This week’s The Walking Dead, by all accounts, will focus heavily on Daryl and Carol’s story. And while I hate these episodes that just focus on a few characters, if it has to be that way, I’m happy that the characters showcased are those two.

We start off the episode with a flashback; Carol driving away from Rick after he banishes her for killing Karen and David (I think those were their names). She is parked on the road, crying and wallowing in her loss. A walker comes up and, when he won’t “go away” despite her insistence, she drives away. Then we see her shack up in an attorney’s office for a night before seeing the prison fire smoke on the horizon. She hops in her car and heads that way.

When we come back from the commercial, we’re in present day and Carol and Daryl are still tailing the car that will lead them to Beth. They’re heading into a populated area when the cross car finally comes to a stop. Two people get out of the car and start walking away. Carol and Daryl are sitting silently in a car and I’m waiting for these dudes to get the jump on them; but a zombie does that instead.

The men have done something nefarious but I can’t tell what, and now they’re in the car driving away again. D and C have run out of gas so they can’t tail them anymore. So they decide to go hole up in an office somewhere? I don’t understand, take out the walkers, get some gas and continue the mission!

They’re having a monologue now, in the dark in an office or house or something. I’m not sure what it is, but there are bunk beds. Maybe a woman’s shelter? Carol tells Daryl that she doesn’t think they get to save people anymore. Daryl asks what would have happened if he hadn’t shown up when she was getting ready to sneak away. She replies, “Still don’t know.”

Now they’ve heard something in the building and are headed out to investigate. Because a moment of peace and self-reflection is not a luxury one has in zombie apocalypse. Anyway, they find the disturbance is a locked room full of zombies. No need to focus on that, so they head back to bed.

Carol wakes up to smoke outside her window, and she goes to discover that Daryl took care of all of the zombies and was disposing of them in the back yard. I guess Carol knew these women and would have found it disturbing to do it herself. Daryl really is a gentleman, you know? Also, I’m pretty sure it was a woman’s shelter she was at. Some sort of halfway house or something. It’s large and kind of sterile.

We’re back to a flashback now, but this is of Carol and Tyreese burying Lizzie and Mica. Oops, back to current day again.

Daryl wants to get to a high point to see if they can find the car since they’re in the middle of the city. This is when I wish I could send him a little gift or howler and tell him just to head for the hospital.

And, just as a sidenote, Daryl is looking particularly grimy lately. A good part of my time when I’m watching The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones consists of pondering just how terrible all of these people must smell. Reek’s got nothing on them.

Anyway, Carol and Daryl are taking walkers down working to get atop a bridge for an aerial view of their surroundings. They make quick work of the zombies on the ground only to find several all writhing and wrapped up in sleeping bags and trapped in tents. Daryl sums it up nicely with “I don’t even know what to think anymore.” But there is somebody looking at them from a across the way in a different room’s window. No good can come from this.

Now they’re in a nice, plush office waxing philosophical about how life turned out. Carol points out that Daryl still hasn’t asked what happened with the girls. Daryl says, “Yeah I know what happened, they ain’t here.” But Carol tells him that it’s worse than that.

Daryl spots something across the way and grabs the rifle to get a better view. He sees a van with the same crosses that the car had and they’ve found their mark. Now they’re checking out abstract art.

They’re crawling through the doors again and Noah, the dude that left the hospital last week, has held them up for their weapons. He unleashes the zombies on them and Daryl stops Carol from shooting the kid. Carol tells Daryl that she can’t stand for anyone she loves to die again. Daryl tells her that he was just a kid and they’ll get more weapons. So Daryl and Carol have essentially switched roles at this point in the game. Carol has the no-nonsense, “will do absolutely anything I can to survive” mentality, and Daryl is the morally sound, “Must retain humanity even through the darkest hours” one. It’s a bit unnerving.

They’ve gone to inspect the cross van now and see that is hanging off some sort of viaduct or overpass. Daryl opens it up and jumps inside to look for clues, while a herd of hungry zombies swiftly approaches. For some idiotic reason, they think they can fight their way out of this herd, but instead find themselves trapped, forcing them to jump back in the van. They sit in the front seat and strap in, weighting the van down so that it flips over the bridge, and landing with them having nothing but a few cuts and bruises. Then it starts raining zombies. Then they limp off into the sunset together.

Carol is worse off than Daryl and I think she’s actually even worse off that she’s letting him see. She looks to be in a good amount of pain and isn’t really moving right. Carol sees something in the window and now they’re going to do a stakeout with some vending machine lunch.

They’re waxing philosophical again, and Daryl asks Carol what she meant when she said he wasn’t like he was before. She tells him that it was like he was a kid then, and now he’s a man. He says, “What about you.” She talks about staying at that shelter for a day and a half before flying back to Ed and the abuse with Sophia. Once the zombie apocalypse happened, that Carol got burned away. The Carol and the prison was who she felt like she was always meant to be; but then she also got burned away. This life “consumes you.” Daryl reassures her that they’re not ashes before hearing something and going to find it.

They find a walker stuck to a wall with one of Daryl’s arrows and they hear gun fire. Carol goes to find a skirmish in the hallway and Noah pushes a walker toward her. Daryl kills the walker and goes after Noah. Daryl knocks a bookcase over on him, and when Noah begs for help, Daryl tells him that he already helped him once, and he won’t help him again. Carol begs Daryl to help him and he says no, before coming back and killing the walker attacking him.

Flashback to when Carol dressed in her own version of Gaga’s meat suit and went to save her friends at Terminus. She’s cleaning herself up in the the woods, and then oh back to current day.

They’re working to get Noah out from under the bookcase and, once he’s free, he rushes to the window to see if “they’re” coming. D and C realize that he knows Beth and they’re heading to go save her and to get away from whoever “they” are.

Carol runs out into the street first and gets hit by a car. Daryl wants to run after her, because whoever hit her is not putting her on a gurney, but Noah talks him into not doing it so that Carol will get the medical treatment she needs. He tells Daryl that there is no way they can get past them right now, because they’ve got guns and people. Daryl replies only with “so do we.” So now they’re headed back to the group to get reinforcements. And that takes us back to Rick and company (minus Maggie and Glenn and all of them) to get a good contingency to go and get Carol and Beth (per next week’s previews).

Okay, so I give this episode a B. Like I said, I’m always inclined to like anything happening with Daryl and Carol. There was some decent action and Carol’s backstory was a welcomed delight. Daryl, as always, was perfection from start-to-finish. But damn, I wish these folks could just get themselves a nice, hot, relaxing, luxurious bath.

Stick with me Deadheads, as I continue to recap the rest of this whirling season!

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