The Walking Dead Review: “Internment”

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If you needed further evidence that The Walking Dead has reached a new quality threshold with Scott Gimple as showrunner, look no further than last night’s “Internment.” Somehow, he’s managed to take a simple infection, and turn it into the most harrowing foe to ever appear on the show, and he’s done so incredibly effectively.

Things reach a critical mass at the prison as Herschel tries to stave off the infection while Maggie secures the fences from the walker hordes. Rick returns and has only a few minutes to tell people about Carol’s treachery before everything goes to hell.

This episode was nearly entirely about  Herschel and the lengths he would go to not only to care for even the sickest in the prison, but also shield the others from despair lest they succumb to their own misfortunes that much more quickly. The episode was SO focused on him, about twenty minutes in I started to get quite sad, realizing that this was probably all leading up to him dying, like what happened when Merle went to take on the Governor singlehandedly.

The second half of this episode is probably as intense as this show has ever gotten, with walkers bringing the fence down and the infected all starting to turn in the cell block. Both are handled with extreme badassery, fortunately enough.

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In terms of fantastic moments, you don’t get much better than Rick and Carl tag-teaming a zombie horde with M4s, tossing each other magazines like they’re in a John Woo movie. The look on Rick’s face when he watches Carl march toward the walkers with his rifle and realizing that he’s fully a man now was one of the best moments of the entire series.

Herschel, meanwhile, is forced to deal with his little intensive care unit turning into a hellhole. He manages not only to keep the sick alive, including Glen and Sasha, but fight off the turned walkers AND do so while shielding the children from the horror of watching their friends and parents be slaughtered. He’s an old man! With one leg! Carl and Rick’s machine gunning aside, I think Herschel takes the badass crown for the evening.

I know this is still early in the season, but this episode was SO intense, it almost seemed like cheating to not have ANY major character die. That would have been a perfect way for Herschel to go out, but I like him too much to say that he should have definitely been sacrificed just because it would have been a salient plot point.

In the end, the medicine arrives just in time to save everyone who wasn’t from Woodbury, Glen and Sasha included. I was wondering how exactly they repaired the destroyed fence, which they didn’t show, and it’s becoming pretty clear the prison is no longer secure, even if the disease has passed.

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Lingering questions remain now. How many Woodbury folks are even left now? I feel like nearly all of them have been fed to the woodchipper at this point. How will Daryl and Tyreese react to Carol’s excommunication? What is the deal with that creepy ass little girl?

And of course, what’s the Governor doing back?

I wasn’t terribly impressed with the way they decided to have him show up again, with just a glimpse of him lurking outside the prison. They’ve been building up his return for a long, long time now, and I think they could have sprung him on us a different way without broadcasting his return in a cliffhanger like that. But hey, this season’s doing incredibly well so far, so I can’t complain too much.

The Walking Dead has come a long way from the show that used to be the most mockable thing airing on TV every week. Sure, there are always nitpicks, but overall, much of the stupidity has been stamped out of the show because of Gimple, who has been responsible for some of the most worthwhile episodes of past seasons. He’s kept the prison exciting, despite keeping everyone more or less locked in a central location. He’s kept the characters interesting, without making us hate anyone  for being idiotic or annoying. More importantly, characters have shown real growth. Carl isn’t the dumb kid who wanders off anymore. Herschel isn’t the moron who thinks he can save the souls of walkers. Michonne has more than one facial expression!

Despite lacking big deaths, season four is probably the best start to a season the show has had so far, and I’m glad I can look forward to it every Sunday. That didn’t always used to be the case.

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3 Comments

  1. Does anyone else think it was the blonde girl who was feeding the Walkers outside the fence from a few episodes back? She just gives off this clueless vibe of morbid curiosity mixed with childish fantasy that’s almost as bad as ricks delusions after Lori died…I’m still not sure about the Guv coming back. I really wish they had just killed him off. On the flipside I really want to read the spinoff novel they published recently…I hope Carol is the one who gets the spinoff series…

  2. I’m enjoying this season of Walking dead, but I don’t like how they’re throwing the Woodbury folk to the meat grinder, you’d figure a few of them would come to the fore front and show a stronger presence and eventually earn a place amongst the “regular cast”.

    I guess for now Herschel is the cross bearer of the group. Carol has slipped and Rick isn’t quite ready, as shown when he lost control on Tyreese, although i’ll give it that Rick is a lot better then on season 3.

    However the way Rick handled Carol I was not quite sure about, granted I think on some level he might have thought we was doing her a favour as he said “Tyreese will kill you”. But she’s a founding member of their group and they’re like family, so it just seems like Rick should have consulted the others first. I know he’s their leader and as such at least feels he has the right to make such decisions and even Maggie said he did the right thing. But still I know I would be pissed if I was told one of my own was banished and I didn’t have the chance to look then in the face that final time as assess the guilt myself.

    Also I didn’t care much for the governor’s return.. When they first introduced him last season I liked him, he had presence and charisma. I could see why they accepted him as leader but there was a point in the season when he just stopped making sense to me.. Don’t ask when exactly that point was, but I lost interest in him as a character, on a show that prides itself on its shades of grey I guess he just became too one-dimensional.

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