Would it be hyperbolic to describe “The Grove” as The Walking Dead‘s “Red Wedding” moment? I think the description fits. “Red Wedding” has become shorthand for any episode of a show that proves that fucking around will not be tolerated, that the show is playing for keeps, and that the status quo is anything but. The Good Wife did it, House of Cards did it, and now The Walking Dead has done it. It’s telling that no screeners of “The Grove” were sent out to press outlets, so intent was AMC on preserving the emotional gut-punch. Robert Kirkman himself even said that it was the must-see episode of season four.
So did it disappoint? Not at all. It should come as no surprise that “The Grove” was written by Scott Gimple, TWD‘s current showrunner, who also wrote the phenomenal season three episode “Clear.” Gimple understands this show, this world, and the characters who inhabit both in a natural, intuitive way not seen since Frank Darabont was calling the shots. Season four has been good-to-great so far, but in Gimple’s able hands, it has the potential to be classic.
It’s easy to heap praise on an episode just for its “holy shit” factor. Surprise can turn into adulation quickly, and most of the critical community is guilty of that. But “The Grove” lives up to its hype. It’s the first episode of season four’s second half that really, truly justifies the narrative tactic of separating the group and focusing each installment on a different fragment. The improvised family dynamic between Carol, Tyreese, Lizzie, Mika, and Judith is so natural that your thoughts don’t drift to Rick or Daryl or Maggie (at least mine didn’t).
But what to say about Lizzie? For the first half of “The Grove” – until THAT moment – she was problematic for me. The Walking Dead fixed the problem by having Lizzie go off the deep end. Brighton Sharbino delivers a phenomenal performance; Lizzie is scared, confused, and believably menacing, and when Carol and Tyreese come up on her standing over her sister’s dead body, Sharbino acts with shades of Michelle Williams in Shutter Island. Credit is also due to Melissa McBride, who waits until Tyreese walks away with Lizzie before breaking down over Mika’s corpse; the whole thing is so senseless, so unnecessary, that there’s nothing else she can do. “The Grove” is also a great episode for Chad L. Coleman, who gets a great monologue standing by a tree, and one of the episode’s truest emotional beats, as he forgives Carol for killing Karen.
Mika’s death sets up the next conflict: Lizzie and Judith cannot be under the same roof. So that takes to the other THAT moment, Carol giving Lizzie the Of Mice and Men treatment. It’s heartbreaking, honestly. Lizzie thinks Carol is mad because Lizzie pointed a gun at her, not because she killed her sister. But Carol isn’t mad, she just has no other options.
Jesus, you guys. This fucking episode. Sometimes, like in most of season two, The Walking Dead spins its wheels, showing us how people act in an apocalypse with very little in the way of reason. And other times, like in “The Grove,” it remembers that it has the potential to be an amazing TV show, and it knocks you flat on your ass.
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