March 3, 2014

(Spoilers Below)

Last week's episode "Claimed," ended with Michonne, Rick and Carl walking down the same railroad tracks that Tyreese, baby Judith, Carol, Lizzie and Mika did in episode 10, which is supposed to lead to sanctuary known as Terminus.

This episode shows the type of life two people would have without the protection of four walls and a much larger group of survivors banding together. It's going from place to place, scavenging what you can, being chased by zombies and getting enough food and rest to make it through one more day of the same.

The title of this episode could also be called 'Secrets," because Daryl and Beth share some deep-seated and intimate feelings and secrets about themselves that they've never told anyone before. Others have asked Daryl what he did before the turn occurred and he never said a word. Well, he reveals that he was nothing more than a lackey to his a**hole brother. And Beth admits to living in a fantasy world in which her father would grow old, happy and Maggie and Glenn would have kids. In their own way, they are two peas in a pod.

The episode begins with Beth and Daryl running out of the forest and finding a car on the side of the road. Beth tries to start it up, but no such luck. They quickly stash themselves inside the trunk of the four door sedan. Immediately, they hear a swarm of zombies swirl around them; they must have been on their trail for a while before. Beth and Daryl lay hidden, but peer through the truck to observe. They stay that way all night until daybreak . Finally, when the coast is clear, they get out, stretch their tired bodies and scavenge what they can from the busted up car and head on down the road. Their lives are as mangled as the abandoned car they just left.

Roll Credits.

A Quest For Booze

Beth sets up a camp using the hub caps, broken side mirrors and glass they got from the car as Daryl hunts for food. He misses a squirrel with an arrow, but is able to catch a nice, big juicy snake. Yummy.

Beth is restless and tells Daryl that she longs for a real drink of alcohol since she never had it before because of her father's views on the subject and asks Daryl to help her find some. He's too busy chowing down on his snake jerky so she gets annoyed and leaves without him and quickly runs into some zombie stragglers. She hides behind a tree and then throws a rock away from her which attracts them to the opposite direction. She turns around to see Daryl lurking right behind her. She's pissed that he's been horrible company to her after they escaped the prison meltdown and refuses to stay in the camp any longer, eating mud snakes and instead continues on her quest for some hootch.

"I can take care of myself."

She's sounding an awful lot like Carl at this point, but in reality it's her way to flirt with him and also try to get him to open up about his feelings.

Daryl decides to leave with her and as they come out of the forest, they end up on a golf course called Pine Vista.

Golfers like to booze it up, right?

As they reach the door of the club, there are about twelve walkers slowly following them. They find an open door and enter. They find the floor littered with dead bodies and also see three zombies hanging from the ceiling in nooses. There's plenty of supplies strewn around the place, but Daryl starts looting jewelry and loads of cash for some reason. Walkers start pounding on the door so they retreat farther back into the club. Beth is attacked by a big zombie hidden in the shadows and fights for her life, barely escaping the diseased teeth long enough to stick her long blade into its skull.

"Thanks for the help," she tells Daryl.

"You said you can take care of yourself and you did," he replies.

They find the gift shop and Beth puts on a nice, clean golf shirt. Getting clean clothes is a bonus in these dark times. Zombies finally bust in and Daryl gets out some of his pent-up rage by going ape sh*t on them with a golf club. Unfortunately, his zealous work gets brain matter splashed all over Beth's new shirt.

She takes it off and walks away, when she finally finds the bar. Eureka! This is clearly an effort on her part to feel like a grown woman, make a clean break from her life before the prison assault as she mourns her father's death. Looking behind the bar, the only thing left to drink is some peach schnaps

She looks at the bottle and begins to weep. Daryl grabs the bottle and throws it on the floor.

Ain't gonna have your first drink be no damn peach schnaps.

Daryl takes her to a house that he had found once with Michonne and that has a stash of moonshine just waiting for them. He pours some in a glass for her and says, "That's a real first drink right there."

She hesitates and he asks, "What's the matter?" "My dad used to say that bad moonshine can make you go blind." "There ain't nothing worth seeing out there anymore anyway." She takes a sip.

"That's the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted." She takes another sip.

She smiles, "The second round is better." She wants him to take a drink with her, but he refuses. "What, you're my chaperone now, Mr. Dixon?"

He starts fixing up the house and tells her this place is just like his own home, a place for drinking, spitting out tobacco and internet porn. It's his old life revisited. He finally joins her in a drink.

"Home sweet home."

Beth starts up a drinking game. A person will say something they've never done before and if you've done it then you take a drink and then they switch. She learned it from her friends. She starts off saying that she never fired a cross bow and since Daryl has, he takes a sip. As they start playing, more questions are asked and Daryl gets aggravated because it brings up all the things he's never done in his life. So he gets up and takes a piss in the room. He's not a nice drunk.

When he finishes, he starts yelling out things he's never done before to antagonize Beth. There's a zombie outside and Daryl grabs her by the arm and says he'll teach her how to shoot a crossbow. She's yelling at him to stop, but he shoots an arrow into the zombie so it's stuck to a pole and then shoots again, missing its head. He tries to force the crossbow on her, but she's yelling to just kill it already. When he goes to take the arrows out to shoot it some more, she takes her blade and kills its brain.

"You are being a jackass. Killing them is not supposed to be fun."

"What do you want from me, girl?"

"I want you to stop acting like you don't give a crap about anything. Like nothing we went through matters. Like none of the people we lost meant anything to you. It's bullshit."

"Is that what you think?"

"That's what I know."

"You don't know nothing."

"I know you look at me and see another dead girl...I'm not Michonne...I survived. And you don't get to treat me like crap just because you're afraid."

Daryl finally opens up to her and blames himself for what the Governor did to their home and their family and he tells her they are all dead and she's never going to see any of them again.

"The Governor rode right up to our gates."

He breaks down crying, finally letting the grief out that he's been stuffing down since they escaped. She grabs him from behind and holds on tight to comfort him.

It's night and they are sitting outside talking. Beth admits that she understands why alcohol is dangerous because she loves the way she feels right now. "You're a happy drunk." Daryl tells her he becomes an ass when he drinks and tells her a story about how he almost got killed over a talking dog cartoon with his brother and a tweaker. Then he finally answers her question about what he was doing before the turn. He was just following Merle around and doing nothing at all.

"Some redneck asshole with a bigger asshole for a brother."

She talks about how much she misses her brother and Maggie and Hershel. She then reveals to Daryl how she had this fantasy life mapped out. Maggie and Glenn would have a baby and her father would grow old and they'd celebrate holidays and everything would be alright.

"That's how unbelievably stupid I am."

She takes another drink. Then she says how he was born to live in the zombie apocalypse.

"I'll be gone someday."

"Stop."

"I will. You're gonna be the last man standing. You are. You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon."

"You ain't a happy drunk at all."

"Yeah, I'm happy. I'm just not blind."

She tells him to stay the man he is now and not the man he was.

"We should go inside."

"We should burn it down..ha."

"We're gonna need more booze."

The house symbolizes Daryl's old life and by burning it down, they are destroying the old, wasted Daryl forever. They grab bottles of moonshine and coat the house with it. He asks her to do the honors, so she lights up a thick pack of bills that Daryl took from the golf club and he chucks it into the house, setting it ablaze. They look back at it and she gives it the middle finger. Daryl does too.

Goodbye old Daryl, forever and goodbye to old Beth as well. What will they be reborn into?

  • Beth never gave herself credit for surviving this long after the turn, but now realizes that there's something more to her than she realizes and she's willing to do whatever she has to to survive. She's not the girl singing songs to entertain or watching the baby while the others do important work.
  • Taking that first drink for her was sort of like having sex for the first time.
  • I agree with Daryl, peach schnapps is not a good first drink to ever have.
  • Those who are closest to a young person as they grow up are often the last to know when somebody has matured into an adult and I think Daryl now knows she is a woman.
  • Will they start a relationship? I hope so.
  • Even though the episode only contained two characters with minimal plot development, it kept my attention throughout and I really enjoyed it.

Grade: B+

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