Dead Don’t Walk: WD, Ep12
March 6th, 2014
Dead Don't Walk, Shuffling Horrors
Here is our Dead Don’t Walk recap of “Still”, Episode 12 of The Walking Dead. For those readers who are familiar with Pittsburgh 68, the Game of Shuffling Horror, the blood red highlights below are game terms.
Ever since their prison sanctuary fell in the season’s first episode, the Walking Dead survivors have been scattered and on the run. Just like dealing random survivors at the start of a Pittsburgh 68 game, fate has thrown together some very unexpected character groupings.
This week’s episode turned the camera back on the unlikely pairing of Daryl and Beth, who have been desperately trying to stay ahead of the zombie shuffle. The full episode focuses on their decaying relationship as it is pushed to its Breaking Point. Riveting drama unfolds between these two survivors as they deal with the reality of their grim situation.
Right from the start, the duo is forced to take sanctuary in the trunk of The Car, where they spend the night huddled in fear. A throng of zombies assault the car, but it keeps them safe until the undead storm passes. Exiting the trunk, they quietly scavenge whatever items can be found (If We Only Had A…) and then quickly get back on the move. The two barely speak. Both are exhausted and in their own auto-pilot survival mode.
It is young Beth who bravely breaks the silence. She refuses to accept that the rest of her life will be spent huddled around temporary campfires safeguarded by makeshift hubcaps-on-wire security systems. To prove this, and reclaim a bit of her humanity, she sets off to find The Bartender and have her first drink.
Daryl reluctantly trails along as her guardian. The duo happen upon a Country Club sanctuary filled with the rotting remains of its former occupants. On their way to find the club’s bar, they encounter Three Lone Zombies. Daryl singlehandedly takes care of the lot with a Golf Club + Killing Machine combo. Nice play, Daryl!
Behind the bar, Beth finds the remains of The Bartender and also a lone bottle of peach schnapps. Instead of having a celebratory drink, she hits her Breaking Point. She explains to Daryl that she has realized he will be the Last One Standing in the game.
Daryl decides that Beth really should have that first drink, and leads Beth to a backwoods shack that he and Michonne discovered on an earlier scavenging trek. The shack has a still and cases of moonshine. As they drink, they talk, they argue, they break down. By the end, both Daryl and Beth have had the catharsis they needed.
The duo stand ready for whatever this messed-up zombified world is going to throw at them. To prove it, they chuck a Gas Cocktail into their shack sanctuary and it goes up in a blaze of glory.
Two phoenix rise from the flames.
The Survivors win this one. Big time.
