While eating a large pineapple and jalapeno pizza with hand-tossed crust, I spent most of Sunday night trying to understand the deaths in “The Grove” episode of The Walking Dead. Was there no other answer to Lizzie’s mind venturing down this road of humans coexisting with walkers? Well, I dust my hands of the powdery crust and put fingers to keyboard, aiming to figure this out.
BEWARE! CONTAINS SPOILERS!
On the way to Terminus, a place promising safety from the walkers, Carol and Mika briefly separated from Tyreese, Judith and Lizzie. Carol disclosed her suspicion about Mika's inability to kill walkers, especially when necessary. Mika, gun in hand, assured Carol that she knew the difference between the living and the dead. She could kill walkers; but unlike her big sister Lizzie, she couldn’t kill humans—even when necessary.
Meanwhile, a walker grunted down the railroad tracks Tyreese and Lizzie waited near. Tyreese took hammer in hand to kill the walker, but Lizzie stopped him, begging that they didn’t always have to kill them. Listen, guys. Since the first episode, I had this theory. If you see a walker, and you can kill it, then kill it, man! Rid the world of them and you’ll have a better chance of reviving the human race. I could care less if Lizzie and I argued for hours on those railroad tracks. In the end, my hammer would have come down on that walker’s skull like a judge’s gavel.
Leaving the walker alive, Tyreese and the others continued through the woods to Terminus but found a cozy house, sparking ideas of them possibly making this a home. I instantly knew that this was a bad idea as I poured more root beer. There were too many secrets and endless confusion in this group. First, you have Carol’s big secret. Second, you have Mika giving stuffed animals names that no one else can pronounce. Then, you have Lizzie, who questioned why the others didn’t understand that walkers were just like humans. And finally, there was me, who pondered why I didn’t order cheesy bread and why Lizzie didn’t see the reality of this apocalyptic world.
My questions were soon expunged at the site of Mika’s lifeless body. Her blood coated the knife in Lizzie’s hand as Judith crawled nearby. Tyreese and Carol rushed from gathering food, saving Judith though devastated through Lizzie’s explanation that Mika would come back alive like nothing happened.
At that point, Carol once again took responsibility for saving the others by killing this living threat. However, was there really no other answer except to kill Lizzie, torching me and millions of others by burying both girls side-by-side on the same night? True, Carol and Tyreese would have had to tie her up every night, and she would never have been trusted with Judith. Even still, maybe one day she would have seen reality and grew from her childish views.
While I receded into my thoughts, Carol freed hers. That night, she slid the gun across the table to Tyreese then revealed that at the prison, she killed Karen, Tyreese’s girlfriend. The guilt of her actions, and quite possibly some of the uncertainty and fatigue of killing humans she once knew, beckoned her to place her life in Tyreese’s hands. She closed her eyes. Tyreese, torn about killing the one he had searched so long for, finally uttered, “I forgive you.”
Even Tyreese accepted Carol’s actions, so why has it taken so long for me?
What did you guys think about this episode of The Walking Dead?
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