that the place would fall apart without him. He offers a deal to Merle, that if he gets more concrete information, he’ll go with him on the search himself. Did you all see how the Governor’s eye was twitching when he said this? It may not have been intentional, but it certainly added to the effect. Never trust a man with a twitching eye.
Rick, Glenn and Daryl make it to their cell block to find the cells empty and the place full of Walkers. Someone is playing games with them. They split into two groups, and whoever gets to the generators first needs to shut them down! Well, duh….
Lori is in labor. There’s no question about that. Maggie helps her take her pants off (poor Carl doesn’t know where to look) and she tries to see if Lori is dilated or not. Her dad told her how to deliver a baby, but this is her first time doing it. She can’t tell where Lori is, but Lori knows that she needs to push. They stand her back up and Maggie encourages her to let her body do what it needs to do. There’s a gross noise and Maggie tells Lori not to push, something is wrong. Maggie reaches down and finds her hand covered in blood. Something is very wrong…this is why Carol was practicing C-sections on Walkers.
Carol and T-Dog find themselves in a corridor full of Walkers and no more ammunition. Without hesitation, T-Dog rushes headlong into the Walkers, buying time for Carol to get past them and escape. He tells her to go, and she does. When she gets to the door and looks back, she sees a Walker tear out his throat. She goes through the door and out into the light.
Andrea joins the Governor for a drink before she and Michonne depart. He asks where they plan to go, and Andrea tells him that Michonne believes the coast will be safer. He offers her a drink, and she refuses at first, citing her decreased tolerance for hard liquor. He mentions the information she gave to Merle about his brother and wants to know if she has anyone out there looking for her. There isn’t. Everyone is gone. The Governor tells her he lost his wife in a car accident over a year before this all started. Now he just has his daughter (and that naked woman in his bed last week). Before long she’s drinking with him to better days. She’s not sure what she’s looking for anymore. What matters now? He talks about the mundane things he used to do before the world went to hell. The scenery has changed, but the “way we think” is still the same. She decides she needs to go before the raw innuendo kills them both…or something like that. He tells her that she’s always welcome back, and then he tells her that his name is Philip. God, this man is a player! But what does he want with her? It seems that at the moment he wants to be sure she doesn’t leave.
Rick’s group reaches the generator room first. Daryl holds the door while Rick and Oscar try to shut the generators down. A prisoner jumps out at Rick and tackles him. He knocks Rick’s gun out of his hand, and Oscar picks it up, pointing it at Rick. The inmate tells Oscar to shoot Rick so that they can take back their prison. Oscar shoots him and hands the gun back to Rick. Looks like Oscar can be trusted after all. They shut the generators down and the alarms go silent again.
Lori isn’t doing well. There’s too much blood and she isn’t dilated. The horror of what needs to happen sinks in. She needs a C-section….
Andrea wants to stay a “day or two” longer. It’s not that much…. Michonne is quietly furious.
….Lori tells Maggie she can follow the scar from her previous C-section. Carl knows that this will kill his mother, but she won’t allow anything to happen to her baby. Words can’t describe the emotion of this scene as Lori says goodbye to Carl. She tells Maggie that she has to “do it” when this is over, that “it can’t be Rick.” Lori braces for the cut, and she slips away almost as soon as Maggie cuts her open. With help from Carl, she pulls the baby out. It doesn’t make any noise at first, but soon the baby starts to gurgle. As Maggie moves to leave, Carl says that they can’t just leave her there. He flashes back to the conversation her had with his dad in the barn, when Rick told him that he and Lori would die at some point and there’s no way he can ever be prepared. Soon Maggie hears a gunshot and a stoic Carl walks out. He took care of his mother.
Rick and the group find Carol’s scarf. Daryl’s expression falls; the only person who understood him is gone. They race out into the yard to see that Hershel and Beth are there. Soon they hear a baby. Maggie and Carl walk out of the cell block. Rick sees the blood on Maggie and the baby and puts the pieces together. Lori is gone. As Rick goes to pieces, Glenn comforts Maggie and Carl stands there, expressionless. Rick’s cries echo off the prison walls.
So, boys and girls, the “Killer Within” had many meanings, both literal and figurative. Someone inside the prison opened the gates and let the Walkers inside. Lori’s baby inside her was literally going to kill her if they didn’t take it out (which ended up killing her anyway). The virus inside Lori was going to turn her into a Walker. The Governor definitely has some double standards going on internally, one of which is his penchant for killing people. Michonne totally knows that something is really rotten in Denmark. It’s only the fourth episode and we have lost T-Dog, Lori, and Carol…for the love of God, who’s next!?
Leave your comments and let me know what you think is going to happen….
Sarabeth Pollock is a contributor for DarkMedia. She covers True Blood, Doctor Who, Fringe and American Horror Story, as well as the True Blood comics and whatever movies and books happen to catch her fancy. She’s an avid writer, reader, and pop culture fan, with interest in everything from True Blood to Doctor Who to Anne Rice to Deborah Harkness. Follow her on Twitter at @SarabethPollock and check out her blog at http://sarabethpollock.wordpress.com
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