Season 4, episode 13
Alone
- Maggie leaves Sasha and Bob behind in her quest to find Glenn, while Daryl and Beth grow closer in their search for a sanctuary.
In a flashback, Bob is seen wandering the road by himself, drinking constantly and struggling to find shelter. He is approached one day by Daryl and Glenn, who ask him several questions about what he's been doing over the last few months. Bob responds that he killed a woman, and when they ask him why, he says that she wanted him to.
In the present, Sasha, Maggie and Bob are fighting off walkers in a dense fog. Bob is apparently bit but fights off the walker, causing Sasha great concern. As they kill the last walker, Sasha checks his bandages, and sees that the walker only bit into the bandages, while his arm is fine, causing her to hug him. Later, they decide to move their camp due to the fog.
Elsewhere, Daryl and Beth are walking along the road after burning down the shack, and he once again tries to teach her how to use his crossbow. As she tries to use it on a walker in a clearing, her foot gets caught in an animal trap, and her shot misses, leading Daryl to take it out himself. Seeing that she's injured, Daryl picks her up and begins to carry her through the forest.
As they exit the forest, the duo come upon a graveyard. Beth is dismayed to discover a gravestone with the words "beloved father" on it, and Daryl places some flowers on it in response.
Maggie, Sasha and Bob continue walking and come across the train tracks with the signs mentioning Terminus. Bob realizes that the radio broadcast he heard in the car with Daryl, Tyreese and Michonne when they meant to get the supplies for the outbreak was referring to the same location, and Maggie immediately suggests heading for it because Glenn might be there. Sasha contests her, saying that they don't know that for sure, but Bob agrees with Maggie.
Daryl and Beth explore a funeral home beside the graveyard, and realize that someone was living in it. They also find several bodies dressed up to look presentable for their burial. They soon discover a large cache of food in the kitchen, and realize that someone had put it there recently, causing them to set up security tripwires to let them know if anyone enters. They rest for the night.
Maggie, Bob and Sasha soon set down to make camp again. Bob and Sasha discuss Maggie's frame of mind while she's out getting firewood, and she responds that Glenn is likely dead and that they need to find a town and set up residence. Later, the two of them wake up to discover a note from Maggie that she has gone towards Terminus, prompting them to follow her.
On the train tracks nearby, Maggie is moving down the line when she sees a walker and easily kills it before cutting its body open. A short while later, as Bob and Sasha head down the tracks, he smiles to himself, prompting her to ask why. Bob responds that he's not alone, and that he's finally broken the streak of seeing the groups he's traveled with being wiped out. Soon after, they discover the walker Maggie killed - with its entrails and blood strewn on the ground with a message telling Glenn to follow her to Terminus.
The next morning, Daryl goes into the kitchen to get food, but is surprised to see a one-eyed dog barking on the front porch. When he tries to pet it, the dog runs away. Later, they write a thank-you note to the occupant of the house, although Daryl suggests that they wait for the occupant to return and bring them along. They suddenly hear the dog barking in pain outside, and when Daryl goes to investigate, he is onset by a group of walkers trying to get into the house.
Daryl tells Beth to escape through a window while he distracts the walkers, and while he manages to escape outside before being swarmed, he is shocked to discover Beth's bag lying on the ground. As he goes around the front of the house, he sees a car fleeing and tries to follow, but can't keep up.
Sasha and Bob continue to follow the tracks and come across an empty town, and she suggests that they should set up camp. Bob refuses, and explains that he needs to find Maggie. Although she protests, Bob says he doesn't care if Maggie doesn't want them coming along, and says that he has to go find her. Sasha elects to stay behind, and he gives her a kiss before heading off.
Now by herself, Sasha goes searching inside an old building, and breaks down when she has a moment to herself. She then looks outside... only to be shocked when she sees Maggie lying among a group of corpses, and accidentally smashes a window to the ground in response. Maggie sits up surprised, while a group of walkers hear the sound and come out of the woods. Together, they clear out the walkers, and Maggie confronts Sasha for following them and that she heard her say that Glenn was dead. Maggie then says that both of them are wrong, and that they need to find Bob and head for Terminus. They leave to catch up with the latter.
Daryl continues running after the car, but collapses onto the ground after hours of exertion. He wakes up after to see six men surrounding him, all armed with assault rifles. Daryl jumps up and attacks one of them before aiming his crossbow at the latter, who is revealed to be the man Rick saw being choked into unconsciousness in the house. As they move to shoot Daryl, the apparent leader of the group tells them to hold their fire, and introduces himself as Joe. He tells Daryl that there's no reason to get himself killed over one man, and asks why he would want to hurt himself when he could hurt other people instead. Daryl lowers his weapon, and the rest of the group lowers theirs.
On the train tracks, Maggie and Sasha finally catch up with Bob, and they continue walking down the road towards Terminus...
Tropes:
- Arc Words: "Those who arrive survive" crops up again, as do the signs for Terminus.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Maggie, Sasha and Bob employ this technique while battling walkers in dense fog. Used again by Maggie and Sasha later in the episode.
- Black Comedy: Daryl lies down inside a coffin and remarks that it's the comfiest bed he's had in years.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted; Sasha mentions that they only have six bullets left.
- Bridal Carry: Daryl carries Beth this way due to her sustaining an ankle injury.
- Call-Back: In the opening flashback, Daryl poses Bob with the same three questions ("How many walkers have you killed? How many people have you killed? Why?") that Rick gave Clara in "30 Days Without an Accident".
-
The Cast Showoff: Beth sings and plays the piano in the funeral home. - Cat Scare: Played straight and subverted: the first time Daryl's traps are triggered outside the funeral home he takes his crossbow to check on the disturbance, only to be met with a rather pathetic looking dog. When they go off again later he unthinkingly opens the door without checking, expecting the dog to have returned, and lets in a horde of walkers.
- Celebrity Paradox: The song Beth sang at the funeral is Emily Kinney's own song
. May also overlap with Product Placement. - Continuity Nod:
- Daryl makes good on his drunken promise to teach Beth how to shoot the crossbow in "Still".
- Bob mentions the radio transmission advertising the sanctuary heard in "Isolation".
- The marauders encountered by Rick in "Claimed" return and take Daryl in after a tense stand-off.
- Couldn't Find a Pen:
Maggie guts a walker and uses its innards to write a message for Glenn telling him to head for Terminus. - Damsel in Distress: Beth is seemingly kidnapped by an unidentified party.
- Determinator:
- Maggie makes it clear that she will stop at absolutely nothing in her quest to find Glenn.
- Daryl runs all through the night and much of the following day after the car that took Beth before eventually collapsing out of exhaustion and hopelessness.
- Double-Meaning Title/Multi-Character Title: The title refers to Bob during his flashback and Daryl towards the end of the episode.
- Due to the Dead: Beth and Daryl pay their respects at one of the graves in the cemetery, obviously thinking of Hershel. Later discussed when they find that someone in the funeral home is still embalming bodies, something that Beth insists is beautiful although Daryl seems to find it creepy.
- Flashback: The episode opens with a flashback showing how Bob was first recruited into the group.
- Foreshadowing: Beth getting her foot caught in a trap near the start of the episode foreshadows the true nature of the funeral home.
- Heroic BSoD: Daryl after failing to catch up with Beth. Maggie also appears to have gone through something similar when Sasha finds her lying on the ground amid a pile of corpses.
- Improvised Weapon: Maggie and Sasha take out walkers with a No Parking sign and a wooden stake respectively.
- Mercy Kill: In the flashback when Bob meets Daryl and Glenn, he said he only killed one person, and that it was because she asked him to.
- Mexican Standoff: Between Daryl and the Claimers.
- Mood Whiplash: The episode switches abruptly from a hopeful, tender moment between Beth and Daryl to their shelter being invaded by a horde of walkers and Beth getting abducted.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Daryl opening the door without checking what was on the other side leads to Beth's kidnapping.
- Not So Stoic: Sasha's resolve briefly crumbles when she stays behind at the housing development while Bob goes after Maggie.
- Safe Zone Hope Spot: The funeral home found by Beth and Daryl starts out this way before everything quickly goes to hell.
- Sanity Slippage: Maggie continues to exhibit worrying behavior, including vivisecting walkers to paint blood messages and lying down on the ground amid piles of bodies. She does seem to pull back from it by the end of the episode, however.
- Ship Tease: Bob/Sasha and Daryl/Beth both get quite a bit of this.
- Sole Survivor: Bob mentions again that he was this for both of his previous groups, and states that the reason for his out-of-place cheerfulness is that he's happy not to be alone.
- Survivor's Guilt: Bob again.
- True Companions: Maggie, Sasha and Bob seem to have become this by the end of the episode, putting aside their differences and reaffirming the bonds between them as they continue on with a shared goal.
- Wham Episode: Beth is abducted by an unknown party, Daryl joins up with the Claimers and Maggie and Glenn make their separate ways to Terminus.
