‘The Walking Dead’ TV Recap — Season 4, Episode 11 “Claimed”

Previously on ‘The Walking Dead’ …THE SHOW BLEW YOUR MIND. (Again.)

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We start at Crook Road. We’ve got the truck. Guns. (That are NOT to be used.) And this new guy, Abraham,…he’s tough. He’s force. And he’s witty. (Oooh, boyfriend material?)

“Oh, honey, look at you. You’re a damn mess.” – Abraham

When it takes more than one whack to stop the walker, he seems annoyed. I guess it’s good to know that just one swoop can save you from a bite.

“I’ve never seen that before…you smiled. You were smiling.” – Tara to Abraham

“We’ve got some mile to go.” – Abraham

Michonne wears a new shirt. This makes Carl laugh. (She makes anything her own!) They eat cereal. But, seriously, Michonne prefers soy milk. Carl gives an anecdote. It’s…surreal. They’re at an actual table. Eating actual food.

And, suddenly, Carl mentions Judith and realizes that, hey, his BABY SISTER IS MIA. It’s so sad that he ran off suddenly to read his book. If he was a normal teen, he would have run off suddenly for some other reason.)

“I heard him laughing in there. I almost forgot what that sounded like.” – Rick

The kitchen in this new house is a MESS. Call me Monica Gellar, but I would be obsessed with cleaning. And then trying to find the COOLEST mansion. I mean, there are people who live in rich mansions with moat’s and stuff, why not try going there?

Since I’m obsessed with home decor, let me just say that this Southern home has an amazing porch. Seriously, did anyone watch this scene and NOT think it was amazing? It’s the perfect spot to sit for a spell, drink lemonade, and watch the walkers as they make their rounds.

When Carl and Michonne go on an exploratory mission to find food, Rick relaxes. Upstairs. In an actual bed. Crazy, right?

You know what else is crazy? Michonne likes soy milk, but also (apparently) spray cheese.

“Bam, crazy cheese.” – Michonne

Even spray cheese can’t cheer Carl up out of his funk. Even when Michonne pretends to be a walker, using the cheese. (That may have been a little far.)

Just when you think their bond can’t be any sweeter, the way they bounce back and are such good friends, Michonne lets this out…

“I had a 3 year old son, and he happened to find me extremely funny.” – Michonne

Of course, this leads way to Carl asking a million questions. And that’s probably one of the reasons Michonne never brought up her past. Because it’s sad!

She reveals (after clearing a room) that her son’s name was Andre Anthony. And as she tells Carl to be sure he’s not missing out on any boxes of cookies, I
can actually imagine what Michonne was like as a Mother to a toddler. She does have Motherly, friendly ways. It’s just been …washed away by everything else. Or, not washed away (it’s not eroded) but, suffocated.

What’s interesting is that even though Michonne is in such a trusted spot with Rick and Carl and them all, no one has ever pressed her (except maybe Andrea?)

“Your secret’s safe with me.” – Carl
“it’s not really a secret” – Michonne
“It’s still safe with me.” – Carl

Some weird zombie-looking art led Michonne to get curious. In one room, dark and faded with stolen daylight, caught in an eternal color of Pepto Pink, was a family very neatly all laying in a row, on beds, dead. They were not walkers. They were dead. But not dead, then re-animiated as walkers – then dead. (And we know that all of the dead come back. Or was that only after a certain point when the virus mutated?) Well, forget all of this and focus on what else these alien green corpses showed us: a brain cut out. YEAH. So…a family decides to die and has someone remove their brains? Where’s the surgeon? Are the brains being studied? And who drew that art?

Rick has a dream. It’s weird. His eyes have rapid movement. But, it’s…not a dream. What Rick is hearing is…real? (It certainly can’t be TV.) Knowing that he isn’t in fighting form, he starts to hide. In fact, we’ve never seen Rick more scared than in this moment under the bed. (Where he needed a water bottle, for a reason I don’t know…. in case he was there for a super long time? So it wouldn’t look like anyone had been there?)

Interestingly, Rick is more scared of these humans than most walkers. Same with The Governor.

Back to Rick’s story, the guys (we don’t see their faces – creepy) are fighting about the bed. It’s a super tense situation, and while the one guy is strangling the other, he sees Rick. IS THIS A HALLUCINATION? IT’S TOO WEIRD! Well, I guess Godilocks gets the bed he wants.

When Glenn wakes up, he’s freaking out because he’s moving away from where Maggie might be. I have to admit that I’d be pissed, too. Of course he doesn’t want to be taken away from where he wants to search. Glenn decides to use a gun and bash a window to make his point. Real smart.

Sergeant Abraham Ford is the new guy’s name. Their mission is to take Eugene to Washington DC, and he knows what caused this mess.

Because Glenn knows how to handle himself against a walker, Ford really wants him. But Tara is loyal to GLENN, damn straight! And she even wrote down all the directions of how to get back to the bus. Girlfriend is takin’ care of business! My heart SOARS with love for Tara.

Glenn gets all punchy because Ford says Maggie is lost forever. So, they all fight. Which draws out a walker. (Duh.) And even the sight of ONE walker makes Eugene nervous. He’s not so good with a gun.

AND THEN WE HAVE WALKS COMING FROM THE CORN FIELDS. WALKERS OF THE CORN. I CAN’T EVEN.

And, yay, the bullets got the gas tank. SO, that’s not good for anyone who wants to keep driving that tank.

What’s awesome is that Rick can have an entire personal mini drama, on this show, UNDER A BED, and the directors make it still seem JUST as intense as fighting zombies on the road. That’s damn good TV.

As this new gang ransacked the house, I felt weirdly possessive of it all. It’s Carl’s! Even though, it wasn’t even his. You know what I mean? I guess it’s hard to own anything in this reality.

Rick busts into the bathroom to hide but someone’s there. There’s a struggle. Rick kills a dude. BAD MOVE. But this scene did make me wanna yell out “NOT THE LINT ROLLER.”

Rick is left to escape the bathroom by jumping from the roof. BEST BE RUNNING, RICK. But how will he ever find Michonne and Carl and save them from entering the house? He needs to use his BLOOD to write “NO” or something. …Blood is like, the method for paint! It’d also summon walkers, though. But where do you find a can of spray paint?

There’s the three new characters, and the girl I haven’t mentioned yet. I can’t be a fan yet because I find it shitty that anyone would keep up with looking sexy and cute (PIGTAILS) in this world.

The only reason to like the girl (Rosita Esposito) is that she decides that they have nothing else better to do than help Maggie and Glenn, anyway. So, off they go. And Eugene proves that a man with a mullet can still sound smart. And as the camera zooms in on him, I wonder what kind of cult leader type is he that made some other people think he knows what happened to cause zombies!? He certainly looks self-satisfied, though. Evil? Possibly.

Rick sees Michonne and Carl coming into view, which is very bad. Luckily, the dead guy is found right away and Rick can run to his friends. GOOD TIMING.

Tara and Ford get into a conversation that I first thought was going to make me roll my eyes with them flirting, or be filler. But it quickly became…very interesting.

“You don’t have to tell me why. Just don’t lie to me.” – Tara

The Rick trio find a sign for Terminus, and decide to go. Because, that’s the hot new party spot. We’ll have to see how far they fare.

Trend #CRAZYCHEESE on twitter. Is Crazy Cheese a real brand?

Next week: more Beth and Daryl. Do you think we’ll meet those house intruders again?

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