‘The Walking Dead’ Season 4 ‘Us’ Recap: Claimed

The road to Terminus finally brings the survivors back together slowly but surely as Daryl finds new friends, and Glenn finally finds the solace he’s been searching for ever since the prison went up in flames…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

It’s been a long time coming — too long according to many — but the survivors once held together by prison walls, now separated after the vengeance of The Governor came to fruition, are finally being reunited one group at a time.

The second half of season 4 of The Walking Dead has really felt like individually packed episodes, each focusing on the development of an set of characters that never had any real fleshing out during the rapid pace the show kept while securing better places to live, harvesting food, and just finding safety in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. Still, the snail’s pace the series has taken in these last few episodes has gone from an undead walk to a corpse like crawl with a couple of notable exceptions along the way.

With the minutes counting down until next week’s finale, the puzzle pieces are starting to fall in to place and the band is about to get back together, but the hope and joy felt in this week’s episode of The Walking Dead titled ‘Us’ will likely be met with gunshot wounds, severed heads and someone shuffling off this mortal coil before the final screen goes black and we wait seven months for the show to return. We now know everybody is heading towards Terminus, so assuming they get there that will be the destination point, but something tells me there’s more to this safe haven than meets the eye. Some very bad people are headed there as well, but maybe the evil that’s already rooted in Terminus is far worse. The Governor was certainly of that particular ilk, so who’s to say these people won’t be another slightly altered version of the same kind of tyrannical rule?

Only one way to find out…

Claimed

Daryl is still on the road with Joe and his happy band of psychopaths, although he’s trying at every turn to find a way to escape them, but as Joe points out so astutely — being out here alone just doesn’t end well. The pack mentality of this group is such that there are certain rules that everyone must abide to so anarchy doesn’t break out at any moment. The biggest law of the land is the word claimed. Basically if you see something you want, yell claimed and it’s yours. It’s basically an apocalyptic survivalist version of ‘dibs’ or ‘shotgun’ if we were trying to get the front seat.

Daryl finds out quickly while shooting down a rabbit for some morning grub what happens when you don’t yell claimed. He gets into a beef with another camp member named Len, who has to begin to explain the rules to him before Joe finishes explaining how things work. Instead of ‘teaching’ Daryl a lesson, he cuts the rabbit in half giving part to him and part to Len. As Daryl slowly starts to adapt to this new group, he finds out how harsh things can get when somebody breaks the rules. Len tries to frame Daryl for stealing his half of the rabbit, but Joe was wise to it the whole time and when he lies about the set up, the group beats him down and eventually kills him. Daryl’s still uneasy about this new alliance, but Joe has taken an interest in him for some reason. Maybe Daryl sees in Joe what he used to see in Merle. For as tough as Daryl appears to be on the outside — motorcycle vest, crossbow wielding hunter — really he still yearns to just be the little brother. Joe’s giving him the family he needed ever since Merle died, and it’s the kind of person that Rick could never be.

Finally, Daryl figures out the path that the group is set out to find — they are looking for Terminus to find the lowdown dirty murderer who was hiding out in a house they ransacked that killed one of their other members and left him to turn and attack them. In case you need a reminder, in other words, they are looking for Rick.

Balancing Act

We do get a brief shot of Rick, Michonne and Car walking on the train tracks to Terminus and apparently they are ahead of everyone right now. Carl and Michonne are BFF’s these days, betting on who can balance on the train tracks longer and the loser has to give up his or her’s candy bars. Rick is smiling and laughing the whole way, so tragedy is sure to strike them at any moment. The wrapper they leave behind is the indication that they are ahead of the pack because as Daryl’s group walks along they step right over it when revealing their plan to find the culprit who killed their comrade.

The Tunnel of Love

Glenn is treading a nonstop path to find Maggie, and just when it looks like another day has gone by without his loving wife, he stumbles upon a sign giving him the hope he’s so desperately needed. Yep, Glenn sees one of the messages Maggie left for him, so obviously she’s also ahead of the group. This little bit of hope puts Glenn over the moon so he goes on a Forrest Gump like trot over the tracks to find Maggie. Along the way, Tara injures her foot, prompting the entire group to insist on taking a break. Abraham’s mission only involves protecting Eugene, the world’s future savoir, and Glenn’s only goal is to find Maggie.

So why is Tara so faithfully following along like a loyal puppy dog?

She’s still riddled with guilt over the actions of the man she once knew as Brian aka The Governor, and deep down Tara believes she’s responsible for separating Glenn and Maggie as well as dispersing the prison survivors like a mound of roaches when the lights come on. Glenn doesn’t see her blind loyalty even in the face of danger, but everyone else certainly does, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to be deterred from finding his woman. The two groups finally decide to go their separate ways when they come to a train tunnel teeming with walkers all moaning and groaning waiting for a snack to arrive. Abraham can’t ensure Eugene’s safety in the tunnel and he knows Glenn and Tara won’t stop until they go through it.

Abraham, Eugene and Rosita find a minivan and start driving towards Washington DC while Glenn and Tara begin the deadly path through the tunnel.

Reunited and It Feels So Good

Inside the tunnel, Glenn finds out why the walkers were making so much noise but not running towards the light or the noise they made when they first walked in. There was a cave in that trapped all of the walkers under a mountain of bricks and dirt, but behind the pile of debris stood an actual wall of the undead all chomping at the bit to get some human dinner. So Glenn turns around and goes back to safety, right? No of course he doesn’t! He tries to mow through the walkers when Tara’s leg gets trapped and she begs him to leave her. Given the multitude of bad decisions Glenn’s already made, I’m shocked he doesn’t just peace out and leave her there, but luckily he decides to save Tara. Before he gets the chance, a voice yells out for him to get down, and as gunfire rings out to kill all the walkers, Glenn finally sets eyes on what he’s been longing to see for days now.

Maggie is standing there waiting to embrace him and the two are finally reunited. Turns out, Maggie, Sasha and Bob ran into Abraham, Eugene and Rosita and came into the tunnels to look for them. The group decides as a whole to venture to Terminus because even if the long term plan takes them to Washington DC, right now they need food, shelter and somewhere to get out of the storm and that sounds like the best idea possible given their current choices.

The Gates to Terminus

The road finally ends with the larger group landing at the front door step of Terminus. When they arrive, the gates are not locked, only a few signs dabbled on the outer doors instructing those who made it safely to lower your weapons and come inside. The walls in the ‘town’ are painted with fresh food planted in dirt rows adorning the walkways and at the end of the row a giant barbecue with a fire burning bright stands just in front of them. The lone soul there to greet them turns and introduces herself as Mary as she offers them a warm welcome to Terminus.

Review:

Overall the best episode of the second half of the season for the exact reasons I laid out in previous recaps — The Walking Dead works best when it acts as a group, even when they aren’t united. I feel like once this season is over, and we all sit back and binge watch all 16 episodes, those in the middle of this second half where we solely focus on certain characters will begin to make sense and look like chapters in a book instead of individual stories. Week to week, they have been distractions from the larger story, but when put together I believe it will all work as a grander piece of art.

Daryl is finding a home with a group, that we now know is on a hunt to track down and kill Rick, unbeknownst to him of course. The problem is Daryl is starting to discover a set of people, who are maybe even a better fit for him, than the people that had him opening gates and playing council. Rick, Michonne and Carl most certainly walked into Terminus first, but how are they now? And as Glenn, Maggie, Abraham, Bob, Sasha, Rosita, Eugene and Tara all walk into this savior town dressed up as pretty as a sunflower, something tells me there’s rot hiding underneath. We can’t forget that somewhere out there Carol and Tyreese should be plotting a course to Terminus as well. And we’ve yet to find out where Beth was taken to a couple of episodes back.

Music:

For those curious in the track that closed out the episode the song is called “Be Not So Fearful” by AC Newman — the track will be released along with four others in a Walking Dead soundtrack landing on iTunes this Tuesday

Next week will mark the season 4 finale of The Walking Dead so come back then for our recap and review of the entire year.