‘The Walking Dead’ season 4, episode 12 review: Daryl Dixon, Beth, moonshine and ‘I Never’
Last week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” was one of the more intense episodes of the season where we saw Rick trapped in a house with a group of nasty, rough deviants who were willing to choke each other out to sleep in a bed and were waiting at the house to do horrible things to Michonne. We found ourselves at the edge of our seats the entire episode and now that the bar has been raised, we expect things to only get better. Which brings us to our one complaint about last week’s episode… where was Daryl Dixon? If you were missing some Daryl action you’ll be in for a treat tonight.
We start out with Daryl and Beth living in the woods, and eating mud snakes. Beth has had enough, but Daryl doesn’t seem to care much (clearly these two are still having problems connecting). When Beth takes off in search of an alcoholic beverage (her first drink ever) and something a little more like civilization, Daryl follows her and they end up in a country club where we see two very different sides of these two characters. While Beth still very much cares about dignity for the dead, Daryl has a much more dark view of the world and what it has changed into. We see Daryl doing some strange things like taking a bag of money (like that matters anymore) and throwing darts at the pictures of people at the country club. Beth finally finds an alcoholic beverage, but it’s peach schnapps and Daryl refuses to let that be her first drink.
He brings her to an abandoned house that has moonshine in it and gives that to her as her first drink. These two finally end up sharing a nice moment where they play a game of “I never” with moonshine. Things start to go south after Beth brings up prison in the game – Daryl’s drunk dark side comes out as he starts drunk shooting walkers and forcing her to use a walker as “fun” target practice. Everything turns into a huge screaming match as they both try to hurt each other, but Daryl’s pain and guilt finally comes out over what happened at the prison and how he could’ve done something more to help save the group and their home. We loved this moment as he finally released a great deal of pain over what happened and how helpless he felt to stop the prison invasion and Beth hugged him so tight.
Afterwards they find a good balance with each other and spend the night opening up to each other and getting to know each other better as they form a much stronger partnership. After letting all of their demons go they decide to take the remaining moonshine, pour it all over the house and burn it to the ground (using the money as a fire starter) and have a much needed cathartic moment as they let go other past and move into their future. Episode Grade: A
What did you think of tonight’s episode of “The Walking Dead”? Were you happy to see Daryl back on your television screen? If you want even more “Walking Dead” news (including a preview for the next new episode) just head over to the link here. Also if you want some more updates sent straight to your inbox every Sunday to help get you set up for the upcoming week in TV then be sure to subscribe to our CarterMatt newsletter.
Photo: AMC