Chupacabra
Directed by Guy Ferland
The episode opens with a Flash Back to a crowded highway after the initial outbreak. Shane, Lori and Carl are sitting in their car listening for updates on the radio, and the latter two strike up a conversation with a family sitting in a nearby car - Carol, Ed and Sophia.
As the two sets of occupants talk, Carol offers Carl some food from Ed's "survival stash", but the latter shuts her down. The adults exit their vehicles and mention that the emergency broadcasts have gone oddly silent, but are soon surprised when they see military gunships fly overhead, which proceed to carpet-bomb the downtown Atlanta area with napalm. Lori and Shane hold on to each other in fear...
In the present, Lori wakes up in her tent at the farm, clearly restless and bothered with the result from the pregnancy test. Carol comes by and asks if anything is wrong, but Lori shrugs it off, and they elect to prepare dinner for the Greene family in exchange for their hospitality.
Elsewhere, Rick is mapping out a search grid for the group to look for Sophia. Beth's boyfriend, Jimmy, offers to help them search, but Shane nixes the idea, stating that Jimmy doesn't have the proper gun training. Andrea offers to take him with herself and T-Dog, while Daryl elects to search on his own. Afterwards, the group ribs on Daryl about how he might find a "chupacabra", a demonic dog, that he claims he saw a long time ago. Daryl admits that it's not as impossible as the dead rising and walking around.
The various groups set off on their search. In the forest, Glenn and Maggie discuss their encounter in the pharmacy, and she sheepishly admits that she might like him before laughing nervously. Elsewhere, Rick and Shane walk through the forest and talk about the latter's sexual conquests when he was a teenager. The discussion soon turns to their search, and Shane indicates in no uncertain terms that their police training has shown them that after a person has been missing for 72 hours, they should be looking for a corpse instead.
Daryl is out riding a horse when he spots an object in the nearby river and goes to investigate. He discovers Sophia's doll floating against a log in the river, and calls out her name, but to no avail. He remounts his horse and continues searching, but is soon thrown off the horse after it's spooked by a snake, and goes tumbling down a steep hill. Daryl lands at the bottom, but not before one of his arrows pierces his side. He applies field dressing to the wound and tries climbing up the hill, but falls back down and loses consciousness.
Back at the camp, Glenn confronts Lori about the pregnancy test he brought for her, and asks what the result is. She admits that she's pregnant, but begs him not to tell anyone. Soon after, Rick, Shane, Andrea and T-Dog return from their search, and the former tells Lori that Shane wants to abandon the search. Their conversation is interrupted by Beth, who requests Rick to follow her.
Beth brings Rick to Hershel, who asks why Daryl took one of his horses. Rick says that he took Jimmy at his word that Hershel was fine with them going out into the woods, and admits that the groups need to work on their communication.
Daryl wakes up again, but is actually hallucinating his brother, Merle, who asks him why he's wasting his time looking for a little girl and not him. Merle yells at him to get back up while threatening to beat him up. As Daryl wakes for real, he sees a walker trying to chew on his feet, and another coming towards him. Daryl bashes the walker trying to gnaw on him with a giant log, then pulls the arrow out of his torso, loads his crossbow with it and dispatches the second.
He begins to climb the ridge again, though not before cutting off the ears of the dead walkers and fashioning them into a necklace. With the scorching words of his brother ringing in his ears, Daryl makes it to the top.
Later that day, the women are making dinner in the kitchen, but their presence bothers Hershel, who tells Maggie that they need to set boundaries with Rick's group. Maggie subtly lets on that she's interested in Glenn, but Hershel chides her that the group won't be around forever.
Outside, Andrea is practicing her sniper spotting skills on top of the RV, while Dale has an awkward conversation with Glenn about the latter sleeping with Maggie (and his views on women) inside it. Suddenly, Andrea announces that she sees a lone walker coming towards them through the field, and moves to shoot it.
Rick and the group gather outside, and he tells her to wait while he deals with it. Together with Shane, Glenn and T-Dog, they move into the field, only to discover that the "walker" is in fact a dishelved and bloodied Daryl, who is incensed by Rick pointing a gun at him again.
Meanwhile, Andrea decides to try to shoot the "walker" over Dale's calls to put the weapon down, and almost ends up killing Daryl, with the bullet grazing the side of his head. Rick yells at Andrea for being reckless, and they carry Daryl in, but not before noticing the necklace he made. Rick hastily shoves it into his pocket.
Later that night, the group sees Sophia's doll in Daryl's pack and once again debate whether to continue the search, with Shane admitting that he's being realistic about their slim chances of finding her alive. Afterwards, the group eats dinner in near-silence, with everyone dealing with their own guilt over various events.
Glenn is sitting with Beth, Jimmy and Maggie when the latter passes him a note asking where he wants to have sex that night. He scribbles a note and passes it back to her, although Rick and Hershel eye them warily. Soon after, Carol brings the recovering Daryl some food and thanks him for looking for her daughter, and even though he tries to rebuff her, she admits that he's just as important as Rick or Shane for what he did.
After dinner, Glenn goes to meet Maggie for a planned tryst in the barn's hayloft, but Maggie realizes something is wrong when she reads the note. As Glenn sets up a sleeping bag, he notices a strange sound and peers down into the ground floor of the barn... only to discover a group of walkers reaching up for him. Glenn flees, only to run into Maggie, who says that he wasn't supposed to see that...
Tropes
- A Day in the Limelight: For Daryl.
- After Action Patch Up: Hershel is seen treating Daryl's injuries when he returns to the farm.
- Annoying Arrows: Averted; Daryl is seriously impaired when he accidentally impales himself with one of his arrows, and the injury is shown to affect him for several subsequent episodes.
- Anywhere but Their Lips: Carol kisses Daryl on the forehead to thank him for all that he's done in searching for Sophia.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: When the others mock Daryl for his belief in the chupacabra, he points out that not so long ago the idea of the dead rising to feed on the living would have seemed a little ridiculous too.Rick: You believe in a bloodsucking dog?
Daryl: You believe in dead people walking around? - Automaton Horses: Averted. Daryl finds out the hard way that horses are easily spooked and capable of throwing their riders.
- Big Brother Bully: Daryl's hallucination of Merle implies that the two didn't have the healthiest of relationships.
- Big "NO!": Rick gets one when Andrea shoots Daryl.
- Blatant Lies: Jimmy telling Rick that Hershel is okay with him going out with the others.
- Butt-Monkey: This is perhaps Daryl's unluckiest episode to date.
- Call-Back: When the others go out to confront Daryl, believing him to be a walker, Daryl comments that this is the third time Rick has pointed a gun at his head. The previous two times were in "Vatos", when Daryl threatened T-Dog with his crossbow, and in "Wildfire" when he attempted to kill Zombie Infectee Jim.
- The Cameo: Merle Dixon appears as Daryl's hallucination. Ed and Sophia Peletier are also seen in the opening flashback.
- Close-Call Haircut: A bullet grazes Daryl's temple when Andrea accidentally shoots him, resulting in this.
- Continuity Nod: Glenn is seen with the guitar that was salvaged from the highway in the season premier. He later asks if anyone knows how to to play it.
- Covered in Scars: Daryl is, and tries to cover them up when Carol comes into the room.
- Creepy Souvenir: Daryl cuts the ears off the walkers he kills and makes them into a necklace.
- Deadpan Snarker: Daryl, even more so than usual given his bigger role in this episode.Rick: So you believe in a bloodsucking dog?
Daryl: You believe in dead people walking around? - The Determinator: Daryl takes this up to eleven: he gets thrown from his horse and falls down a cliff, gets impaled on one of his own arrows, falls down the same cliff a second time, is attacked by walkers and still manages to make it back to the farm through sheer force of will. Even Andrea shoots him in the head, he stays conscious long enough to deliver a snarky one-liner before passing out.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Glenn towards Maggie when she is reluctant to continue their relationship.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Daryl's hallucination of Merle addresses him as 'Darylina'.
- Failed a Spot Check: Not only does Andrea fail to ascertain whether or not her target is actually a walker before taking the shot, she also doesn't seem to consider the possibility that she could hit any of the people standing around him.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Lampshaded by Dale in an attempt to assuage Andrea's guilt over shooting Daryl.Dale: Don't be too hard on yourself. We've all wanted to shoot Daryl at one time or another.
- Enforced by Daryl's projection of Merle, who proclaims that the others think of Daryl as nothing more than a "freak". However, this is averted by the end. Carol kisses him on the cheek and notes that he did more for Sophia than Ed ever managed.
- Averted when Rick defends Daryl's (albeit reckless) actions, as he provided a positive chance that they might find Sophia. Though it turns out to be a red herring, Rick's speaking up for Daryl shows Hallucination Merle is wrong when he says that the rest of the group finds Daryl useless.
- Flashback: The episode opens with a flashback that reveals how most of the original Atlanta camp met prior to Rick waking up from his coma.
- Hates Being Touched: Daryl flinches when Carol leans in to give him a kiss on the forehead.
- Headbutting Heroes: Rick with both Shane and Hershel. Rick and Shane continue to clash over whether they should continue the search for Sophia, while tension betwen Rick and Hershel escalates over the survivors getting too comfortable on the latter's property.
- Helpful Hallucination: For a definition of 'helpful'. Merle doesn't do much besides mock and humiliate Daryl, but the taunting is what seems to spur him on to survive.
- Horseback Heroism: Daryl.
- Gallows Humor: This exchange:Daryl (to Rick): This is the third time you've pointed that thing at my head. You gonna pull the trigger or what?Andrea shoots him from a distance with a long-range rifle, grazing his temple and knocking him the ground.Daryl: I was kidding.
- Guilt Complex: It's implied that Daryl feels guilty for putting so much energy into the search for Sophia when he didn't look harder for Merle and is still with the people partially responsible for his brother's fate.
- I Just Want to Be Badass: Andrea.
- Iconic Item: Sophia's doll, which Daryl finds and takes a sign that she must still be somewhere nearby.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Andrea is a damn good shot, considering her limited experience.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Discussed. Rick believes there is a chance Sophia may still be alive, but Shane points out that they know from their time on the force they're more likely to find a body after 72 hours under normal circumstances and not even taking into account the likelihood of her running into a zombie.
- Loners Are Freaks: How Daryl thinks the rest of the group sees him.Merle: You're nothing to them. Redneck trash.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Glenn's suggestion that he and Maggie have sex in the barn leads to him discovering that it's full of walkers.
- Morality Pet: Lori and Carl for Shane. He flat-out admits that they're the only people he cares about anymore and he doesn't care who else dies so long as they're safe.
- Mythology Gag: Merle's hallucination told Daryl to "take his (Daryl) friend Rick's hand", an obvious nod to Rick's Handicapped Badass status in the comic.
- Near-Death Experience: Daryl, thrice. First when he fell from his horse and gets impaled by his arrow. Second when he wakes up with a walker about to eat him. And finally when Andrea mistook him as a walker and shot him.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Andrea nearly killed Daryl in an effort to prove herself.
- No Periods, Period: Averted; Glenn mentions that he heard about women's periods sometimes syncing up and suggests that this may explain the recent behavior of the women. Dale advises that he keep that theory to himself.
- Not a Zombie: An inversion occurs when Daryl limps back to the farm covered in blood and the rest of the group assumes he is a walker on seeing him from a distance.
- Oh, Crap!: Maggie on reading Glenn's note and realizing that he's gone to the barn, followed shortly by Glenn arriving at said barn and walking in on a dozen walkers.
- Also Lori and Shane watching Atlanta get bombed by the military in the opening flashback.
- Finally, this is Andrea's reaction when she sees that she shot Daryl, not a walker
- One Arrow Left: Daryl uses his last arrow on one of the walkers that attacks him at the bottom of the ravine.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Hershel refers to Glenn as "the Asian boy" and expresses disapproval over his relationship with Maggie.
- Really Gets Around: Rick and Shane have a converation regarding Shane's many conquests while they were at high school.
- Room Full of Zombies: The Greene family barn.
- The Reveal: Glenn discovering that the Greenes are keeping a dozen live walkers in their barn.
- Secret-Keeper: Lori asks Glenn to keep her pregnancy to himself until she has decided what to do, as he is the only other person who knows about it
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Rick and Daryl both believe that finding Sophia's doll is a positive sign, but Shane is less convinced and interprets the sequence of events as Daryl almost getting killed to bring back a doll.
- Spotting the Thread: Daryl is able to realize that Merle is a hallucination because he still has both of his hands.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Lori and Carol cook dinner for the group to thank Hershel for his hospitality, but Hershel is less than impressed by the gesture as he feels that Rick's survivor group is crossing boundaries.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Dale demands to know what Glenn was thinking in having sex with the daughter of their host. Glenn angrily retorts that he was thinking he might die tomorrow.
