Recap / The Walking Dead S04 E12 "Still"

Season 4, episode 12

Still

Daryl and Beth seek some down time and reflect on their very different paths in life.

The episode begins with Daryl and Beth, seeking a spot for shelter, climbing into the trunk of an abandoned vehicle. They listen as a horde of walkers pass outside, and scavenge supplies from the car in the morning before heading down the road.

As they set up a camp, Daryl goes hunting and manages to catch a snake for dinner. As they eat, Beth asks if he has any alcohol, because she has never tried it before and her father never let her have any. Daryl refuses to answer, though, and she storms off in anger.

Near the camp, she is walking around clearing her head when walkers appear from the forest, forcing her to hide. She distracts the walkers with some rocks, and is discovered by Daryl, who leads her back to camp. Once there, she rails at him and says she can take care of herself.

The next morning, the pair set off again, but soon discover a country club near the edge of the forest. Believing that it might have some alcohol inside, and seeing that walkers have followed them out of the forest, Daryl and Beth go inside. In the lobby, they discover several corpses with gunshots in their heads, along with three walkers who hung themselves from the ceiling. As Beth looks around for a bottle of alcohol, Daryl picks up money that's scattered on the floor. However, their search is interrupted by the walkers trying to get through the front door, which forces the pair to head further inside the club.

As they continue searching, Beth discovers an unopened bottle of wine, but her happiness is shortlived when she is attacked by a nearby walker. Forced to use the bottle as a makeshift weapon, it doesn't work and she ends up killing the walker with her knife. After this, she's incensed to see Daryl standing nearby watching, and sarcastically thanks him for helping. He replies that she did say she could take care of herself.

Further inside the building, the pair discover a shop and Beth gets some clean clothes, but they are once again distracted when a nearby clock begins chiming, alerting other walkers in the club to their location. The pair are forced to dispatch the walkers with the crossbow, a golf club and his knife.

After doing so, the pair continue searching and find the bar, and Beth finally finds a bottle of wine. However, she eventually breaks down after finding that there are no clean glasses, to which Daryl responds that he has something better for her to drink.

The pair head to an abandoned shack Daryl says he found some time back with Michonne, which has crates of moonshine within. He pours a drink for her, but refuses to drink any himself because he wants to have his wits about him. Beth then proposes playing a game of "I Never", and Daryl reluctantly agrees.

As they both drink several rounds, they become intoxicated. Beth implies that Daryl has gone to jail, prompting him to pee on a wall in response. He then takes Beth outside and half-drunkenly shows her how to use a crossbow, via pinning a wandering walker to a tree and telling her to kill it with his weapon. She refuses, instead killing it with her knife, which prompts Daryl to yell at her for acting like a college kid, while she accuses him of not caring about anyone.

At this, Daryl breaks down and admits that he felt like he was responsible for Hershel's death, and that he feels guilty for not taking a shot at the Governor before the latter decapitated her father and attacked the prison. He breaks down and cries as Beth comforts him, and later, they tell stories of their families through the night.

Eventually, Beth suggests that they burn down the shack, and together, they empty the moonshine out all over the house and dump the money he collected inside of it. Beth lights a match and the house goes up in flames, and they both give it the finger before turning and leaving...

Tropes:

• Breather Episode: Though there are a few tense action scenes, it's very much a character-driven episode in the same vein as season 3's Clear, and key plot elements introduced in previous episodes such as the sanctuary and the marauders are entirely absent.
• Character Development: Lampshaded for both characters: Daryl has grown more responsible and open to others while Beth has become more emotionally stable and combat proficient.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Beth continues Zach's game of trying to guess what Daryl did before the apocalypse.
  • During their fight, Daryl mentions Beth singing in the prison courtyard and cutting her wrist while Beth brings up Daryl's reaction to Sophia coming out of the barn.
  • Daryl is seen using the red handkerchief that Anna Turner gave to him in The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct.
  • They also discuss long-dead family members, like Beth's brother and Merle, as well as Hershel.
• Cooldown Hug: Beth hugs Daryl from behind to comfort him as he breaks down.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Daryl's is hinted at some more, as he takes Beth to a redneck cabin that he says reminds him of the one he grew up in and offhandedly mentions that his father used to shoot guns inside the house. He also indicates, while drunk and ranting, that he is somewhat resentful of people like Beth who grew up with money and relatively normal childhoods.
• A Day in the Limelight: For both Daryl and Beth.
• Drinking Game: Beth convinces Daryl to play a game of 'I Have Never' which quickly spirals out of control.
• Flipping the Bird: Beth flips off Daryl near the start of the episode when he tries to make her stay at camp; echoed at the end when they both flip off the burning shack after setting it on fire.
• Generation Xerox: There's a reason why Daryl is The Teetotaler
• Heroic BSoD: After getting drunk Daryl flies into a rage about all the things he never had and his belief that everyone else is dead, before tearfully breaking down and admitting that he blames himself for not having done more to prevent what happened at the prison. Earlier in the episode, Beth has a more minor breakdown on finding a bottle of peach schnapps and realizing that Hershel is no longer there to stop her from drinking it.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Basically the premise of the entire episode.
• Improvised Weapon: Daryl takes down several walkers with a golf club.
• In Vino Veritas: Several harsh truths come to light once the characters are sufficiently drunk enough.
• Let the Past Burn
• Odd Couple: Daryl and Beth practically embody this trope; a surly redneck with a murky past and a soft-spoken teenage farm girl, yet they come to understand each other on a fairly profound level.
• Ship Tease: All over the place.
• Stepford Smiler: Beth's upbeat attitude is mostly confirmed to be this, as she admits that she wants to lie down and cry but she realizes they don't get to do that.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Both of them, though they do both get better by the end of the episode:
  • Beth comes across as more of a typical teenager than she has previously, constantly snarking at Daryl and frustrated by his apathetic outlook.
  • Daryl starts regressing back into his previous personality and becomes outright aggressive after drinking enough moonshine.
• Trash the Set: Daryl and Beth burn down the shack at the end of the episode, flipping it off as they leave.
• Unstoppable Rage: Daryl repeatedly bludgeons a walker with a golf club before putting it down for good.
• Watching Troy Burn: Beth and Daryl watch the cabin burn and flip it off to symbolize Daryl shedding the remnants of his past.
• Word of God: The Talking Dead show that aired after the episode states that the hanging members in the country club were killed by the staff due to a class struggle.