The Walking Dead: The Grove is the 14th episode of the season and deals with the exploits of Tyreese, Carol and the 3 young children in their care. It opens up with Carol watching Lizzie from a window playing with a walker in the front yard and then jumps to days before with Carol and Lizzie talking at night on the road. They’re having a heart to heart as they keep watch while Mika and Tyreese are sleeping, and Lizzie explains that she didn’t mean to shoot the lady in the head during the assault on the prison but she was just protecting Tyreese. Carol tells her she understands and uses that same logic for the justification for killing Karen and David to herself. And she tells Lizzie that she had a daughter who didn’t have a mean bone in her body, and that running away isn’t enough to survive. And she believes that the reason she isn’t here now is because she didn’t have a mean bone in her body. But Carol is saying this to also comfort Lizzie since she knows things won’t be easy for the group and immediate attention would have to be given to Tyreese’s wound. However can this group survive with 3 small children especially considering Tyreese still doesn’t know Carol is the one responsible for Karen’s death?

After some great episodes focusing on the different groups I had high hopes for this episode and the potential in it. There was the Carol and Tyreese dynamic, Lizzie and Mika were interesting enough to date, and the potential character and story developments with this group as a whole. It opened up well with Carol and Lizzie considering the relationship that was formed while in the prison, and of course Carol’s backstory with her own daughter. And I was relieved that Tyreese’s wound was addressed early on so it wouldn’t be a factor in this episode but I was hoping we would see some character development too. However what was lacking in terms of Tyreese’s character development was replaced with a focus on Lizzie and Mika and that dynamic was interesting. Mika had no problem killing walkers but was too scared to kill living people even if they were trying to kill her. And her reasoning was that she felt sorry for them because they probably weren’t like that before the zombie apocalypse. On the other hand Lizzie could kill the living but would never harm any walker due to her belief that they weren’t monsters and just different. And she believes this so much she flips out on Carol for killing a walker she was playing tag with and felt Carol killed her friend, showing her inability to understand what the walkers really are.

This was problematic to say the least and it results in Lizzie and Mika being chased by walkers after they go to feed one that was trapped earlier, and this was reminiscent of someone feeding the walkers near the prison. And even though Mika is younger she understands how dangerous the walkers are and wants Lizzie to stop pretending she doesn’t understand.

This was interesting to me as it brought to light earlier events that took place this season and even seeing the different mindsets between Lizzie and Mika. It raised the question of how children would cope with a zombie apocalypse and realistically all of them wouldn’t respond the way Carl has responded. So I felt this was great but this episode did suffer from being so close to the season finale because the first half of it felt like filler in some respects, and this episode would have benefited from showing events elsewhere for a while or if there were some meaningful exchanges between Tyreese and Carol other than Tyreese basically saying he cared about Karen repeatedly, which Carol couldn’t truly respond to for obvious reasons. And with recent episodes Tyreese’s lack of character development was somewhat disappointing because this was an opportune time to do so.

However this episode started to excel more than halfway through it because it was becoming clear that Lizzie could be just as frightening as the walkers with her inability to truly grasp the current reality. And Lizzie believed she finally knew what she would have to do to show the others that she could actually understand the walkers. And of course I won’t give away any spoilers but Brighton Sharbino (Lizzie) and Kyla Kenedy (Mika) do a great job in giving life to these characters and making one feel emotionally invested in their survival and their actions. And what was lacking in the first half of this episode in terms of suspense and feeling engrossed in the story was made up in the last third of this episode with shocking developments. Actually the most shocking developments this half of the season and that’s no exaggeration. Nor was it done just for shock value and highlighted the impact the zombie apocalypse has had on people in more than just physical ways. And I won’t say more than that but this was definitely very memorable. And yes there is a resolution to Carol’s murder of Karen and it did fit perfectly in this episode. But clearly the events that took place guarantees the characters won’t be the same going forward and now I can’t wait for the final two episodes of the season.

SUMMARY

The Walking Dead: The Grove is an episode that starts off relatively slow but the final 20 minutes make it the most shocking episode this half of the season. The character development with Lizzie and Mika was engrossing as it explored the different ways characters, especially children, cope with the trauma and harsh reality of a zombie apocalypse. Although the episode suffered slightly due to it feeling uneventful in the first half and Tyreese’s lack of character depth, this episode made it feel as if all bets are off, adding even more suspense to the final 2 episodes.