The Walking Dead 4.2, "Infected" Review

ReviewThe first episode of Season 4 was good. There were a lot of new characters to include, and good characterization requires less action, right? Well, not in the second episode. There were action sequences. There were character beats. Plots thickened. "30 Days Without An Accident" gave us a new status quo, and--in true Walking Dead fashion--"Infected" destroyed it. First, the action sequences. By this point in a series about zombies, the showrunners must be running out of new ways for the zombies to attack. Woodbury and the Governor in Season 3 was a nice distraction, but he's gone (for now) and we needed some zombie action. Fortunately, we totally got some. The tight quarters of the prison that had made it so appealing a safe house backfired, and a single Walker was able to turn and kill far more people than would have occurred in an open space. Or if the doors had just been closed. Still, this was not action for the sake of action; this was comeuppance for their complacency (but more on that later). And then there were the pigs. Seventeen people died in this episode, one of whom was an established character. Call me callous, but I wasn't particularly upset by them. But the pigs? I cared about the pigs. Between the horrible death squeals and the expression on Rick's face as he transitioned back into his leadership role, their deaths were definitely the most memorable. Even without the pigs and Zombie Patrick, there was some serious character development in "Infected," much of which centered around Carol and her new attitude toward child-rearing. It admittedly was nice to see that Carol has not forgotten Sophia, and her proactive position with the regard to the practical preparedness of children in the zombie apocalypse is a good one. Nevertheless, it's difficult to feel entirely comfortable with her methods. Tough-love with Lizzie aside, the fact that she is teaching and allowing children to handle weaponry without the parents' knowledge could pose more problems than solutions in an emergency. Even worse is her decision to try to coerce young Carl into keeping her secret. Her attempts to justify herself quickly begin to sound like excuses, and Carl deserves a lot of credit for telling his father. While Carol's story (and Melissa McBride's performance) in "Infected" was certainly compelling, the MVP of the episode was Danai Gurira as Michonne. Michonne wasn't actually in much of the episode, but her scenes with Beth and Judith were heartbreaking (and even much more so on rewatch). Her tears as she begins to cuddle the baby were as unexpected as they were upsetting, and I for one appreciate that she is being given motivation beyond vengeance on the Governor. Despite the quality of the overall acting, the best fundamental of the episode was that the havoc was wreaked by the actions (or lack thereof) of the characters themselves. The deaths were a preventable result of prison unpreparedness, and while I don't want to say that the characters had it coming...they kinda had it coming. Our heroes set themselves up for disaster. The doors on the individual cells were not closed or locked at night; there were no people on guard within the prison who might have stopped Zombie Patrick; Glenn was apparently asleep in the guard tower to have missed the Walker-feeder with the flashlight; the fences still aren't really all that fortified; and the characters use gasoline (and batteries) for everything. What's great, however, is that these are in-universe mistakes and not episode flaws. Questions: Who is feeding the Walkers? Who killed Karen and David from Decatur? How is this mysterious illness spread? Can it be cured? What happened in Michonne's past that she wept over Judith? 5/5