The Walking Dead Season 4, Episode 1 Recap: “30 Days Without an Accident”
And we’re back! After a long break from season three, season four of hit AMC television series The Walking Dead is back! To all Walking Dead fans, this feels like a conversation that has picked up once again after quite a hiatus and we can admit to it: a part of our zombie heart is back. The season premiere deals with walkers falling from the sky, creepy ladies in the woods, and blood and guts. It wouldn’t be an episode without some guts!
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The season starts out with Rick tending to the garden. He’s got headphones playing some honky tonky country jams while walkers form around the prison, pushing against the prison gates heavily. He digs up a gun and walkers just get even feistier. Rick then checks on the livestock, including a pig who Carl has named Violet. Rick doesn’t want Carl naming the food but then plays along with it, saying that he doesn’t know what’s wrong with Violet.
The prison is full of new people, some of whom you meet through the episode. Daryl and Carol talk about the newcomers and then says she wants to show him something. She draws his attention to the walkers at the fence, which is a group that becomes larger and larger each and every day. The episode then cuts to Glen and Maggie in bed. For some unknown reason, Glen doesn’t want Maggie going on the run. As much as she reassures him that things will be okay, he still doesn’t want her going and goes in her place.
Tyreese talks to one of the newcomers and makes a love connection between them apparent when she kisses him. Tyreese comments on the group killing walkers easily at the fence by stabbing them in the head and says he prefers going on runs and killing instead of killing them face to face. Another newcomer named Bob wants to come on the run and prove himself to the group. Sascha and others going on the run agree to it and they leave. One member, Zack, has a romantic relationship with Beth and they kiss before departure.
Michonne returns to the prison on horseback and brings back some comics for Carl and talks about not finding someone (implied to be the Governor but never set in stone). Michonne goes on the run with the others and Rick goes outside the prison to check the snare traps for food. While checking them, he meets Clara, a much disheveled woman who begs him for help. She wants to take him to her husband Eddie, who hasn’t eaten in days. She begs him to let them join the group at the prison but Rick wants to meet Eddie first and ask him three questions. He pats her down for weapons and hands her a knife for protection. Rick freely warns her that if she tries anything, he’ll kill her.
Carl encounters some of the other children of the prison at the fence, naming the walkers. Much like his father, he tells the kids not to name the walkers. We meet another newcomer Patrick, who’s around the same age as Carl. They talk about story time with Carol and how Patrick attends, even though it sounds childish.
The run takes place at a market where there is some military set up. In days before, some of the group set up a stereo to distract walkers to another location. Zack talks about guessing what Daryl did before the apocalypse and has a guess every single day. On the run, he guesses that Daryl was a homicide cop, to which Michonne laughs. Daryl plays along for awhile but Zack realizes that they are messing with him. Inside the store, Bob eyes some booze and plans to take some but then puts it back. This causes the shelf to collapse and creates enough noise to draw walkers. Bob gets pinned under the shelf and walkers start falling through the roof. Bob manages to escape unscathed but Zack is eaten as they escape.
Rick follows Clara for awhile, learning her back story. She was on her way to her honeymoon when she was grounded at the airport. Soon after, the infected started breaking through the airport. Clara talks about how she couldn’t exist without her husband Eddie and how he taught her things she would have to do, including eating rotten fruit and animal carcasses while leaving others behind. Rick reaches Eddie, who’s not much of a human anymore. Clara then attacks Rick, as she was leading him as cattle to the slaughter. Rick is too quick and strong for her and disables her. She continues to say that she can’t live without Eddie and since she can’t feed him, she stabs herself. Before stabbing herself, she asks Rick to not kill her completely once she turns. Clara doesn’t die instantly but as she’s on the ground suffering, she wants to know what the questions were that Rick was going to ask Eddie. He says “How many walkers have you killed?”, “How many people have you killed?”, and “Why?” Clara’s final words are “You don’t get to come back from things”.
Carol starts reading to the children and Carl sneaks and listens. As one of the other adults leave, Carol pulls out a knife collection and starts teaching the children about how to use them as weapons for self defense. Carl makes his prescience known and Carol asks him not to tell his dad. Carl runs away before anything else is said. Rick makes it back to the prison to see Violet the pig dead somehow and the run group makes it back okay as well, except for Zack. It turns out that Glen and Maggie though she was pregnant but that isn’t the case. Even though they are relieved, Maggie said it would have been okay anyways while Glen points out what happened to Lori. Maggie comments that she “doesn’t want to be afraid to be alive”.
Daryl breaks the news to Beth about Zack, who is unaffected. She doesn’t weep or show any emotion, saying that she doesn’t cry anymore. Daryl comments that he’s tired of losing people, right before it cuts to Patrick. He’s coughing uncontrollably and he goes to the shower to cool off. As he’s under the water, he collapses and somehow dies from the fall. The final scene shows him reanimating as a walker.
For anyone who watched the episode, you’re probably like us and want to know what happened to Patrick to make him come back as a walker. Was it the fall or did he die and then fall? Hopefully, next week’s episode answers that question, along with other questions we all might have. All in all, the season premiere was captivating and will have us glued to our televisions ever Sunday for the rest of the season.
Written by Guest Contributor: missvalentine
