Carol tears up, and--as much as I'm on Rick's side of this one--I'm slightly upset on her behalf. Kudos to Melissa McBride. "Rick, it's me," says Carol in desperation. "No one else has to know." Rick doesn't budge and looks at her without pity. "I did something. I stepped up. I had to do something," insists Carol, beginning to cry. "No, you didn't," Rick says simply, and I notice with horribly inappropriate timing that Rick really needs a haircut. Carol, however, is more preoccupied with the gravity of what Rick is saying than the state of his hair. She begins to say that she won't leave without Lizzie and Mika, but Rick cuts in before she can finish. "You want them to leave?" he asks incredulously. He points out that Lizzie is sick and Mika is only ten, and he promises to keep them safe. Carol is crying in earnest now. Rick tells her that she is strong enough to survive in the world on her own and that she will be able to find another group of people who won't know what she has done. "Maybe," says Carol. Rick removes her pack from the back of the Hyundai and helps her load some supplies into Chekhov's car. She gives Rick a watch that Ed had given her on their first anniversary. As she is a murderer who has been persuaded into exile by our protagonist, Carol doesn't get a Hyundai. She drives off into the sunset in a Taurus. Rick gets into his car and drives back toward the prison, looking haunted and peering back into the rearview mirror. "At least I get great gas mileage," he thinks to himself.
Are We There Yet?
Forest. Daryl, Michonne, and Bob stand on a bridge and try to plan a new approach to the veterinary college. Tyreese crouches in a creek bed, rinsing zombie gore off of his shirt and totally ignoring the other members of his group as they call for him to hurry up and join them. When Tyreese refuses to acknowledge them, Daryl and Michonne stalk forward into the trees and leave Bob to try to reason with him. Bob gently tells Tyreese that they need to keep moving. Tyreese gripes that they lost the whole night and that all of the sick people back at the prison are probably dead. Bob tries to think of a tactful way to remind Tyreese that wasting
more time isn't going help anybody, but Tyreese puts his shirt back on and joins him. While Tyreese and Bob lollygag behind them, Daryl and Michonne finish their offscreen conversation about how Tyreese is
so not coming on any more missions any time soon. Daryl stops and picks up something from the forest floor. Holding it up to the light, we see that it's a piece of jasper. Well, Michonne sees that it's a piece of jasper. I just thought it was a rock. "It's a good color," says Michonne, straight-faced. "It brings out your eyes." He looks up and she grins. I love Season 4 Michonne. Presumably because he always reacts to anything approaching flirtation by worrying about cooties, Daryl just says that a woman from the prison had asked him to keep a lookout for any jasper for her to use as a grave marker for her father. That's a mood-killer, alright. Michonne expresses surprise that gruff Daryl is on such familiar terms with the people at the prison. "You stay in one place more than a couple hours, you'd be surprised what you pick up," says Daryl loftily. He presses on ahead, and I don't blame Michonne as she rolls her eyes. Passive-aggressive Daryl is kind of entertaining. Still, Michonne looks slightly chastened as she continues after him. The foursome reaches a gas station, and they find a van that might serve their purposes. Unfortunately, the battery is dead, so they must fight their way through the branches of a fallen tree to get into the station for a replacement. They begin to hack at the limbs to try to find the door, and I yell at them for using their good zombie-killing weapons to chop wood. That's how Robb Stark ruined his sword, people! Michonne at least is being careful with her katana, but Tyreese is in a chopping frenzy. Team Badass (and Bob) tell him to take it easy, but Tyreese keeps chopping away. Naturally, his crazed hacking manages to loose a few Walkers on them. Tyreese grabs hold of one and won't let go, even as it lunges onto him. Michonne finally pries them apart, and Bob shoots it in the head with an echoey
BANG. Unnecessary shots are how they lost Hershel's farm, Bob. Try a nice quiet knife next time. "How 'bout only the two of us make the runs from now on?" Daryl asks Michonne. Not really. But he was totally thinking it. Anyway, once the zombies are dead, Daryl and Bob go into the gas station to find a car battery. They pass a huge display of AA and AAA batteries, and I really hope that somebody remembers to snag those before they leave. Daryl finds a battery for the van, and Bob finds out why there had been Walkers inside of the gas station: several people had drunk antifreeze to die together. Bob is sympathetic. Daryl is not.