The Walking Dead Season 4 Episode 9: After

The prison is filled with smoke and walkers.  The Governor lies dead on the ground.  Michonne is just watching the zombies overrun the prison.  She looks on in disbelief. She walks toward the prison and just starts killing zombies.  She seems to taunt two zombies and they get stuck on the wooden fence she has just climbed over.  She makes those two zombies her new pets.  She stops and looks at the ground.  There lies Hershel's head that is now a zombie head.  She stabs it with her sword.  She caresses the head as she pulls her sword out of it.

Carl walking resolutely down a road.  Rick limping behind him telling Carl to slow down.  Carl ignores him, so he yells at him to stop.  They need a place to stay, food, and supplies.  Rick begins to say they are going to be alright but doesn't get the alright out.  They arrive at Joe and Joe Jr.'s BBQ Shack.  Rick tells Carl to keep watch.  Carl talks back and tells him he will help clear.  Carl thinks he should do it himself since Rick can barely stand up.  The place appears to be empty.  A zombie walks out from the bar.  Rick wants to draw out the zombie and he tries to stab it in the head with an ax.  When Rick fails Carl shoots it.  Rick gets mad at Carl because he wasted a bullet.  They gather food.  Rick shows Carl what he found.  Carl shows his bag and says. "I win."  He deserves a slap upside the head for that comment.

Michonne and her pets find some tracks on a muddy road.  It could be the same road Rick and Carl were on.  She doesn't follow it but chooses instead to go into the woods.

Rick calls out to Carl as they walk.  Carl finally stops.  Rick nods to a house they found and says that one is as good as any.  They break down the door.  Rick calls to Carl and tells him to stop.  Carl starts to yell obscenities.  Rick tells him to watch his mouth.  Carl is giving Rick some major attitude.  Carl goes upstairs.  He walks into the bedroom that looks like it belonged to a teenage boy.  He likes what he sees including a TV and video games.  He grabs the chord from the TV and uses it to tie the door shut.  He tells Rick he used a good knot he learned from Shane.  "Do you remember him?"  he asks.  Rick says he does, he thinks about him every day.  That is a low blow from Carl.  I don't think Carl knows everything that happened between Lori, Rick, and Shane.  That comment hurts more that he realizes. They push a sofa to the door.  Rick offers Carl some food but Carl says they should save it.   Rick goes into the bathroom and looks at his injuries in the mirror.  He does not look good.

Flashback dream of Michonne before the apocalypse.  She is discussing something with a couple of guys. One is her lover.  I assume they become her original pets.  The knife she is cutting with becomes her katana. A little boy runs to her.  It looks like time has gone by.  They are trying to decide whether they stay or go.   Her boyfriend says this is not a life for them or their son.  Mike (her boyfriend) asks why? (Why keep living?). Now the men don't have arms.  Her little boy is gone.  The city outside of the window is destroyed. She wakes up from her nightmare.

Carl wakes up and walks over to the food bag and grabs the cereal Rick tried to get him to eat the night before.  He pours it into two bowls.  He is reading a book after finishing his cereal.  When he walks downstairs he sees Rick is still asleep.  He tries to wake him up but Rick does not respond.  He starts yelling at Rick to wake up.  Zombies starts pushing on the door.  Carl walks outside from another door and sees there are only two zombies at the door so he calls out to them.  They turn and follow him.  He walks backwards as he calls them.  Walking backwards is not the smartest thing to do in a zombie apocalypse.  If he trips he is on his own.  A zombie comes up from behind.  Carl fights the three zombies off with his hands and falls on the ground.  He shoots all three zombies but uses five bullets to do so.  He gets up and throws up.  He puts on his sheriff hat and says, "I win."  A repetition of what he said to Rick earlier in the episode.

Michonne continues her trek in the woods with her zombies.  She is joined by other zombies in a herd.  She stares at a female zombie who is black with long braids.  Does she see herself in this zombie?  What she could have become if she wasn't a survivor?

Carl comes back and tells Rick he killed three walkers that were at the door.  He saved Rick.  Rick is still unconscious.  Or is Rick dead? He tells Rick he still knows how to survive.  He doesn't need Rick anymore. He couldn't protect Judith, Hershel, Glenn, Maggie, Michonne, Daryl, or Lori.  He accuses Rick of wanting to hide and play farmer  They are all gone because they counted on Rick who was their leader and Rick let them down.  Now Rick is nothing.  Carl cries for a minute.  He says he'd be fine if Rick died.  He empties out the food bag and walks away.

Carl walks down the street with the empty canvas bag.  He walks up to another house.  He pulls out one of the lights along the walkway up to the house.  He tries to knock down the door but just bounces back and falls on the floor.  He uses the light to break into the house.  He goes to the kitchen and starts grabbing food. He looks up and grabs a giant can of chocolate pudding.  He goes upstairs.  The third room he enters has a walker that tries to come out.  Carl falls back and wastes some more bullets before shooting it and missing. He kicks at the zombie and crawls into another room.  He opens up a window but it gets stuck.  The zombie tries to bite him, but Carl gets away minus his shoe.  So much for being able to take care of himself.  He grabs a piece of chalk and writes on the door "walker inside got my shoe didn't get me."  He sits on the roof and eats pudding from the can as he looks out into the neighborhood.

Michonne is still wandering in the woods with her pets and a herd of zombies.  She sees her doppelganger zombie.  She kills that zombie.  As the zombies from the herd start coming towards her she begins to slice them with her katana.  She kills zombie after zombie until all of the herd is dead. Then she kills her zombie pets. Michonne is back on the road where she saw the tracks. She follows them.  She has chosen life.  Down the road she will find humanity/civilization.

Carl is back in the house with Rick and both are asleep.  Carl wakes up.  It is nighttime.  He stares at Rick.  Rick's hand moves.  He growls like a zombie.  Carl gets his gun ready.  Rick reaches out to him and Carl begins to cry. " I can't.", he says.  "I was wrong."  Rick calls out to Carl.  He mumbles something and then collapses on the ground.   Carl tells Rick he is scared over and over again.  Let's give a round of applause to Chandler Riggs and his amazing performance in this scene.

Michonne arrives at the biker bar from the beginning of the episode.  She finds the dead zombie.  She reads the note left behind by Joe Jr. "Please do what I couldn't."  She says, "Mike, I missed you even when I was with you.  You were wrong because I am still here and you could be too and he could too.  I know the answer, I know why."  She walks out and kills a zombie walking by.

Rick tells Carl he shouldn't have risked going out on his own.  Rick is glad he found more food.  Carl tells Rick he ate all the pudding.  Rick says he knows they will never get things back to the way they used to be. He had done it for Carl and Judith but now it is gone.  He tells Carl "You are a man.  I'm sorry."  "You don't need to be.", replies Carl.

Michonne walks down the street and finds the empty pudding can.  She walks up to the house where Rick and Carl are inside.  She sees them through the window and begins to cry.  She knocks on the door.  Rick and Carl get their weapons ready.  Rick looks through the peephole and begins to laugh.  He tells Carl, "It's for you."

Final Thoughts
- I liked the image of the Michonne zombie doppelganger and how that helped Michonne decide to choose life and go back to the road that led her back to her friends.  She doesn't need to be alone anymore.
- Carl showed some major teenage attitude in this episode.  I thought he had left some of that bratty behavior behind.  But I guess a teenager is still a teenager, even in the zombiepocalypse.
- While Carl is a good fighter he still needs help and I'm glad he realized that.  Very few people would be able to survive alone in a zombiepocalypse.
- I think Michonne, Rick, and Carl make a nice family.  The show should make it official.
- This was Carl's journey into adulthood.  Even though he is very grown up he still couldn't be on his own.  He could kill Lori before she turned but not Rick because he didn't want to be left alone.  It's one thing to be mad at his dad when he is right there but a completely different thing to be alone.  When he lost Lori he still had Rick and Judith and the rest of the gang.
- Chandler Riggs deserves an award for his performance.