Pretty Much Dead Already
Directed by Michelle MacLaren
The episode begins with Rick's group eating breakfast. Glenn is still clearly conflicted over what he saw in the barn, and looks at Maggie shaking her head at him and Dale nodding to tell everyone. He suddenly stands up and reveals to the group that there are walkers in the barn, to their shock and horror.
The group goes over to the barn and peers inside, and Shane tells everyone that they need to get ready to leave for Fort Benning. When Carol tries to interject that they still haven't found Sophia, Shane says that the girl is most likely dead, even though Daryl tries to counter otherwise. Rick decides to go talk to Hershel, but Dale warns him that the elder Greene still sees the walkers as sick people instead of being undead.
Glenn goes to Maggie to make amends for telling the group, but she responds by smashing an egg in his hat and storming off, while nearby, Carl and Lori reaffirm that they won't leave until they find Sophia. Elsewhere, Carol confronts Daryl in the stables, where he's planning to saddle another horse and go searching again for Sophia, and tells him he's in no condition to leave. Daryl is angered and storms out on her.
At the RV, Dale is trying to warn Andrea about Shane's potentially-reckless behaviour, but she doesn't want to listen, and goes off to find Rick so they can search again for Sophia. After she leaves, Dale gathers up all the group's firearms.
Rick finds Hershel having lunch, and says that he knows about what's in the barn. Though Hershel demands that they leave, Rick brings up the first walker he ever encountered, and says that the farm is the only safe refuge. He concludes by saying that they need to stay because Lori is pregnant before leaving. Hershel sits in stunned silence. Rick goes to Shane and tells him about Lori's pregnancy.
Hershel and Maggie sit together and try to figure out what they should do. He tries to justify getting rid of the group, but Maggie counters with a passage from the Bible, indicating that her feelings for Glenn are genuine and that he saved her life. Jimmy comes in to tell them that they've found two more walkers in a nearby swamp, and Hershel elects to have Rick help him earn the group's keep by assisting in their capture.
Shane goes to Lori and confronts her about keeping her pregnancy a secret from him, saying that he thinks the child is his. He then indicates that he wishes Rick hadn't come out of his coma, and that he doesn't think the latter could survive in their world. Lori only looks on silently as Shane storms off, and is briefly stopped by Carl before Lori tells him to get away from Shane. Going to the RV, Shane looks for the guns and can't find them. Assuming that Dale has taken them, Shane goes off looking for him.
At the swamp, Hershel lectures Rick on how he first came to corral walkers into the barn, via hinting that his neighbours were bit and reanimated. He then explains that Otis would put the captured walkers into the barn, and says that if Rick and his group want to stay, they'll have to stop killing walkers and leave the barn alone.
Back at the farm, Glenn catches up to Maggie and apologizes for having to tell the group about the barn, but reasons that he needed to do it because he forgot how dangerous walkers were, and would rather have her be angry at him as long as she's safe. Maggie accepts his apology, and they kiss.
Shane catches up to Dale, and discovers that he was planning to hide the group's guns in the swamp. When Dale asks if Shane is going to kill him just like he killed Otis, Shane responds that he's not worth it. Dale returns the bag of guns after threatening to shoot him, but counters that he won't let Shane's actions bring him down as well.
As he returns to the farm, Shane begins handing out guns to the rest of the group in preparation for killing the barn walkers. As he's discussing how to enact their plan, he is incensed when he sees Rick, Hershel and Jimmy walking back with the captured walkers from the swamp. Shane angrily asks why Hershel thinks they're still alive, and proves his point by shooting the walkers in key areas to demonstrate that they're undead. He then rails at the group for wasting time on things like searching for Sophia, then opens the barn doors himself.
As walkers begin to pour out of the barn, Shane, Daryl, Andrea and T-Dog take up positions and begin shooting them down, while Glenn asks for a tearful Maggie's permission before going to help his friends. Rick tells Lori and Carl to stay back, and stares in shock as all of the barn walkers, including members of Hershel's family, are coldly put down by the group. As they finish, Dale returns from the swamp and stares in shock at what's happened.
Shane stares at Rick, believing his point has been made, but the group is shocked once again when a final walker emerges from the barn — Sophia, who had been bit and turned into a walker. As she shambles out and steps over the other walkers, Shane and the others can't bring themselves to raise their weapon and fire, while Carol tries to run at her daughter before being held back by Daryl.
Rick looks up and realizes that only one thing can be done, and determinedly walks forward. As he passes the shocked Shane, he pulls out his gun and aims it at Sophia's head. Just as she approaches him, he fires a single round and puts her down for good, then stares in shock as the group stands together, unsure of what to do...
Tropes:
- All There in the Manual: According to the Talking Dead aftershow, Otis was the one who found the undead Sophia during the events of the season premiere and placed her in the barn, meaning the group's search for her over the past half-season was All for Nothing.
- And Then Sophia Was A Walker: Seen during the climactic shootout at the end of the episode.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Subverted. Shane is more than happy to open fire on the rest of the walkers, but when Sophia emerges from the barn he is unable to pull the trigger and it is left to Rick to do what needs to be done.
- Big Damn Kiss: Between Maggie and Glenn when they make up after their argument.
- Blood Knight: Shane seems to enjoy gunning down the walkers just a little too much.
- Boom, Headshot! / Mercy Kill: How Rick deals with Sophia.
- The Bus Came Back / Bus Crash: An odd combination of the two. Sophia returns after being absent since the season opener (save for one brief appearance in a flashback), but she's considerably more dead than the last time we saw her.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Maggie issues one to Hershel when she overhears him telling Rick that he wants the survivors off the farm, pointing out that it goes against the Christian values he used to preach to her.
- Continuity Nod: Daryl and Carol look at a Cherokee rose, the same flower that Daryl gave to her in the episode of the same name.
- Cute Monster Girl: Sophia is noticeably less decomposed than most of the other walkers, and would look almost normal if not for her pale skintone and the bitemark on her shoulder.
- Death Glare: Maggie is seen giving one to Glenn when he goes against her wishes in telling the others about the walkers in the barn.
- Death of a Child: Children aren't exactly safe in the aftermath of the zombie outbreak.
- Despair Event Horizon: Hershel passes it on watching Shane and the others massacre the walkers - which he believes to still be alive and includes member of his family - followed shortly by Carol when Sophia emerges from the barn.
- The Determinator: Daryl wants to go out looking for Sophia again despite not being recovered from his injuries.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Daryl verbally lashes out at Carol when she expresses concern over his wellbeing, clearly having no idea how to take it.
- Foreshadowing: When Shane confronts Dale in the woods, he says that there is no point in killing Dale as he is pretty much dead already, and Dale admits that he probably doesn't have what it takes to survive for long. He dies four episodes later.
- Guile Hero: Dale tricks Glenn into leaving his post on watch so that he can sneak away and hide the guns in the hopes of avoiding a confrontation.
- Headbutting Heroes: Rick and Shane continue to clash over the search for Sophia, as well as how to handle the walkers in the barn.
- Hollywood Healing: Once again averted with Daryl, who continues to walk with a limp and is otherwise noticeably still affected by his injuries, at one point doubling over in pain and clutching his side when he throws something in a fit of temper.
- The Idealist: When Carol asks Daryl why he's become so invested in finding Sophia, he responds simply, "Because I believe she's still out there."
- Improbable Aiming Skills: It's been fairly well established that Shane, Daryl and Andrea all have impressive aim, but there's also Glenn and T-Dog executing several headshots despite the fact that neither of them has much experience with guns.
- Insistent Terminology: Hershel insists on calling the walkers by their names as he believes them to be just sick people.
- Irony: Five episodes earlier, in "Bloodletting", Carol told Andrea that she hoped if the worst came to pass, that Sophia would not be found like Amy — bitten and reanimated. This is Sophia's ultimate fate, and even worse, Sophia was bit on the neck, just like Amy.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Shane might have gone about it in the most obnoxious way possible, but taking care of the walkers in the barn is something that needed to be done.
- He also points out that the group has spent considerable resources, and nearly risked several of their own lives, searching for a girl who is most likely dead. Given what happens immediately after this, and Sophia`s reveal, he turns out to have been correct in his assessment.
- Jump Scare: When Shane decides to check out the barn to check out the walkers, one of them gives him a Death Glare.
- Kill the Cutie / Killed Off for Real: Sophia did not survive.
- Midseason Twist: Sophia is a zombie and has been in the Greene family barn all along.
- Relationship Upgrade: Maggie and Glenn progress to Official Couple status once they put aside their differences.
- Shout-Out:
- Shane demonstrating that the walkers are, in fact, actually dead by shooting them in the chest repeatedly, is almost identical to Barbara doing the same thing in the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead (1990).
- Glenn also makes a reference to the video game Portal, as he recalls the situation dealing with the "well walker" in the previous episode.
- Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Rick and Daryl find out the hard way that their optimism regarding Sophia's fate was misplaced.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Between Maggie and Glenn.
- Title Drop: Courtesy of Shane.Shane: Hell, man, if you think about it in the cold light of day, you are pretty much dead already.
- Undead Child: Sophia's true fate.
- Wham Episode: Like "Vatos" in the first season, the events of this episode change the tone of the show completely, via The Reveal that the group's search for Sophia was all for naught, the deepening divide between Rick and Shane's methods, and Carol's Despair Event Horizon upon seeing her undead daughter.
- Wham Shot: The last walker that comes out of the barn is Sophia, causing the group to reel in shock.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The Hershel family horse, Nelly, is nowhere to be seen after this episode, being last glimpsed as Daryl preps it when he plans to go searching for Sophia. It's possible that the horse may have been startled and ran when the group opened fire at the barn, but it's never confirmed either way.
- Who's Your Daddy?: Shane confronts Lori about her pregnancy and insists the baby must be his, but she is adamant that it's Rick's.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Shane pulls this on Dale when he catches the latter trying to hide the guns. Turns out he was right.
- Zombie Advocate: Hershel believes the walkers are just sick people, rounding up the ones that stray onto the farm to put into the barn and telling Rick that he will only allow the survivors to stay if they stop killing them. Shane proves him wrong by shooting a captive walker in several vital areas, asking why it's still going when a human would be dead.
