- As Carl's condition continues to deteriorate, Shane and Otis try to dodge the walkers as they head back to the farm.
- Carl is near death and with internal bleeding. He is surviving due to the successive blood transfusions, but Rick is getting weaker and weaker. Daryl can not sleep during the night since Carol is weeping all the time. He decides to take a walk with Andrea to seek out Sophia. Meanwhile Shane and Otis are short of ammunition and surrounded by a large number of walkers. They decide to split to take a chance against the zombies. Glenn and T-Dog arrive in the farm and T-Dog's wound is disinfected and treated. When Herchel Greene is ready to operate on Carl, Shane arrives, completely shaken, with the necessary medical supplies. Then he recalls how he was able to survive.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Shane and Otis are still trapped in the school but have found the equipment they were sent to get. At the farm, Carl is fast approaching the end leaving Rick and Laurie decide whether to authorize the operation without the respirator. Back at the highway, they decide that some will stay behind in the event Sophia reappears while the rest can go to the Greene's farm. T-Dog has his wound disinfected and Dr. Greene is about to operate when Shane returns with the vital equipment. Otis didn't make it however and in a flashback, we learn of his fate.—garykmcd
- Sophia is still missing. Carl is still ailing. It's not a good time to be a kid during the zombie apocalypse. Cut to Shane and Otis, who are running through the hallways of a school overrun by walkers. Rick, meanwhile, assures Lori that Shane will return with what Hershel needs to operate on Carl. Lori doesn't appear completely convinced.
Cut to Daryl, who is camped out with Andrea and a weeping Carol. Feeling sympathetic, Daryl offers to take a walk in the middle of the night to search for Sophia. Andrea volunteers to come along. "Are you sure this is the best idea?" asks Dale. Naturally, everybody ignores the voice of reason. Back at the school, Otis and Shane are trapped at the top of the gymnasium bleachers. Otis makes a run for it in one direction while Shane runs toward a window in the opposite direction. He shoots a zombie in the face at point blank range before falling multiple stories to the ground. He limps away.
Sometime later, T-Dog and Glenn show up at the Hershel farm house and meet Maggie on the front porch. Glenn appears love struck. Cut to Daryl, who explains to Andrea that he once disappeared into the woods for nine days as a child. The point: Sophia might just be OK. Andrea isn't convinced. Back at the farm, Hershel announces that they might have to operate on Carl without the respirator as the boy is fading fast. "Maybe this is how it's supposed to be," Lori tells her husband, who refuses to believe that Carl is better off dead -- regardless of the current world order. Lori brings up Jackie, who chose death. Was Jackie right? "I don't accept that," Rick says. "I can't accept that." But why? Rick can't explain himself when pressed to explain why Carl would be better off living.
Shane, in the meantime, is about to overcome by walkers when a shot rings out, exploding some zombie heads. It's Otis -- and he has saved Shane's bacon. Back at the farmhouse, Carl wakes up and is suddenly lucid. "Where are we?" Carl asks. "It hurts." Lori strokes her boy's head as he talks about the pretty deer -- and then goes completely still. Lori gasps -- and then the boy undergoes a violent seizure. "His brain isn't getting enough blood," Hershel explains. Rick offers his arm for the umpteenth time.
Later, Daryl and Andrea sneak through the dark woods and come upon a campsite. They find a walker hanging by his neck from a tree. Poor guy tried to commit suicide before "turning," but forgot to shoot himself in the head. Animals have munched on the swinging zombie's legs. "He made his choice," Daryl says. "Let him hang." Andrea confesses that she doesn't know if she wants to live or if it's "just a habit." Daryl then honors her request to show mercy and shoots the walker in the head with an arrow.
Back at the farm house, T-Dog gets stitched up by Patricia while Maggie catches Glenn praying. "This is my first try," says Glenn with a dispirited laugh. Maggie notes that quite a few prayers have gone unanswered as of late. Dale, meanwhile, has decided to ignore his own good advice and goes searching for Andrea and Daryl by himself. He approaches the edge of the highway -- and then stops, uncertain of how to proceed. Cut to Rick, who earnestly tells his wife that Carl's moment of lucidness is a message. "He talked about the deer, Lori!" Rick says. In other words, he focused on life rather than death. Otis and Shane, in the meantime, continue to fight for their lives outside the school. Hurry, boys.
Cut to Hershel, who demands that Lori and Rick make a choice. Operate or let Carl slip away? "We do it," she says through tears. Carl is put on a table and the good doctor picks up his scalpel. Right before he is about to make the first incision, Shane roars up to the front door in a pickup truck. Rick hugs his friend, who is clearly very, very shaken. He admits to having left the slower Otis behind in order to return as quickly as he did. Back at the road, Dale doesn't have to go out into the woods, after all, as Andrea and Daryl return (without Sophia). "The choices I made for you were not mine to make," says Dale, handing over Andrea's gun to her. "Please, don't make me regret this." Does Andrea forgive Dale? She is trying. Back at the farm house, Maggie weeps over the apparent loss of Otis -- and the loss of all her family and friends. Glenn comforts her.
Later, Hershel emerges onto the front porch and tells Lori and Rick that Carl has undergone surgery -- and appears to have stabilized. Lori and Rick weep. Their boy is going to be OK. Hershel now must turn his attention to breaking the bad news to Patricia, who nearly falls over when told that Otis did not make it back. Shane can barely watch the scene. He walks into Carl's recovery room to find Lori crying over her boy. The two former lovers look at each other. "Stay," Lori pleads. Shane says nothing. He walks slowly to the shower and examines his wounds. A tuft of hair has apparently been pulled out of this head. Flashback to Shane and Otis limping away from a wild pack of zombies. Suddenly, Shane uses his last bullet to shoot Otis in the leg. Screaming, Otis latches onto Shane and pulls out a chunk of his hair. After a furious struggle, Shane escapes, leaving Otis behind as a distraction to the walkers, who envelop him and tear him to shreds. It enables Shane to get away and save Carl. But at what cost to Shane?
The last we see of Shane, he is staring into a fogged over mirror, having just shaved his head to hide the last evidence of his struggle with Otis. Not good.
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