Nebraska
Directed by Clark Johnson
In the wake of Sophia's death, Rick and the rest of the Atlanta group stand around, unsure of what to do.
Finally snapping out of her shock after seeing members of her family gunned down, Beth runs over to the corpse of her mother, Annette, to grieve and hold her body, but is surprised when the corpse is revealed to be Not Quite Dead. The zombified Annette lunges at Beth until Andrea intercedes and drives a pitchfork through Annette's head.
A distraught Hershel walks back towards the farmhouse, while Shane trails him and pointedly asks if the the former knew that Sophia was in the barn. Hershel claims he wasn't aware of it, and suggests that Otis placed her there sometime before Rick and the others first arrived at the farm. He concludes by ordering Rick and the others to vacate the farm as soon as possible before slamming the front door behind him.
Rick and Shane begin to butt heads over the former's handling of the Hershel situation, while Carl tells his mother that Rick did the right thing in mercy-killing Sophia. A funeral service is held for Sophia as well as the deceased members of the Greene family, but Carol refuses to attend, stating that her daughter died a long time ago. Meanwhile, Beth begins to spiral into a catatonic state of shock after what happened, while Hershel begins packing up his wife's old possessions and consuming the contents of a flask of alcohol he finds amongst his possessions.
While Beth continues to spiral further and further downwards, the Atlanta group begins to get into more arguments, with Andrea, T-Dog and Dale arguing about Shane's handling of the barn situation, Maggie and Glenn growing at odds regarding the latter's decision to stay with the group, and Daryl and Carol distancing themselves from the group in despair.
Hershel is nowhere to be found when the group looks to him to help Beth, prompting Rick and Glenn to begin a search mission for him. The group believes that Hershel went to a nearby town, and as Rick and Glenn drive one of the vehicles to the town, Glenn admits that Maggie told him she loved him, and that he doesn't know how to respond.
When they arrive in the town, Rick and Glenn find Hershel at the local bar, where he has taken to drinking in response to the previous incident. A distraught Hershel admits to the pair that he knew that Annette and the other walkers in the barn were Dead All Along, but was lying to himself that they were still alive in some way. Hershel then suggests that both he and Rick are no different, as the latter's reaction to seeing Sophia leave the barn was the same as his upon seeing his own family members gunned down. After some encouraging words from Rick about how they have to hold things together for the ones they love, Hershel decides to quit drinking and pointedly sets down the glass.
Lori decides to go after Rick when he doesn't return for some time, but runs into trouble when she is distracted while reading a map and nearly runs over a walker. Swerving to avoid him, she crashes the car and is left unconscsious as the signal lights blare...
At the bar, the trio are interrupted by the arrival of two armed strangers named Dave and Tony, who barge through the front door and introduce themselves. Bewildered as to the sudden arrival of the two men, Rick asks them what they're doing in the town, and the pair reveal that they had left Philadelphia and were trying to get to Washington, but that their path was impeded on the way and they've been forced to stop. Rick notices that the men's motives appear to be inconsistent, and continues questioning them, asking about Fort Benning.
Dave and Tony admit that Fort Benning was overrun, before they start questioning the trio about their home. Rick and Hershel refuse to divulge too much information, causing the pair to become impatient and overzealous while looking for information. The situation escalates, with the pair demanding to go back with the trio and Rick refusing to divulege any more details while telling them to look elsewhere. Suddenly, Rick pulls his weapon just as Dave and Tony pulls theirs, and he guns down the duo before walking up to Tony and delivering a headshot, then pondering the situation for a moment...
Tropes
- Achilles in His Tent: Daryl begins to pull away from the group following the revelation that his search for Sophia was in vain, moving his tent away from the others and refusing to go out looking for Rick when Lori asks for his help.
- The Alcoholic: It's revealed that Hershel used to be this, although he hasn't touched a drop since the day Maggie was born. Watching his undead wife and stepson get gunned down in front of him is enough for him to fall off the wagon.
- Ambiguously Evil: Dave and Tony.
- Angst Coma: Beth lapses into one after witnessing the massacre at the barn and getting attacked by her zombified mother.
- Asshole Victim: Or victims, in Dave and Tony's case.
- Boom, Headshot!: Dave's fate, courtesy of Rick.
- Broken Bird: Carol and Beth.
- By the Hair: The undead Annette Greene grabs Beth by the hair and tries to take a bite out of her when she goes over to mourn following the shootout.
- Comatose Canary: Beth.
- Continuity Nod:
- Carol viciously rips apart a Cherokee rose in her grief.
- Dale also points out to Lori that he thinks Shane killed Otis, and advises her to be on guard if Shane does anything.
- When questioned by Dave and Tony, Rick says that he and his group are looking to move onto Fort Benning, where they originally planned to go before getting waylaid by Sophia's disappearance and Carl's shooting in "What Lies Ahead".
- Coup de Grâce: Rick shoots Tony in the gut and the shoulder before finishing him off with a headshot.
- Creepy Child: Carl is starting to veer into this territory, calmly telling his mother that Rick did the right thing in shooting Sophia and that he would have done the same.
- Deadpan Snarker: Dave, though it's a ploy to put Rick, Glenn and Hershel at ease and make them open up about the farm.
- Despair Event Horizon: Hershel, Carol and Beth all appear to have passed this.
- Drives Like Crazy: Lori crashes her car as a result of attempting to read a map while driving.
- Drop-In Character: Dave and Tony appear unannounced and unexpected to Rick, Glenn, and Hershel when they arrive at the bar.
- Due to the Dead: Played with. Sophia is given a proper burial along with Annette and Shawn Greene, but the rest of the bodies are burned.Andrea: We bury the ones we love, and burn the rest.'''
- Enemy Mine: Dave and Tony provide a common foe for Rick and Hershel to unite against. By shooting the possibly dangerous invaders who would not take no for an answer, Rick demonstrates that he is as invested in protecting the farm and the people living on it as Hershel is.
- Fat Slob: Tony.
- Faux Affably Evil: Dave appears amiable enough initially, especially in contrast with Tony, but he doesn't hesitate to draw his gun when it becomes clear that Rick and Hershel aren't going to allow him onto the farm.
- Foreshadowing:
- Dave mentions having headed towards a refugee camp near Washington, D.C.. The Alexandria Safe-Zone appears three seasons later.
- In the final shot of the episode, Rick walks up to the corpse of Tony (who has just died after being shot in the gut and the shoulder) and pointedly shoots him in the head, before staring in contemplation. This is because he is aware that corpses can reanimate after dying unless they're shot in the head, which is what Dr. Jenner indicated in the previous-season finale.
- Girlish Pigtails: Beth, which becomes a problem when walker!Annette uses them to grab hold of her.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Dave and Tony, respectively.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: Lampshaded by Dave in an attempt to win Rick's trust.Dave: There's no-one's hands clean in what's left of this world. We're all the same.
- Headbutting Heroes: Rick criticizes Shane's method of dealing with the walkers in the barn, while Shane mocks Rick for wasting so much time searching for Sophia when she was dead all along.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Glenn doesn't seem to pick up on the bad vibes Dave and Tony are giving off and treats them with much less suspicion than Rick and Hershel. Meanwhile, Dave thinks its good to brag about taking a gun from a cop. He later claims the cop was already dead, though not very convincely.
- The "I Love You" Stigma: Glenn confides in Rick that Maggie told him she loved him and he was unable to return the sentiment. Somewhat justified in that they have only known each other for a matter of weeks and Glenn had never heard it from someone other than a family member before.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Hershel breaks his 22 years of abstinence by drowning his sorrows at the local bar after the barn massacre.
- Innocuously Important Episode:
- Not only does this episode begin to set up Beth as a more-important character (after a half-season of being a glorified extra), but it gives much more information regarding the state of the world, shows the first example of Rick trending down a darker path when he shoots and kills his first human enemies in the series, but also provides the first example of Foreshadowing that a corpse will reanimate unless it's shot in the head.
- It's not entirely clear if it was intended, but Dave's discussion of Nebraska as a destination to travel to later bore itself out in the franchise with the creation of The Walking Dead: World Beyond, which takes place in Nebraska and is shown to have been thriving over the intervening years since the outbreak began.
- Improvised Weapon: Andrea uses a pitchfork to put down Annette Greene for good.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Andrea and T-Dog both agree that Shane ultimately made the right decision by killing the walkers in the barn.
- Jump Scare: When Beth is grabbed by Annette.
- Knight of Cerebus: The show was already pretty dark, but the arrival of Dave and Tony indicates a shift in the overall tone towards other survivors being the bigger threat.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In-universe, Hershel blames Rick and his group for destroying the peace at the farm.Hershel: You people are like a plague. You came here and you just destroyed it all!
- The Nicknamer: Daryl calls Lori 'Olive Oyl'.
- Not Quite Dead: The undead Annette stirs and tries to attack Beth before being dispatched by Andrea. Interestingly, in the previous episode, Daryl's seemingly-fatal shot on Annette only blew off the side of her mouth, not the top of her head, before she goes down, thus Foreshadowing what would happen in the opening.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Said by both Hershel and Dave towards Rick. Hershel believes that Rick is just as hopeless as he is despite pretending otherwise, while Dave points out that they've both had to make difficult choices in order to survive.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: Dave and Tony refer to the zombies as "lamebrains", though Dave admits that "walkers" sounds better.
- Pet the Dog: Shane helps Carol clean her wounded hands when she emerges from the forest covered in scratches.
- Playing the Heart Strings: A violin plays when Carol talks about her dead daughter, when Hershel prepares himself and when the burial happens.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Tony's casual misogyny is one of several indicators that he and Dave are not as harmless as they try to make out.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Tony asks Rick if he's "got cooze" back at the farm and mentions he "hasn't had a piece of ass in weeks", immediately outting himself as a creep.
- Rewatch Bonus: After Rick has already shot Tony twice, which had to have been fatal, he still makes a point to give him a final tap to the head. To Glenn, Hershel, and most likely the viewer, this is Rick just making absolutely sure that he's dead or perhaps even going overboard. After he reveals in the season finale that he knew all along from Dr. Jenner that everyone is infected and will reanimate if their brains haven't been destroyed, Rick's triple tap makes total sense.
- Quick Draw: Rick manages to shoot both Dave and Tony before they even have a chance to react.
- Red Shirt: Both Dave and Tony are killed in their first appearance.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Shane believes the search for Sophia is an example of this, pointing out that they wasted weeks looking for her when they all knew she was dead.
- Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Hershel admits he was a fool for believing there was a cure and that he knew he was wrong from the second he saw Shane shoot a walker in the heart and it kept on coming.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: The deaths of Dave and Tony mark the first time Rick kills other living humans, contrary to his previous assertion that "we don't kill the living."
- Two Shots from Behind the Bar: When Dave lays his gun on the bartop from behind the counter, Rick immediately assumes he's reaching for another one. Dave just reaches for the gun on the counter, giving Rick enough time to drop him and Tony.
- Unreliable Narrator: Dave claims that Fort Benning has been overrun, but as shown in future episodes, Rick doesn't believe what he said, and gets into arguments with Shane over whether they should still bother to journey there. Given how Mitch in Season 4 reveals that he fled Fort Benning with his personal tank, it later becomes apparent that Dave was right all along.
- Urine Trouble: Tony urinates on the floor of the bar in front of all the others, another sign that something isn't quite right.
