While it’s not safe in the outside world, it’s not safe in the prison either. Hence two road trips currently underway amid the walkers.

What They Say:
Indifference – The supply mission faces hurdles; the situation at the prison worsens.

Content:
The Walking Dead has taken a slow but steady approach so far this season, punctuated with some solid aciton moments and some intense character moments. There’s been a lot going on with the characters since the end of the third season and having some of that realized in small ways spread over the first few episodes worked very well. While we had the obvious with Rick and what he was going through, and how Carl was coping with it, you also had the strong transformation that Carol has brought into play with how she’s doing what she sees needing being done. A lot of her role has been great to watch after how the character was shortchanged in so many ways over the first three seasons, especially since she’s going through the route that many of them had in how they become cold and hard while still holding that bit of humanity to them to do what’s right.

Carol has gone through a lot since we first met her way back in the first season and she makes it clear how changes are and what she’s gone through early on here. Her dialogue with Lizzie is pretty good as we again see how the kids are growing up to do what needs to be done, even while showing some of the concerns and fears that come into play. Carol’s an easier one for them to talk to in some ways because she’s not trying to treat them as just children but rather survivors who need training to keep on surviving. It’s an interesting comparison to see how things are with the group that’s out in the wilds where Tyreese is really just feeling more and more lost with what’s going on. With their having lost so much time due to the herd attack, he doesn’t think there’s any real value in going on, though he will, since everything must have gone very wrong by now.

With so much of the last season spread between the prison and Woodbury, it’s pretty nice to be out and about more this season. Carol and Rick are on their quick resupply attempt since a lot of food was lost in the A Block carnage and the lengthy trip that Darryl and the others were on was going to take time no matter what and is now only going to take longer. Their journey is taking its obvious dangerous turns since there are still plenty of walkers out there and they’ve managed to “survive” in a variety of trapped places. As time goes on, we see less and less random walkers out there as they seem to congregate to the herds themselves or we get the ones that are jus stuck in areas they can’t get out of for a variety of reasons. It does make for some good tense bits since they tend to show up when you sort of least expect them in order to provide the surprises.

The show works the two types of foraging going on pretty well as we get to see Rick and Carol come across a pair of survivors who had lost way with their own crew some time back and are just doing what they can to survive. There’s questions raised about bringing them back since the prison is in the throes of a flu problem that can kill pretty badly. They add some potential to things, and are unlike other characters we’ve seen so far in personality, but the core of the foraging for Rick and Carol is all about talking about what’s going on, trying to get to some acceptance point of it and more about their pasts than we thought we’d get for someone like Carol. Rick manages to wax about the past a bit as well that also helps since it touches on events with Lori and Carl, but we also have a rare but important Shane reference as well.

We get some of that as well with Darryl and his group as he has some good material with Bob that helps to shake Bob’s views of things just enough that he might really be a better part of things as it goes on. Tyreese is still a problem thougrh since he doesn’t know what it is that he wants out of anything anymore, but it plays well with Michonne’s own issues in that her anger is gone but she’s sitll intent on finding the Governor and taking him down simply because it must be done. It’s not anger that’s driving her, but she can’t say what it is that’s driving her. With this group, we get a bit more walker action simply because they hit the veterinary college and there’s obviously going to be a few there to deal with and that adds some decent tension to things as the four of them have to try and work well in a tight and pretty frightening situation.

In Summary:
The Walking Dead has a pretty good balance of action and character material here that keeps things movings and explores characters that we’ve known for some time and their issues. Issues that had been on the quiet side for a bit but are definitely still pivotal to who they are. The two main stories going on here with the two teams as they do what they do certainly hits the right notes as there’s progress made through both of them and we get to see the way the impact is made in terms of characters with the reveals and some actual growth as well. There’s some good changes that come into it that leaves you wondering where it will go next, especially when it comes to Rick and Carol, but there’s a lot to like here overall.

Grade: B+