Kitchen. The hippies--Sam and Ana--explain that they had been holed up in a greenhouse. When they'd had to flee, Sam fell and dislocated his shoulder. As Carol sets about fixing it, she and Rick learn that Ana's leg had been broken many months ago in a stampede of survivors; it hadn't been set, and now Ana can barely run. She and Sam notice that Rick and Carol don't look too shabby and ask after their settlement. Rick and Carol exchange glances, and Rick begins to ask them his three screening questions from the premiere. Later, the hippies have apparently satisfactorily answered Rick's questions, so he explains the situation at the prison--which he specifically says is eight miles north of the house--and impresses upon them the fact that people are dying from a mysterious illness. Sam and Ana don't care and want to join them. Rick tells them to wait in the kitchen while he and Carol loot the rest of the block. Despite the fact that Carol has been pushing him to retake the mantle of leadership, she argues that they should help with the looting. Sam and Ana are enthusiastic and want to contribute, but Rick is more focused on the fact that Sam has a bum shoulder, Ana cannot run, and neither of them can shoot worth a damn. Still, Rick gives in to Carol's insistences, and he leaves Sam his watch. They will all meet back in the kitchen in two hours, he orders. Rick and Carol loot another house. Carol complains that most of the medications are expired, but both Rick and I don't really see why that should be a deal-breaker. He asks Carol for her opinion about his decision to allow the hippies to come back with them to the prison. She deflects that it was the humane thing to do. "But did you think it was right?" Rick presses. "If they're strong enough to help us survive this, then yeah," answers Carol, "I think you made the right call." She tells him that what she did to Karen and David isn't so different from what Rick himself has done, citing how he had killed Shane. Rick rightly points out that Shane was going to kill him; Carol says that Karen and David were going to do the same. Rick is clearly unimpressed with her argument, so she brings Carl and Judith into the equation and tells Rick that he really needs to just accept what she'd done. Strike two, Carol.
Carol and Rick leave the house, and Rick spots some tomatoes. As they begin to pluck the fruits, Rick asks her if Hershel had taught her how to fix dislocated shoulders. Carol tells him that she'd learned it on the Internet in the days before the outbreak so that she would not need to go to the emergency room whenever her abusive husband would dislocate hers. She calls her past self stupid and weak for staying with Ed, and she asserts that she is a different person--a
stronger person--than she had been before the world ended. Rick is not without sympathy as he asks why she never says "her" name. "She's dead, Rick," says Carol. "Sophia? Ed? That's somebody else's slideshow." Rick tells a story of how Lori used to make pancakes for him and Carl every Sunday. She knew that the pancakes were awful, he says, but "she wanted us to be the kind of family that ate pancakes on Sunday." They finish with the tomatoes and are slightly more amiable with each other... ...for about four more seconds, until they discover Ana's bloody leg discarded on the sidewalk. Further down the street, two Walkers feast on her remains. "We should get back," says Carol, and Rick looks as though he is going to be sick. Back inside the house, Rick and Carol wait for Sam to show up. Rick wants to give Sam some extra time, but Carol disagrees. "He might be fine. He really might be. But it doesn't matter, because he's not here, and we have to go," she says, and her voice is suddenly so filled with sympathy that Rick and I begin to believe that maybe she really was grieving the fates of the hippies...until she follows up and says that she was sorry that he was losing a nice watch. She walks outside, and in a brilliant moment by Andrew Lincoln, it becomes very clear that he has made up his mind about something. Strike three, Carol. Outside, Carol begins to pack their looted supplies into the back of the Hyundai. "This interior is so roomy and perfect for a trip with the whole family!" she enthuses. Rick eyes her knife. Carol goes to the passenger side of the car and tries to open the door, only to find that she has been locked out. She looks at Rick. "They might have lived," he says. "They might have lived, and now they're dead. That wasn't your decision to make." Uh-oh. For the first time, Carol begins to look afraid. "When Tyreese finds out, he'll kill you," Rick continues, reminding her that Tyreese had beat the hell out of him over nothing in a fit of rage. "I can handle Tyreese," she says. Oh,
whatever, Carol. That man is six feet and two hundred pounds of axe-wielding fury. Rick takes her claim about as seriously as I do and doesn't bother to contradict her. "When the others find out, they won't want you there," says Rick, his voice quivering. "And if doesn't make it back, if everybody dies with this thing, and it's just the two of us, with Judith and Carl, with
my children, I won't have you there."