Maggie stating to Father Gabriel that the church isn’t a house of lord but “just four walls and a roof” while numerous, chopped up bodies lay at her feet is a nice comment on the post-apocalypse. Because that’s all anything such as a house or a church is now in this world. Iconoclasm or not, Maggie reminds us that everything that once had a deep and rich history behind it is now meaningless; there is no room for sentimentality in this bleak existence, everything is just either shelter, food, a weapon, or death. This kind of outlook is certainly one which Rick (and his group) has dived in and out of since about mid-way through Season 2, though it’s nice to see that there are still members of the group who cling to the continuity of humanity rather than a complete change, and there is none more representative of this relative optimism than Bob.
It’s sad to see Bob go because as expository as his dialogue was becoming, I quite liked the guy. He was a great example of how The Walking Dead can take a relatively nothing character, put him in one great episode, and turn him into one of the most endearing and complex of the group. R.I.P Bob Stookey, and props must be given to Lawrence Gilliard Jr for a fine performance these past two episodes. “Four Walls and a Roof” opened with him and wasted little time in having him spit venom right back at Gareth and his disturbed followers. Bob revealed that he was bitten (sadly on the shoulder) so The Hunters were indeed eating “tainted meat”, and while the effects of this aren’t really known, it was enough to scare those sick bastards.
The opening scenes are explicit in contrasting the cannibalistic Hunters with the walkers banging at the window. If the back-and-forth shots of The Hunters eating Bob’s leg and the walkers being walkers isn’t enough, then the direction pans behind Gareth to even show his reflection in the middle of the horde of walkers. The line between him and them is more transparent now; he has officially lost his human card.
Meanwhile back at the church Sasha, Rick, and Tyreese are unsuccessfully searching for Bob, Daryl, and Carol. Little do they know that Bob has been taken by The Hunters and the other two have sped off in search of Beth. Luckily them realising what has happened isn’t dragged out and Bob is dropped off back at the church to bring them up to speed.
It’s interesting to see Sasha and Rick quickly take up arms against Father Gabriel so aggressively, showing how suspicious and paranoid this world has made them. It was great to watch Seth Gilliam display his improved acting chops with a nice scene in which Father Gabriel breaks down and reveals a bit of his backstory to the group. He is indeed a weak, selfish coward who closed and locked his doors to members of his own congregation simply because there were too many. Undoubtedly one of those poor souls was the woman we saw at the food mart in “Strangers.”
The big scene in this episode comes as Rick, Sasha, Michonne, Glenn, and Tara venture off to hunt The Hunters, but in a great one-shot, we see that Gareth and co plan on taking advantage of the decoy and raiding the church as soon as some of the group’s strongest survivors are out of the picture. It’s a dark sequence filled with tension and disbelief that Rick could be that stupid. Then it comes at you like an burst of adrenaline and Rick Grimes baddass-ery; the fake-out method used to fool The Governor in season 3 is employed again so that Rick can come up behind The Hunters are take them out. With Gareth on his knees, Rick drops a couple of memorable lines to reiterate how Liam Neeson he has become and proceeds to hack away at Gareth with a machete while Abraham bludgeons someone with his gun, Michonne does the same, and Sasha stabs the living hell out of snot-nosed Martin.
Tyreese, Glenn, and Tara seem to both accept and be disturbed by the level of brutality Rick and the others inflict upon the deserving Hunters, and it’s a good move not to include any ‘what have we become?’ talk amongst the group afterwards because their gradual loss of humanity and how far they are willing to go to survive is already a constant motif here. Still, the barbaric trajectory of Rick as he shifts between the best of Hershel and the worst of Shane does need questioning sometimes; here, it was through the encouraging last words of Bob.
After the action part of the episode is over, we get a long farewell to Bob and it seems appropriate being that he really is the first character to die after the great post-Governor run of character development. His light-hearted words to Rick, reminding him that he was someone who “takes people in” and is ultimately a good man, was something Rick needed in order to ground him after he has been in Murder-death-kill mode for the past few episodes. Bob also got to die smiling as opposed to miserably tied up watching The Hunters eat his leg; it was a nice send off to an underrated character.
Abraham almost coming to blows with Rick because of his impatience was a bit frustrating. His persistence in “extracting” Eugene from the dangerous situation with The Hunters made him hard to like, more so when you realise that had he waited a couple of more hours than the group didn’t really need to split up like they did. Although for stories sake, it’s probably for the best that now Glenn and Maggie are with Abraham’s D.C-bound group because Glenn, undoubtedly one of the most popular characters on the show, has been at risk of becoming T-Dogged for awhile now.
In a strange cliffhanger, Michonne – who has recovered her katana – finds a worried looking Daryl in the bushes and asks where Carol is. Daryl turns to someone behind him and tells them to come out of the bushes…cue the credits.
It’s looking as if we’ll be catching up with Beth next week, and hopefully finding out what happened when Daryl and Carol drove off looking for her. These sorts of catching-up episodes have been hit or miss for me, but it will be interesting to see what kind of characters this arc is going to introduce.
Review Score: THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Hightlights:
1. Rick brutalises Gareth
2. Rick and co ambush The Hunters
3. Bob gets to die smiling
4. Bob reveals bite to The Hunters
5. Michonne gets her katana back
Lowlights:
1. Abraham is too impatient and has bad timing
2. Tyreese fading into background; underused and practically a fill-in dad for Judith
3. No hope of a backstory to Terminus
4. Can’t they find Judith a pacifier?
Episode MVP: Rick, Bob
Walker Kill of the Week: Tyreese (delicately putting Bob out of his undead state)
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