Continuing a look back at The Walking Dead, we are breaking down the highs and lows of The Walking Dead’s fourth season. At this stage, it’s fair to say that the show is getting very close to peaking.
While there’s still a whole lot of chaos left to come in the seasons after, this was a particularly crucial time for Rick Grimes and his gang. Today, we’re going to take a look at both the good and the bad of Season 4 - from spooky walkers to big deaths and beyond.
LOVE - Too Far Gone
In the mid-season finale, Rick Grimes’ worst fears are realized as The Governor returns and makes it crystal clear that he wants revenge.
He has Michonne and Hershel held hostage and, despite a magnificent speech from Rick as to why they should all avoid the impending battle between them, The Governor decides to behead Hershel. The fight that follows this heartbreaking moment is one of the greatest sequences in the history of The Walking Dead, and it closes the book on the prison’s tenure in the show once and for all.
CHANGE - The Illness
In what felt like nothing more than a way to fill some time in the first few episodes, an ‘illness’ develops within the prison that spreads insanely quickly. A whole host of minor characters are killed off, and right alongside them are a few main characters who also contract the illness.
While it was an intriguing way of spreading out the season, there was definitely a sense of delay from the writers as they kickstarted the build towards the inevitable return of The Governor. As a plot device, it was just kind of there.
LOVE - The Grove
TWD is at its very best when they try and tell difficult stories. One of those difficult stories came during ‘The Grove’, which is still one of the most shocking episodes of the show to this day. Tyreese and Carol are attempting to navigate their way through the aftermath of the prison battle, but they soon notice that there’s something ‘off’ about the behavior of Lizzie.
In this insane tale of nature vs nurture, the pair are horrified to discover that Lizzie has killed her sister Mika. Upon coming to terms with this, Carol and Tyreese decide that they must kill Lizzie to prevent anyone else – especially Judith – from being harmed.
CHANGE - Still
There are many episodes of the show that are considered to be average at best but have a few redeeming qualities. Unfortunately for ‘Still’, it’s widely considered to be one of their weakest efforts.
It just didn’t seem as if Daryl and Beth were ready to carry an episode of this nature just yet, and those fears played out before the eyes of the viewers. Aside from a few segments of joy this was an episode that proved why the big split after the prison battle was more detrimental than positive.
LOVE – Terminus
While the eventual blow-off of the Terminus storyline certainly left a whole lot to be desired, the build up itself was fascinating to watch. Everyone was heading in one direction in the second half of the fourth season: Terminus. Nobody knew for sure what to expect upon arrival, but it was definitely going to be a place of real note within the history of The Walking Dead Universe.
In the final shots of the season, it was confirmed that this was going to be a fight for the ages for the gang.
CHANGE - Carl’s Attitude
While there had been points during the first half of the season that Carl seemed to be trending in the right direction, one episode brought that theory crashing back down to Earth. The episode in question was 4x09 when Carl and Rick went to seek shelter as Rick tried to recover from the injuries he sustained during the prison battle.
Carl tries to go down the ‘tough guy’ route with his father, attempting to bring him back from the brink. It doesn’t really work out that way, though, with Michonne’s appearance being the main catalyst behind Rick’s recovery.
LOVE - Rick vs The Claimers
The Claimers only appeared on a few different occasions in the fourth season, but even with that being the case, they still knew how to make an impact. Daryl didn’t have any option other than to roll with them whilst he tried to find his friends, and for a while, it seemed as if he was fitting in pretty nicely.
That was, of course, until they captured Rick, Michonne & Carl after realizing that Rick was the man who killed their friend. What followed was a simply insane series of events that included Rick ripping out the throat of their leader Joe with his teeth.
CHANGE - Martinez’s Death
It was clear to see that The Governor wanted to take over from Martinez, his former right-hand man, when their paths crossed in the first half of the fourth season. While many thought the intentions of the man now known as Philip weren’t good, few could’ve known he would stoop as low as he did.
After hitting Martinez over the head with a golf club, he proceeded to drag his former friend to a pit of walkers before leaving him there to die. From there, he became the new leader of the group.
LOVE - Walkers Through The Ceiling
While the walkers themselves had lost their touch ever so slightly over the course of the first three seasons, they were still enough of a threat to warrant a degree of panic whenever a large hoard of them arrived.
During a run for supplies in the very first episode, walkers start falling down from the ceiling in a bizarre sequence. The group doesn’t really know how to respond, and while most of them managed to get out alive, it was still a deadly day at the office that reminded all of us how dangerous they can be.
CHANGE - Rick Banishes Carol
When Rick discovers that Carol killed Karen and David in order to try and prevent the illness from spreading throughout the group, he decides to make a difficult decision: to banish Carol from the prison. While Carol would eventually link back up with the remainder of the gang, it felt like this situation could’ve been handled differently. It was always going to be hard for everyone to find out, which they did, but Rick wasn’t prepared to take that risk.
In terms of the murders, we finally got the chance to see what sort of hardcore character Carol would become.
