The Walking Dead Season 4, Episode 3: Isolation

Wow, another good episode! They're three for three so far! Let's hope the new production team can keep up the good work!

Thoughts (WARNING! MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!)

• Something tells me Team Prison is going to have to open up an annex to their makeshift cemetary.

• Huzzah! Someone on the writing staff finally remembered that Herschel was a veterinarian! I've been reminding everyone of that fact for two weeks now.

Herschel then torpedoes any medical credibility he may have had by suggesting Daryl take a team to a distant veterinarian school and bring back some antibiotics for the flu victims. As we all know (I hope!), antibiotics are absolutely worthless against a viral infection like the flu.

I suppose it's possible Herschel wants the antibiotics to help treat the secondary symptoms of the flu, like high fever and pneumonia.

• Yikes! Glenn has the flu, as well as Sasha. Hopefully they're not going to be written out in the next couple of episodes. Glenn deserves a better fate than, as he himself put it, "to go out due to a glorified cold." Hopefully Sasha will recover as well, as she's not yet had much of a chance to shine yet on the show, and it would be a shame to off her so soon after she was introduced. This is The Waking Dead though, so no character (save Rick and maybe Carl) is safe.

• Loved the moss covered zombie (pictured above). Never seen anything like that before! The bear trap zombie was pretty cool as well.

• In previous seasons many fans complained that there seemed to be a "black quota" on the show. It was as if the series could handle one and only one black character, and another could only be added if one was killed off.

I poo-pooed the notion as internet nonsense until the Season 3 episode in which T-Dog was killed off and Oscar immediately became a regular character, which seemed to, if not prove the quota theory, at least lend it some credence.

But all that's out the window now. Witness Daryl going on a run with 3, count 'em three genuine black characters. I honestly think the writing staff really is listening to fan complaints and is trying their best to address them.

• I couldn't make out the faint voice on the radio, but according to the interwebs the voice was saying, "Those who arrive, survive."

Obviously they're setting up the fact that there's another camp of survivors out there somewhere. Whether that's good news or bad news remains to be seen. Knowing this show, I'm sure it means bad news.

Some have suggested the radio message might be setting up the recently announced sequel series. I suppose it's possible, but I'd think they'd want such a show to be set a bit more than fifty miles away from the action going on in the original series.

• Loved the zombie pig pile under the car! Lots of fun zombie gore. 

You know guys, from now on when you go on such a long mission it might be a good idea to take two cars, so if something like this happens you'll still have a set of wheels and a way to get back home.

• We finally get to see Tyreese wielding his mighty hammer! Awesome! He and his hammer were staples of the comic for many years.

• That said, Tyreese's escaping unscathed from the overwhelming zombie horde was a bit unrealistic. But hey, we're talking about a show featuring walking corpses, so I guess I can give them the occasional silly moment.

• I wonder if this massive zombie horde will turn up at the prison later in the season?

• The major revelation in this episode was that Carol's the one who killed Karen and the other sick guy last week, in an effort to keep the flu from spreading. I knew it was her as soon as she freaked out and kicked over the water barrel, 

Kudos to the Season 4 writing staff for moving this subplot along at a brisk pace. If this was Season 2 they'd have dragged out the identity of the killer for all sixteen episodes.

So what happens next? Is Carol a murderer? Is it murder to kill someone who was going to die anyway, in order to save the group? Does it make sense to imprison someone when you need all the able-bodied help you can get? Will they execute her?

It's an interesting moral dilemma and I'm glad I don't have to sit on their council and decide.