Infected

"Infected" is the second episode of Season 4 of AMC's The Walking Dead. It aired on October 20, 2013 at 9/8c on AMC.

Plot Synopsis
Late at night, the govener is shown feeding a rat to the fence-walkers. The scene then swaps to Tyreese and Karen in the library, overlooking their lives and then Tyreese begins playfully singing to her. They both then head back to their respective cells. Karen takes a detour to the showers to fill a pitcher of water, where she hears movement but finds nothing. After she exits, a zombified Patrick rises out of the shower, undetected. He exits the showers and follows her back to the cell block. He stops at her room, but is distracted by the coughing of another person and wanders into his cell and proceeds to bite the man's throat, preventing him from calling for help.

At dawn, Patrick is finished devouring the man, and the latter soon awakens as a walker. Glenn and Maggie are in the guard tower on watch, and Glenn takes a photo of Maggie with the camera he retrieved from the Big Spot. Rick and Carl head out to tend to the pigs and Carl asks if he can help with the fence-cleaners, but Rick shuts the idea down. Carl apologizes and assures his father that he is trying to live normally and asks if he can have his gun back. Before Rick can answer, they hear gunshots. Mika and Lizzie run out of Cell Block D, bawling for help. A horde of walkers have attacked from within and have killed several people. Michonne, who was heading out on a supply run, is alerted of the chaos, but gets trapped in the prison gates with two walkers. Just as the walkers manage to overpower her, Carl kills one of them; the other one is kicked off by Michonne and then shot by Maggie. Michonne accidentally injures her leg on one of the snares, but is helped up by Maggie and Carl. In the cell block, the group clears out the walkers. Carol assists Ryan Samuels into a cell after he is bitten on the arm and prepares to amputate it, but not before realizing that he has been bitten on the nape as well. After the threat temporarily clears out, Daryl and Rick comb the area, searching for anyone bitten to ensure that they won't re-animate, when Glenn gets attacked by a walker. Daryl is able to shoot it in the head, and realizes that it was Patrick. Rick is initially hesistant about putting the people down, coming out of the first cell shaken and in a daze. Another bloody-eyed walker, Charlie, emerges from a cell and is put down by Rick. They realize that since Charlie locked himself in his cell due to his sleepwalking, that there was no way that he could have been bitten.

Rick, Hershel, Dr. Subramanian, Daryl, and Bob gather around Charlie's body, noting that he has no bites or scratches. Subramanian recognizes the blood pouring out of Charlie's orifices as an indicator of disease, and Rick mentions Patrick, the bloody-eyed walker, Violet, and the sick boar that he encountered. Glenn suggests that it's a new walker disease, but Subramanian says that he saw cases like this pre-apocalypse. Subramanian explains that diseases like the one that killed Patrick were spread by pigs and birds in the old days and Bob notes that they thrive in close quarters, like the cell block. They conclude that everyone in the cell block could be infected by The Flu.

Ryan realizes that he is dying, and asks Carol to take care of Lizzie and Mika for him as if they were her own. Carol agrees, but tells him that he has to let them say goodbye to him, before she kills him. As Lizzie and Mika say goodbye, Carol tells them what she has to do but Lizzie volunteers to do it instead. At the last minute, she is unable to stab her father in the head and turns away crying, as Carol takes back the knife and does it herself.

Carol, Hershel, Daryl, Sasha, and Glenn think of what to do with the people who might have been infected, including a suggestion to quarantine them in Cell Block A; Death row. They then hear coughing outside of the room. It's shown to be coming from Karen, who was walking by with Tyreese. She is told that she must be quarantined in the Tombs while they find out what the cause is. Sasha (as well as Karen herself) calms Tyreese, stating that it's necessary. As she leaves, Karen also mentions that David was coughing as well. Carl and Maggie are carrying Michonne back inside when Rick approaches them. He tells them what happened and assures Maggie that Hershel and Glenn are fine. He says that they must stay away from him for now, due to possibly being infected.

Beth is seen dressing Michonne's wound when the latter says that she made a mistake of letting the two walkers get the better of her. She bitterly says that Maggie and Carl should have left her. Beth says ''now THAT is foolish. People getting hurt is part of living with a group.'' She muses about those who died, wondering what you call a parent who's lost a child. Michonne begins to tear up but composes herself immediately and Beth doesn't notice. Later, she asks Michonne to hold Judith while she cleans up the mess Judith made on her. Michonne looks at Judith with indifference, but then loses control and weeps while holding Judith close (hinting that something horrible might've happened in her past).

Carol goes to talk to Mika and Lizzie, as they stand by the fence. She turns to Lizzie and tells her that Ryan asked her to take care of them and says bluntly that Lizzie is weak, and that in this world she can't be. Lizzie begins crying that they killed him, and Carol realizes that she is referring to Nick, the walker that she named in the previous episode. Lizzie runs away and Mika explains that Lizzie isn't weak, "she's just funny in the head.''

Daryl is digging graves for those who had died when Rick comes by to help. Daryl tells Rick that he's earned his time away from being in a leader position, when Maggie screams for them to follow her; It's shown that a massive group of walkers, drawn by the gunfire from earlier, are converging at a portion of the fence that is about to give way. Despite the efforts of Glenn, Sasha and a few others, there are just too many walkers. Sasha points out the carcasses of several dead rats near the walls, suggesting that someone's been luring the walkers to the fence, which explains why they are clustering together, instead of spreading out. Rick, getting an idea on what to do, tells Daryl to get one of the trucks. The two lead the walkers a few meters away and Rick pulls out one of the piglets; He then cuts it's femoral artery and leaves it for the walkers to devour. He repeats this several times before the walkers are a safe distance away. Rick appears to be crying as he kills each piglet, and is significantly affected when the last piglet's blood splatters all over his face.

Meanwhile, Carol finds Lizzie and Mika near the fence looking at walkers again. Carol assures her that she needs to be strong in letting her father go and not to run away from her fear of the walkers but to face them. She puts a flower in Lizzie's hair. Lizzie takes the knife from Carol's hand, and puts it in her belt.

Carl finds his father burning up the pig pen. Rick explains that they either got the virus from the pigs or that we infected them. He tells Carl that they need to stay away from Judith for a while to protect her from possibly being infected. Carl then tells Rick about Carol teaching the kids how to use knives, but asks that Rick not confront her, as he believes she is right in doing so. Rick promises not to. He then pulls out his gun and holster, as well as handing Carl his gun back. He lights a match and burns the pigpen; then, Rick takes off his bloody shirt and throws that into the fire as well. Tyreese is seen going to Karen's isolated cell in the tombs with some flowers, only to find her missing. He notices a trail of blood leading down the hallway; Following it, he arrives outside where he sees the burnt and charred corpses of both Karen and David; Karen recognizable by her bracelet.

Co-Stars

 * Kennedy Brice as Molly.
 * Brandon Carroll as David.
 * Luke Donaldson as Luke.
 * Victor McCay as Ryan Samuels.

Uncredited

 * Tinsley and Anniston Price as Judith Grimes.
 * Chase as Flame.
 * Sherry Richards as Jeanette.
 * Jilian McLendon as Chloe.
 * Greg Crews as Greg.
 * Erin Hunter as "Crying Mother".
 * Will Martin as "Sick Teenager".
 * Harley Shellhammer as "Prison Newcomer".
 * Frederick Carpenter, Ellie Decker & Pj McDonnell as Walkers.
 * John Jaret, Jasi Lanier,Lauren Henneberg & Griffin O'Connor as Walkers.
 * Unknown as Nick.
 * Unknown as Charlie.
 * Unknown as Mr. Jacobson.
 * Unknown as Henry.

Deaths

 * 6 Unnamed Survivors
 * Greg (Alive and Zombified)
 * Chloe
 * Mr. Richards
 * Patrick (Zombified)
 * Charlie (Zombified)
 * Ryan Samuels
 * Nick (Zombified)
 * Piglets
 * Ka0ren
 * David

Trivia

 * First appearance of Jeanette.
 * First appearance of Mr. Jacobson.
 * First (and last) appearance of Charlie. (Zombified)
 * Last appearance of Greg.
 * Last appearance of Patrick. (Zombified)
 * Last appearance of Ryan Samuels.
 * Last appearance of Chloe.
 * Last appearance of Nick. (Zombified)
 * Last appearance of Karen. (Alive)
 * Last appearance of David.
 * Last appearance of the piglets.
 * This episode has the most walker related deaths in Rick's group of any other episodes with 13-14.
 * This episode features the second most deaths of the most characters in the TV Series, with a total of 16 characters deaths, the most being "Welcome to the Tombs", with 27 deaths.
 * The song Tyreese sings to Karen is Frank Sinatra's "Under my Skin".
 * The song Beth sings to Judith is Tom Wait's "I Don't Want To Grow Up".
 * The scene where Ryan asks Carol to watch over his kids after he is gone is similar to the same scene from the Comic Series. But in the Comic Series, it is Allen who asks Andrea to watch over his twins.
 * Though she is not seen doing so on-screen, this episode marks the first time in the series in which Carol kills a living human being (Karen and David); she would admit this to Rick in the next epsiode, "Isolation".
 * The scene where Tyreese finds the two burnt corpses of Karen and David is similar to a scene in the Comic Series, where Hershel finds his two daughters decapitated.
 * This episode marks the first episode in the flu story arc.