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Recap / The Walking Dead S04 E10 "Inmates"

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Season 4, episode 10

Inmates

The scattered survivors of the prison search for each other and a new opportunity.

The episode begins with Beth narrating an entry from her journal as she and Daryl run through a forest with several walkers in pursuit. As they fight them off and continue running, Beth narrates her feelings and thoughts when the group first found the prison, and how her father thought that writing would be good for her. Daryl and Beth continue running through a field before they both collapse in exhaustion.

Later that night, the duo are camped out, and Beth asks whether anyone else is still alive. When Daryl refuses to answer, she tries to spur him to action, but the destruction of the prison has left him jaded and unwilling to help. Beth eventually tells him that she's going to look for survivors and storms off in frustration, leading him to begrudgingly follow.

The next morning, as the duo track a set of footprints on the ground, Beth believes them to be one of the children's, and goes to pick berries from a tree. Daryl indicates to her that she shouldn't get her hopes up, because the tracks are hours old and the only thing they can do is survive. Soon after, the pair stumble onto a pair of recently-dispatched walkers, and Beth herself is nearly attacked until Daryl rescues her. They then discover a group of fresh walkers near a set of train tracks and dispatch them, and see a child's shoe afterwards, causing her to break down and cry.

As they make camp again, Beth narrates that she doesn't know how she'll be able to keep going if the prison doesn't work out.


Elsewhere, Lizzie and Mika are walking through the forest. Lizzie asks Tyreese what they should do next, and he turns around... revealing that he is holding Judith. Lizzie asks if everyone is dead, but he doesn't respond.

Later, as they make camp, Lizzie coldly skins several rabbits, while Judith cries and Tyreese expresses the belief that they can find a safe place. Lizzie calms Judith down by giving her milk, but the peace is broken when they hear walkers moving towards them, forcing them to move on.

The next morning, the group finds a berry tree and eats, but Judith continues to cry as they change her diaper. Lizzie expresses concern that the walkers will hear her crying, but the group is startled again by a cracking branch. Tyreese tells them to wait while he investigates, but only discovers a group of birds flying out of a bush. Mika gets scared and runs away.

When Tyreese and Lizzie discover Mika, he tells the latter that she did the right thing, to Lizzie's surprise. He then tells them that she should only stay when she's with a group. Suddenly, Tyreese hears a woman screaming and tells the two sisters to wait with Judith while he investigates. He tells them to wait back-to-back and keep watch while he investigates, and runs toward the noise as Mike tells him not to go.

Tyreese runs through the forest onto the train tracks and discovers two men being attacked by a group of walkers. As he moves to dispatch the walkers in the area, one of the two men has a piece of his arm chewed by a walker. Meanwhile, Lizzie and Mika see walkers coming towards them. Mika shoots and kills one, but another advances on her while Lizzie attempts to keep Judith quiet by putting her hand over the latter's nose and mouth. The walker continues getting closer as Mika keeps her gun raised, unwilling to move.

Tyreese dispatches the last of the walkers, and hears a woman call his name. He turns around to see... Carol, who is with the sisters and Judith. Tyreese warmly hugs her and she tells him to wait while she walks over to the sole surviving man, who was bit on the neck. The man tells Carol to stay on the tracks, and to follow it to a safe zone where the kids will be protected. The group moves off as he cries to himself by the side of the tracks.

As they walk, Mika says that she didn't get scared or run, while Carol relates to Tyreese that she was delayed from coming back after the supply run. She says that she saw the end of the prison battle and was forced to ditch her car. The group then finds a sign near the tracks, indicating that there is a marked location further down the line.


Maggie, Bob and Sasha are sitting on some rocks near a stream and plotting their next move. While Sasha bandages Bob's wound, Maggie sharpens her knife and says that she is going to look for Glenn while the others stay back. Despite Sasha's protests, Maggie walks off, forcing them to follow.

As they move up the road, Bob tries to make light of their situation and says that they should remain optimistic in the hopes of finding Glenn and the others alive, but they are soon met with a grim surprise as they round a bend in the road - the prison bus is stopped in the middle of the road.

As the group walks up to it, it's revealed that the sick and elderly Woodbury residents turned, with several of them trying to escape from the bus. Maggie orders Bob and Sasha to open the back door, and they dispatch the walkers who come out, but she doesn't see Glenn's face among them. She climbs into the bus herself and kills two more walkers, then sits down and smiles while holding back tears, realizing that Glenn is still alive.


Glenn wakes up in the ruins of the prison, laying at the edge of a destroyed wall and just out of reach of a horde of walkers. He quickly backs up and looks around at his surroundings - the prison walkway is destroyed and walkers have flooded into the courtyard. Glenn grabs his assault rifle and walks back inside.

In Cell Block C, Glenn goes to his and Maggie's cell but doesn't see her. He sits down on their bed and holds his head in despair, but then looks over and sees the picture he took of Maggie while they were sleeping in the guardtower, and resolves to leave and find her. He pulls up his cot and takes out a suit of riot armor he had stashed, then pulls together a bag of supplies and some essentials, including the pocketwatch Hershel gave to him and a lighter.

Soon after, Glenn walks outside, clad in the riot gear and holding the pack on his back, and pushes his way through the horde of walkers. As he moves to leave, he discovers Tara, who is sitting in shock inside one of the prison's fenced-off storage sheds. He moves inside and confiscates her handgun, noting that she hasn't fired a shot yet, and tells her that they have to go. Tara says that she was part of what happened, but he tells her that he knows and needs her help to escape. Glenn throws a Molotov cocktail into the courtyard, distracting the walkers, and he and Tara make a run through the outer gate, killing walkers along the way.

On the road, Glenn asks if she saw anyone get out alive. Tara tells him that she saw her sister get swarmed as she stood in the field, then tells him that Hershel died. Glenn is shocked and saddened by the news. She asks why he would want her help, to which he responds that he needs her help to find Maggie, stating that Hershel taught him to always believe.

The duo are surprised by walkers coming out of the forest, and kill them before Glenn passes out. Tara attempts to revive him, but is attacked by another walker as a vehicle drives up. Tara angrily smashes the walker's head in with the butt of the rifle, then asks the occupants of the vehicle if they enjoyed the show.

Three people exit from the vehicle, and the man in charge asks her what else she can do...

Tropes:

  • Adaptation Distillation: Not only do Abraham's group introduce themselves differently from the comic version (meeting them at Hershel's farmhouse, versus their arrival at the roadside in the show), but it is revealed that Lilly was Killed Offscreen, whereas her fate was left unknown in the comics.
  • Arc Words: "Those who arrive, survive."
  • The Atoner: Tara clearly feels awful for her part in the prison assault and agrees to help Glenn find Maggie in an attempt to make up for it.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • Averted with the arrival of Abraham's crew at the end, who only make their presence known after Tara has finished killing the walkers.
    • Subverted with Tyreese, who goes to help the redshirts on the railway after hearing their screams, only for all of them to die anyway.
  • Blatant Lies: Carol tells Tyreese that she wasn't at the prison when the attack went down because she was looking for more supplies.
  • Bookends: The Beth/Daryl segment opens and closes with a voiceover of Beth reading from her diary after they first found the prison.
  • Break the Cutie: Beth has a breakdown after discovering a child's shoe, which she assumes belongs to one of the prison children.
  • The Bus Came Back: Carol returns.
  • Bus Crash: Maggie's POV reveals that the Woodbury refugees have been completely wiped out by the flu and the Walkers.
  • Call-Back: The sign found by Tyreese's group reads "those who arrive survive", last heard on the car radio in "Isolation".
  • Cliffhanger: The episode ends with the arrival of Abraham's crew.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Glenn uses the bottle of brandy Bob stole in "Indifference" as a Molotov cocktail to help during the escape from the prison with Tara.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Glenn takes the Polaroid he snapped of Maggie in "Infected" from his cell, along with the pocket watch that Hershel gave him in season 2 and the orange backpack that Rick and Carl stole from the hitchhiker in "Clear".
    • Glenn is still suffering with the after-effects of his illness, and collapses after taking out several walkers.
    • Once again, Clara can be seen with the horde of walkers as Glenn and Tara escape the prison.
    • The bottle of brandy Bob stole from the animal hospital in "Indifference" is seen again, and is used by Glenn as a distraction during his escape.
  • Crazy-Prepared: It's revealed that Glenn kept a suit of riot gear under his bed, which comes in very handy when he decides to escape the prison.
  • Creepy Child: Lizzie smiles while killing rabbits before later zoning out and nearly suffocating Judith in an attempt to "keep her quiet".
  • Determinator:
    • Maggie in her quest to find Glenn.
    • Glenn finds the strength to continue after finding the picture he took of Maggie, and dons riot gear and supplies before escaping with Tara.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Bob seems alarmingly cheerful, considering the circumstances.
  • Framing Device: Beth's journal, which opens the episode over a montage of Beth and Daryl running through the forest in slow motion, and later closes their segment.
  • Heroic BSoD: Most of the characters go through this at some point:
    • Daryl is practically catatonic at the beginning of the episode and only snaps out of it when Beth storms off in frustration.
    • After spending the first ten minutes keeping Daryl going, Beth finally breaks down when they encounter a pile of unidentifiable body parts being chowed on by several walkers.
    • Maggie falls apart in a big way on finding the prison bus full of walkers, spacing out before killing several zombies in a fit of rage.
    • Glenn collapses on his bed and breaks down crying after waking up to find the prison destroyed and abandoned.
    • Tara appears to be in the middle of one when Glenn finds her, sitting alone and unresponsive in the ruins of the prison and waiting to die.
  • Heroic RRoD: Given that Glenn was still recovering from his illness during the prison attack, it's hardly surprising that, after charging through a horde of walkers, running out of the prison, and fighting off some more walkers — all while wearing heavy riot gear — he passes out in the middle of that last fight.
  • Hollywood Healing: Bob's gunshot wound has closed, and he doesn't seem to be any worse for wear.
  • The Idealist: Beth starts out this way, but her optimism is well and truly broken by the end of her segment.
  • Improbable Infant Survival: Played straight and averted. While Lizzie, Mika and Judith survive unharmed, Luke and Molly are not seen despite having been with Tyreese and the other children the last time we saw them.
  • Infinite Supplies: Averted - several of the groups are shown to be scavenging for supplies.
  • Innocently Insensitive: Lizzie tells Mika that she isn't like Sasha, because Sasha isn't here and Mika is. While Sasha's brother Tyreese is standing right next to them. From Lizzie's face and tone, she's clearly trying to pay Mika a compliment, but it doesn't seem to occur to her that Tyreese might be affected by what she said.
  • Killed Offscreen:
    • Luke and Molly presumably die offscreen while fleeing from the prison, as they are not seen with Tyreese and the other children.
    • According to Tara, Lilly was torn apart by the walkers in the prison courtyard shortly after killing the Governor.
  • Only Sane Woman: Sasha seems to be this for her group, in the face of both Maggie's Sanity Slippage and single-minded determination to find Glenn and Bob's unnerving cheerfulness.
  • Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Two instances:
    • Daryl makes a somewhat callous remark about Hershel's death in trying to shoot down Beth's optimism.
    • Lizzie coldly states in front of Tyreese that Mika is not like Sasha because Mika is still with them.
  • P.O.V. Cam:
    • From Maggie's point of view as a walker comes towards her after opening the back door of the bus.
    • From Glenn's perspective (multiple times) as walkers try to swarm him in the prison courtyard and he discovers Tara.
  • Red Shirt: Everyone on the prison bus, plus the group that Tyreese tries to save on the railway.
  • The Reveal: Judith is alive and well after Tyreese apparently rescued her from the prison.
  • Sanity Slippage: Maggie shows some signs of this on finding the prison bus, spacing out for several seconds before going absolutely beserk on the walkers, including slamming one's head repeatedly into the side of the bus. She also indulges in some slightly hysterical laughing/crying after confirming that Glenn is not among the dead.
  • Scarily Competent Tracker: Daryl can discern from the footprints Beth finds that they are several hours old.
  • Simultaneous Arcs: The episode is divided into four ten-minute segments, each focusing on a different group of survivors following the fall of the prison and all intersecting with each other in various ways.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Glenn and Tara, at least on Glenn's side. In his words, he needs her help, but he doesn't want it.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
    • After dispatching the walkers who come out of the bus' back door, Maggie grabs the last one and smashes its head against the side of the bus multiple times before stabbing it in the brain.
    • Tara smashes a walker's head in with a rifle over and over again just as Abraham's group arrives.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Tara seems much more competent in this episode than her previous appearances, firing off several headshots as she and Glenn flee the prison and later killing two walkers by hand after Glenn passes out.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: The preview gives the name of the leader of the crew, Sgt. Abraham Ford.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Maggie killing the walkers that come out of the prison bus.

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