‘The Walking Dead’ Recap: Zombie Virus Threat Grows; Rick & Carl Rearm Themselves

The Walking Dead “Infected” confirmed viewers’ fears that the virus spreading around the global population was finding new ways into the systems of the scant survivors of the zombie apocalypse.

Patrick, one of the new faces at the prison community who’d collapsed in the closing minutes of last week’s episode, rises up in the shower and staggers through the prison until he meets his first meal. As he makes his way through the building, walkers multiply within the formerly safe walls. Unaware of the catastrophic events unfolding inside, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Carl (Chandler Riggs) are enjoying some father-son time farming while Michonne (Danai Gurira) has gone off on another supply run.

A firefight ensues within the prison that wipes out the attacking walkers, except one that’s been locked up in a cell. The remaining walker shows no signs of an attack – no bite marks or other telling injuries. This phenomenon leads the group to realize what viewers had already suspected – that bites are no longer the only way to contract the disease. Hershel, using his veterinary knowledge, suggests at the emergency meeting that all those who may be infected be placed into quarantine.

While trying to deal with the metastasizing virus inside the prison, the group also has to deal with the walkers’ increased pressure on the surrounding fence. Daryl (Norman Reedus), Glenn (Steven Yeun), Maggie (Lauren Cohen) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) lead the assault on the hungry zombies and are soon joined by Rick, who realizes he’s going to have to do more than farm if he wants to survive. After sacrificing his pigs to lead the walkers away, he gives Carl back his gun and secures his own. So long Rick’s delusion of the possibility of non-violence and a normal upbringing for his son.

Carol (Melissa McBride), meanwhile, continues to run her self-defense class for the youth of the prison community. A test arises for one of her young pupils when her father is revealed to be one of the residents turned into a walker. When Carol instructs the girl to stab him in the head, the girl can’t muster up the cold determined strength required. Carol, who saw Rick shoot her own walker daughter through the head, finishes the father off for the girl in front of the rest of her “class.”

Tyreese’s girlfriend Karen, who was suffering from a cough, was one of the residents quarantined. When Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman) goes to deliver Karen (Melissa Ponzio) some get well flowers, he finds her and another quarantined resident burnt alive out back. Whoever committed the double murder clearly isn’t interested in taking chances with the virus, and has further proven that the stability in the prison community is all but lost.

The Walking Dead airs Sundays on AMC at 9/8c.

– Chelsea Regan

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