Episode 1.04 “Vatos” Recap and Analysis by hemoWILLIEac
A Little Introduction
Well, after a long week of family, food and sleep I’m back to recap episode four. Enjoy.
Fishing Stories
We begin our episode with Amy and Andrea on a boat. They talk about their fishing experiences with their father, and discuss how different his methods were for them. A enjoyed the exploration of how the two sisters are worlds apart, and it help build up their characters a bit for the coming slaughter. We then get a brief scene of Dale on his RV (as he usually is) looking at Jim. For some reason, Jim is digging holes. Spooky.
Meanwhile, in the ATL…
We join back up with the Atlanta gang as they discover Merles leftover appendage. Daryl gets a tad upset and points his crossbow at T-Dog. Rick follows suit, pointing his gun at Daryl. We have ourselves a Mexican standoff. After the boys calm down, Daryl retrieves his brothers hand and puts it in Glenns backpack. I loved Glenns reaction, the poor guy is always carrying around body parts. They follow the trail of blood in hopes of finding Merle.
Back at camp, Dale confronts Jim and asks him about his new hole digging venture. Jim is clearly coming unhinged, and you can tell that Dale is seriously concerned. These guys have definitely become friends.
We bounce back to the guys in Atlanta, and Daryl score yet another awesome crossbow headshot on a particularly nasty zombie. For anyone who has seen Day of the Dead, this zombie might be a reference for Dr. Tongue, the first zombie in that film. Coincidentally, Greg Nicotero’s first effects work wa on that film.
Also, Merle is a complete badass. The guy kills two zombies with one hand. With a wrench. Wow.
Bringing Home the Bacon….or Fish
Back at camp, the sisters bring back a huge batch of fish, much to the delight of Morales. They offer to teach Carl to learn, and Lori certainly doesn’t complain. Hey, it’s more fish for her. Dale shows up and lets the group know what Jim is up to, and they all seem pretty freaked out.
Back in Atlanta, the gang finds evidence that Merle cauterized his stub. What a trooper. After some debate, they decide to continue their search for Merle, but only after first getting the guns Rick dropped.
We return once again to the camp, where many of the settlers confront Jim about his strange behavior. Jim starts freking out and even makes a dig at Shanes handling of the Ed situation. Jim eventually takes a swing at Shane with his shovel, and Shane takes him down and handcuffs him.
Jim confesses that the only reason he escaped the undead was because they were “too busy eating my family”. Andrew Rothenberg is an awesome Jim. He really brought everything he has to this episode.
Glenn, Master Strategist
The guys in Atlanta look to Glenn as their leader, a role he does quite well with. He creates a plan to get the guns and covers all of the angles. I loved Glenn being able to take this role, and Daryls reaciotn to it, asking Glenn what he did previous to the zombie apocalypse.
As Glenn heads for the guns, Daryl mistakingly calls him Chinese, which Glenn promptly corrects. Great little character interaction there. Glenn grabs the bag of guns, while Daryl encounters a young man I’ll be referring to as “punk”. The punk freaks out, alerting two of his friends, who proceed to beat the hell out of Daryl.
Glenn shows up to discover this, and is grabbed by the two vatos. Daryl manages to shoot one of them in the ass, saving the guns. However, Glenn gets taken by the strangers, and they drive off with him in tow. Not all is lost though, because the gang has both the guns and the punk. Both of which may be crucial to getting their friend back.
Warnings and Threats
Back at camp, the gang has tied Jim to a tree, fearing his breakdown might prove dangerous. Jim mentions he was digging holes because of a dream he had, but can’t remember what the dream was about. He says some nice things to Carl about Rick, and gives Lori a word of warning. He says that Lori should keep Carl close, no matter what happens. This isn’t a threat, but merely a fear that Lori could experience what Jim has.
In Atlanta, the gang questions the punk about the location of Glenn. After the punk talks back, Daryl throws an awesomely uncoordinated kick in his direction. When that little try at intimidation doesn’t work, Daryl shows the punk Merles hand, claiming that he took it from the last guy that crossed him. That works, because it seems like the punk is ready to talk.
Visiting the Vatos
The punk brings them to Guillermo aka “G”, the leader of the vatos. After some posturing from both sides, G says that Rick has to bring back the guns and the punk or Glenn is as good as dead. The gang falls back to decide the best course of action. They decide to not give up the guns, and instead storm the hideout and get Glenn back.
Actually, I wasn’t really sure what Ricks plan was. It was unclear and one of my few gripes about the episode.
They bring the punk and the gns back to G, and basically tell him he can shove it. Before the warehouse gets blown to bits, an old woman comes out and asks Rick why he is there. When Rick explains, the old lady tells him to follow her, and G orders his men to stand down. Something is clearly not what it seems.
The lady leads Rick and Co. to an old folks home. It appears that the “gang” presence G and his group were giving was just a front for their true purpose, protecting those who cannot protect themselves. I liked the way Kirkman flipped this storyline around, but it did feel rushed and hard to understand upon my first viewing.
Before leaving the vatos, Rick gives them some guns. The gang heads back to the van, apparently forgetting the Merle part of their mission. They find the van is gone and Merle is the prime suspect. Hope it wasn’t a stick.
Zombie Buffet
In Dale’s RV, Andrea is searching for something to wrap the stolen necklace/birthday present to Amy. Dale says he’ll find something, and it seemed to me like the two may have shared a moment. I know he’s old, but he does have an epic beard and a good beard goes a long way.
Shane decides that Jim is ready to rejoin the group for a campfire and fish fry. Carol and Sophia invite Ed to join, but he decides that sulking would be a far better time. Man, his face was jacked up. It actually looked worse than some of the zombies we’ve seen thus far.
The group sits around the fire while Dale tells a fascinating story about a watch. Really, it doesn’t matter what Dale says, because Jeffrey DeMunn sounds cool saying anything. He could make the directions for an airplane vomit bag sound interesting.
Amy has to use the bathroom, so she heads to the RV. Meanwhile, in Eds tent, he hears something outside. He assumes it’s Carol, only to be surprised by a zombie that takes a nice chunk out of his neck. Other zombies enter the tent, and that’s a wrap for Ed and his wife beating ways. Good riddance.
I just want to say that it’s cool that we had to wait four episodes to see someone get killed off by a zombie. It made the impact of this episodes climax all the better.
In a shocking turn of events, Amy is bit by a zombie (played by Greg Nicotero), sealing her fate. This was a sad, but necessary moment for this episode. It tells the audience that no one is safe.
All hell breaks loose. People are devoured, zombie are blown away and Amy gets a fatal bite to the neck. Just when things are getting worse, the cavalry arrives in the form of Rick and his group. They turn the tables on their undead opponents, but the losses are great.
The final moments of Amys life are shicking, saddening and both actresses brought some amazing range. Laurie Holden is going to take Andrea to some amazing levels in this series, that’s for sure. I will miss Emma Bell. She’s beautiful and talented; I’m sure she’ll do well with her career.
The episode ends with Jim remembering what his dream was about, while the camera pans over the bodies of the dead.
Vatos
Overall, this was another great episode. The writing was a little clunky in spots, but give Kirkman time and I think that he’ll improve as a television writer. I can’t wait to see the fallout of the most shocking episode of this season.
Jim
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Will Gibbs is a Michigan native and journalism student at Oakland University. He is a long time Walking Dead fan and self proclaimed "zombie survival expert." When he's not writing, Will enjoys watching movies, playing video games, and reading comic books. |
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I think Rick’s plan for dealing with the vatos made plenty of sense. He was calling their bluff. G said to come back locked and loaded, but I doubt he anticipated that actually happening. I think Rick figured that by putting a gun to G’s head and making it clear that they may just be crazy enough to wipe out half his men (and draw every walker for miles to the area), maybe the self-preservation instinct would kick in and he would just hand Glenn over.
However, there was one thing about this episode that I thought just didn’t make any sense at all, and that was leaving Jim tied to the tree in the woods out of view of the rest of the camp. Wasn’t it earlier that very same day that they found the walker eating the deer near camp?