5 Stars.
Pros: I'm a big fan of the characters of Abraham and Eugene, so I'm glad that they finally showed up.
Cons: Again, what life threatening situation can Rick get himself into this time but it's all for the sake of letting Carl grow as a character.
Full Review:
After escaping the massacre at the prison, Carl and Rick find shelter in a nearby town. Rick's bullet wound becomes infected and he slips in and out of consciousness, leaving Carl to fend for himself. And he does just that. He manages to kill zombies, find food and take care of himself. And he also airs out his grievances at his Father, who really can't hear him because he's unconscious. Carl does a lot of growing up in this volume but he's also still just a kid, 8 years old at the most, so it's heart wrenching to see him angry, scared, lost, the whole gamut of emotions.
Eventually Rick heals up and they hit the road once more. While traveling, Rick runs into a house and picks up a ringing telephone. The voice on the other end is a woman, saying that she's part of a group of fourteen. They talk for a few days but Rick explains that they aren't finding any food and that he can't let Carl starve just because he wants to wait and talk to this woman. When he asks her for a call back number, she says that she doesn't have one and when Rick asks her for her name she says that it's Lori. It's his dead wife. He unplugs the phone, plugs it back in and still hears her. And when he asks if this is real, she assures him, that it's not.
Stunned and unsure of his own reality, he and Carl leave and hit the road once more. They run into Michonne, who was following tracks from the prison. Together they go in search of Hershel's farm. And one morning while on the road they're found by two people on horse back, Glen and Maggie. It's obvious what's happened and Maggie is devastated at the loss of her family. Rick, Carl and Michonne go back to Hershel's farm where Dale, Andrea, Maggie, Glen, Sophia and the twins are staying. Sophia has basically shut off any memory of her mother and is convinced that Maggie is her real mother. And when Carl tells Rick about this, Rick tries to explain that people deal with grief in different ways. He doesn't mention the phone, or his dead wife on the other end, but you know he's thinking about it.
When he goes outside he and Dale talk for a bit and Rick decides that he's done with calling the shots. That whatever Dale wants to do, he'll go along with, for now, he's done with make decisions. He finds Michonne talking to herself and it turns out that what she's actually doing is speaking to her dead boyfriend. Rick tells her about the phone and assures her that if she's crazy, then he is as well. And they agree to keep their "coping mechanisms" to themselves.
The next morning their awakened by gunshots and it turns out that the farm has visitors. There's an army sergeant, Abraham, a scientist, Eugen and their companion Rosita. Abraham explains that they've been on the road since Texas and they're on the way to Washington D.C. because Eugene has been in communication with the government. Eugene says that he knows what caused the virus and he knows how to stop it and once he gets to D.C. he can make everything right again. Abraham has taken it upon himself to protect Eugene and make sure he gets to D.C. safely.
Their meeting with the group at first is tense, Abraham expressing concern with how freely they fire their weapons. He then explains what a herd is. Basically, when one zombie hears a gunshot, it starts walking towards the sound, it's soon joined by others, and more and more until there are hundreds upon hundreds of zombies just walking in your direction and before you know it, you'll be overrun. After deliberating the group decide that they'll join Abraham, Eugene and Rosita and hit the road once more to see what Washington D.C. has to offer.
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