It has been four seasons since Rick Grimes awoke in the hospital to find his world had morphed into the stuff of nightmares. Friends and family have been lost to the virus.
The gang has been torn apart but brought back together with a few additions. While the wait for season five has just begun, we’ll count down the top four WTF moments of season four of AMC’s The Walking Dead. Massive spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t caught up yet, put your hands up and back away slowly.
“Diet Soda and Pig’s Feet” (4×13)
One of the great things about the second half of the season was that we were able to see much softer, vulnerable character moments. Of the several touching dynamics that arose during the big separation, the Darryl Dixon and Beth Greene pairing was arguably the best.
While on the run and forging a sweet bond, the two come across a funeral home and decide to stay there for the night. While enjoying the momentary quiet and dining on a candle lit canned good meal, all hell suddenly breaks loose as one comes to expect.
In the midst of the ensuing heart pounding, zombie slaying chaos, it appears that Beth is kidnapped by a mysterious vehicle which leads the audience to believe that both the house and the zombie attack were a trap.
Darryl chases after the car, which has his last shred of hope, for miles in a sweaty fit of desperation. When he realizes it is long gone, he goes all Charlie Brown and mopes in the middle of the rode. He has lost his sense of purpose too many times not to finally give in.
“Look at the Flowers, Lizzie” (4×14)
On the road are Tyreese (it’s amazing that he survived as long as he has considering what happens to black men on TWD), Carol (the merciless mama bear that killed Tyreese’s boo and whose exile was a wtf moment in its own right) and sisters Lizzie and Mika.
Tearing a page straight from Of Mice and Men, the build up for the wtf moment in this episode has been bubbling for sometime. Even when the group was in the relatively safe confines of the prison, Lizzie was putting the lives of everyone in danger because she did not understand the full extent of the walkers’ soullessness.
The episode feels like a montage of everyone, including her little and more likable sister Mika, slapping her on the hand. When she loses her head over Carol straight up killing her walker bestie and goes out of her way to feed mice to wounded zombies, it is apparent that the girl is gone.
Suspicions of her burgeoning meltdown are cemented when she goes full Shane (pinned after Rick’s former best friend and professional psychopath), killing Mika and threatening to do the same toRick’s baby girl so that she can have walker playmates.
But then again, kids have a history of screwing up majorly on this show, so, no surprise there. The final hammer falls when Carol decides that Lizzie is too crazy to live around other people, so she takes her out to a grove, humanely shooting her down. Talk about tough love.
“Those Who Arrive, Survive”(4×16)
After the devastating mid season finale, the entire latter half of season four was dedicated to getting the patch work family back together. The final episode saw the group making their way to the shady sanctuary of Terminus.
Although, before they arrived, it was revealed that the group that Darryl joined after Beth’s disappearance was hunting down Rick for retribution. They catch him, his son “Carrrl” and the mysterious Michonne unawares and what happens next is one of the best albeit darkest moments of the slow finale.
When the wily men believe they have the group cornered, Darryl intervenes and Rick tears the throat of the leader out with his own teeth when he thinks he is about witness the cruel raping of his teenaged son.
Even when it seems like they have won the battle, Rick viciously takes a knife in hand, soaking himself in the blood of the man that attempted to have his son, leading to one of the longest over kills of the series.
However, not to be outdone, the final moments of the finale are spearheaded by the discovery of suspected cannibals within Terminus, and the herding of all the major players into a cage like cattle.
Not quite the reunion viewers were hoping for, but, as Rick’s last words indicate, a few man eating newbies isn’t anything they can’t handle.
“We Get to Come Back” (4×08)
After months of hopeless wandering, violent mood swings, empty threats and throwing enough shade to cloak a football field, The Governor finally made good on his promise to destroy Rick’s group and drive them from the prison after a depressing first attempt.
The Governor’s demise, at the hands of Michonne, came swiftly and deservedly after the brutal beheading of patriarch Hershel Greene. The episodes prior to appeared to be chugging along, so when Rick’s tense bid for diplomacy quickly dissolves into a firefight between the two camps, the audience embraces the welcome change in tempo.
This is the ultimate wtf moment because the loss their heart and moral guide is what drives them from their place of complacency at the prison and what ignites further character developments and plot surges.
Zhana Johnson
Features Correspondent