The Walking Dead Season 4, Episode 12: Still

I can see now how the second half of this season's going to play out. Everyone's split into groups and we're going to focus on one each week in minute and excruciating detail until everyone meets up in Terminus ("Those Who Arrive, Survive") in the season finale. 

SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

Thoughts:
• There's a sizable contingent out there on the internet that is hoping, nay demanding, that Daryl and Beth get together. Physically, that is. Despite the fact that Daryl's at least twice Beth's age. Yes, the internet can be a scary place sometimes. 

I bet this episode was a godsend for that crowd. They probably all exhausted and had to call in sick Monday morning.

• I still find it hard to believe that Emily Kinney, who plays Beth, will be 29 this year. She really does look like a teenager (to my eyes at least).

• Yay, another character building episode, while we wait for the season finale to get here in four weeks.

I get that you can't blow up the prison and kill the Governor every week, and I don't mind the slow, introspective episodes now and then, but this is the third one in a row. 

Last week's episode featured some quiet and well done character building moments between Carl and Michonne, but it also gave us an awesome and nail-biting sequence of Rick vs. some home invaders. So it's possible to include both in the same episode.

• Beth's quest to risk her life to have her first drink came perilously close to the stupidity of the first couple of seasons (Lori crashing her car, despite being the only driver on the road for hundreds of miles). Yeah, yeah, I get that she was trying to live it up a bit, for tomorrow she may die, but still...

• So Daryl goes into an unsecured and dangerous country club to find some booze for Beth, even though he knows of an empty redneck cabin (that he and MIchonne checked out before) with a still just a short distance away. Got it.

• I have a bad feeling that the hanging walkers in the country club didn't do that to themselves. I bet they, and the "Rich Bitch" walker were the handiwork of the Terminus gang. 

• So the title of the episode refers to the moonshine still in the cabin?

• At first I thought Daryl was refusing to drink because he was a recovering alcoholic, but I guess not.

• For a newbie, Beth can certainly hold her liquor. And moonshine, yet! That stuff's generally pretty potent. In fact Daryl seemed more plastered than she was. Are you sure this was your first ever drink, Beth?

• I'd forgotten all about Beth trying to slit her wrists back in Season 2. And TV Andrea urging her to do so. Now that I think about it I'm glad I forgot.

• Daryl finally opens up to Beth, who's been trying to guess his occupation before the Fall, and admits he was nothing. No job, no career, just a redneck drifter in the shadow of his older brother.

This reinforces the notion that Daryl's one of the few people who's actually benefited from the end of the world.

• At the end of the episode, Daryl and Beth are chilling on the porch of the cabin, and have a nice little bonding moment. For a horrifying few seconds I actually thought Daryl was going to lead her inside and get to know Beth in the biblical sense, but thankfully wise heads on the writing staff prevailed.

• Yes, Daryl and Beth, your torching of the cabin was symbolic and emotionally cathartic. It also attracted every walker for miles around and who knows how many predatory human gangs. Well done!