The Walking Dead Season 4 Episode 1: 30 Days Without An Accident

The scene opens on the prison yard.  There are plants in pots all around.  Rick walks to a barrel of water and splashes his face.  The camera scans the yard and we see food has been planted and they have a horse in a choral.  What a difference a few months make (according to the showrunner Scott M. Gimple 6 to 7 months have passed since the season 3 finale).  Rick is working in the field pulling up plants while zombies outside of the fence watch him.  He finds a gun buried underground.  He throws it into a wheelbarrow, which I think is a waste.  He could at least save the bullets.  The camera zooms in on a zombie whose eyes are bleeding.  Rick ignores the zombies and goes back to hoeing.

Carl complains that Rick didn't wake him up.  Rick says he let him sleep in because he knew Carl was up all night reading comic books.  This is quite a change for Carl who last season was more of a soldier than a child.  They walk over to a pig pen.  One of the pigs is sick.  Carl named her Violet but Rick warns him not to name the pig  because she is food.

Everyone is saying hi to Daryl.  He's like the rock star of the prison.  Carol reminds him that she liked him first.  Some kid named Patrick thanks Daryl for bringing back a deer and wants to shake his hand.  Zombies are pushing against the fence.  Several people are stabbing them through the fence. More zombies keep coming.  Carol and Daryl discuss the amount of zombies showing up each morning at the fence.  The situation is manageable, for now.  Carol calls Daryl pookie. Is love finally in the air for these two?

Glenn and Maggie are in bed together.  He tells her he doesn't think she should go today.  She says they have the suits and that everything is going to work out.  But he says she is staying and she agrees to stay behind.  Tyreese pulls a woman aside and tells her that he doesn't like killing zombies along the fence so he is going on a run.  He only did it to meet her.  They kiss. 

Beth has a boyfriend.  It's Cassidy/Beaver from Veronica Mars!  But we'll just call him Zach.  Apparently everyone has been hooking up since the Governor left.  He tells her that he's going on the run.  They kiss but she refuses to say goodbye to him.  Daryl is watching them and calls it a "Damn romance novel."  A new guy named Bob wants to go on a run but he's only been there for a week.  He was a medic in the army and found by himself.  They agree to let him go with them.

Hershel has a snazzy new prosthetic leg.  Looking good, Santa.  Michonne is rides up to the prison on a horse.  They have pikes set up by the new gate so zombies won't get in. 

It looks like they took a few lessons from Morgan.  Michonne brought back some comic books for Carl and a razor for Rick.  Are they in a relationship?  She tells Daryl she didn't find him.  The Governor perhaps?  Michonne volunteers to go check on some snares before the walkers get to them.  Carl has chores and Rick wants him to read comic books and go to story time.   Be a kid.  Hershel tells Rick needs that soon they won't need to go on runs because they are growing their own food.

Hershel mentions that the prison group has a council.  This council is made up of Daryl, Glenn, Maggie, Sasha, and Hershel.  It looks like they are establishing some order and a government for this group without a dictator and more importantly without Rick.  I think this is great.  Rick needs a break from being a leader and a group can discuss how to deal with a situation taking different points of view into account.  Hershel tells Rick that he needs to take his gun when he goes outside.  Rick says six bullets won't help if he gets mobbed by zombies, but he reluctantly agrees to take the gun.

Kids are taunting the zombies and naming them.  Carl tells them they are not people anymore.  They are not pets.  Don't name them.  Patrick is with Carl.  Patrick refers to Carl as sir even though Patrick is around the same age as Carl.  Proof that even though Carl might be trying to act like a kid again he hasn't been a kid in a long time.

The group that went out on the run show up to a Big Spot (like Big Lots but not infringing copyright laws)  parking lot surrounded by a chain link fence.  We learn that the army set up this place.   Zach has been trying to figure out what Daryl did before the zombiepocalypse.  His guess is that Daryl was a homicide cop.  Daryl says he was an undercover cop.  Sasha seems to be in charge of the mission.  I wonder if we will get a back story on how the council came to be and how Sasha ended up on it.  There is a crashed helicopter on the roof with a lot of zombies milling around.

Glenn is looking at baby stuff.  Is Maggie pregnant?  Bob is going past the liquor and nodding his head.  Was he an alcoholic?  He grabs a bottle and is going to put it under his coat but puts it back on the shelf instead.  The entire shelf breaks and falls on him and the zombies on the roof hear it.  The zombies walking on the roof are starting to fall through the roof. 
Glenn suggests they leave.  They need to free Bob first.  More and more zombies keep falling.  Zombies start attacking everyone.  Glenn is wearing a police riot gear trying to fight off two zombies.  Everyone is fighting them off but there are so many of them and they just keep falling out of the sky.  Bob is still stuck under the cabinet and a zombie is coming for him. Daryl and Zach rescue Bob but Zach gets eaten by a zombie.  So long Zach.  We hardly knew ye.  The helicopter falls through the roof.

Rick is collecting dead animals from the snares.  He stumbles upon a dieing animal and a zombie goes up to it.  At first he thinks it is a zombie but she speaks to him.  She looks half dead.  She asks for Rick to help her.  She wants help carrying the animal to her husband because they haven't eaten in days.  Rick gives her something wrapped in foil.   Food I am assuming.  She asks if they have a camp nearby he says yes.  She asks if they can go back with him they haven't been doing well on their own.  He wants to meet her husband and ask them some questions when they get there.  She is unarmed but Rick wants to make sure.   He takes her knife.  He warns her that if she tries anything she will lose.  She responds that she doesn't have anything else to lose.  He says she does and gives her back her knife.  She leads him into the woods.  The woman is telling Rick they were trying to go to Puerto Vallarta for their honeymoon but they closed the airport.  On the fourth night the zombies came through.  Now it's just Eddy and her.  She wouldn't have made it if it weren't for him.  He saved her and showed her what she needed to to do survive. 

What were the things they needed to do?  She says they had to kill things, eat animal carcasses, leaving people behind and hiding from people that needed her help.  He says people are the best defense against walkers.  Rick has had quite a change of heart from last season on letting others into the group.  It looks like it has proven useful.  Rick is talking about the sculptures at the airport.  Is he checking out her story?  She asks if he did terrible things to survive like she did.  She then asks if you get to come back from that.  Rick says he hopes so.  This echoes Rick's return from insanity.  He is now being a father and staying behind with his family instead of always taking the lead. 

They reach her camp.  She is talking to someone but we don't see who.  She tries to attack Rick with a machete.  She says that Eddie needs to eat something that's alive.  She kept him even though it is wrong.  She wants to be like him.  She stabs herself in the abdomen.  Rick is unable to stop her.  She wants to turn into a zombie.  She asks what were his three questions.
1) How many walkers have you killed? Eddie killed all of them until . . .
2) How many people have you killed?  Only herself.
3) Why? You don't get to come back from this.
She dies.  Rick just leaves.  Eddie (or whatever is left of him, according to the Talking Dead it was just a head) moves under a canvas.  I'm surprised Rick didn't kill her.  She will wake up as a zombie and be a threat.

 Carol is reading a book to some children.  Carl sneaks in.  When the other adult in the room leaves Carol stops reading and starts teaching the children about knives.  Patrick is feeling queasy so he leaves.  Carl stands up and Carol stops talking.  She asks Carl not to tell his father about the knife skills lesson.  Rick is back.  He stares at the zombie with bleeding eyes.  An omen of things to come?  Rick notices that Violet the pig is no longer moving.  It looks like she might be turning into a zombie.  Inside the prison Tyrees'es girl is sewing.  He tells her he doesn't like going on runs either. 

Maggie tells Glenn that she is not pregnant.  They are both relieved.  She said she didn't want to have a baby but they could have.  Glenn says that after what happened to Lori he doesn't want to have any children.  Maggie doesn't want to be afraid of being alive.  Glenn responds that fear is what has kept them alive.  No, she says, that is how they kept breathing.  Daryl tells Beth about her boyfriend Zack.  She asks if he is dead and just says okay.  No reaction.  She walks over to one of those boards that lists how many days have passed without an accident.  She changes the number form 30 to 0.  She asks if Daryl is okay and he says he is tired of losing people.  She hugs Daryl and tells him she hates goodbyes and is glad she never said goodbye to Zack.

Hershel tries to comfort Rick.  Rick tried to help but she was too far gone.  Hershel reminds Rick that he was able came back from crazy town.  Bob is in his bunk and looks like he might cry.  Patrick is really sick.  I think he might have the zombie virus he is sweating so much that he leaves wet footprints on the floor.  He walks into the bathroom and pumps some water into a show to cool himself off .  He collapses on the floor.  He has blood coming from his eyes and nose and now he is a zombie (he looks like the zombie from the beginning of the episode that was shown twice, I knew that couldn't be a coincidence).  I would hate to be sleeping in that cell block.

Final Thoughts
- It looks like Rick and Carl have been working on their relationship.
- I think Patrick's illness could be a mutation of the original zombie virus.  Viruses mutate and all of the survivors are carriers of the disease.  Did Violet have the new virus?  Was she the cause?
- Why did nobody shoot Zach in the head as they left the store?  I thought the general rule was to save those you know from becoming zombies.  Not to mention the horrible death of being eaten alive by zombies.
- Why would Rick be against teaching children to protect themselves in the zombiepocalypse?  I know Carl went over to the dark side for a bit but he had to kill his mom and his dad went crazy.   If the children are to survive they need to know how to fight.  To do those things needed to survive to quote from lady Rick found in the woods.
- Is Beth finally going to get a personality and have something to do besides singing?
- There should be spin-off of the show where Daryl is an undercover cop.  I would totally watch that.
- Will this be the season when Daryl and Carol finally become a couple?