Walking Dead Recap S4E12: Still

Our group of survivors are still separated, likely for another episode or so, but they're slowly converging on the same point of "safety," or at least some of them are. Am I the only one who is tired of the separation and just wants to see the gang back together? And a few members lighter?

Daryl and Beth are still running around the forest. For some reason Daryl has set aside his super tracking skills, and stopped looking for the other survivors. Maybe its the huge horde of walkers they've come up against, that stopped the search. They find themselves in need of a little getaway, and a trunk seems like as good a spot as ever. A little jerry-rigging and the trunk becomes a safe haven. Daryl's bandanna is almost as good as duck tape in all its handy uses. They hide away while the super herd rolls past them. Come morning the walkers have gone, but the pair remain in the trunk until they deem it safe. They scavenge some random car pieces and hit the road.

Daryl's morning hunt is a little off target and he misses his squirrel, but Beth does better with her side mirror to light a fire, and hub cap alarm. Daryl catches a slithering snake snack which proves to be good eating. Beth is looking for new experiences at the bottom of an alcohol bottle, but Daryl ignores her. She sets off to find a bar, but stumbles into some walkers. She throws them off her trail with a rock, and Daryl comes creeping up behind her. Beth doesn't want to stay in camp anymore, she wants to set off on her own even if that means leaving Daryl's protection behind. What the hell is wrong with that girl? Does she really want to be this seasons Andrea, annoying the crap out of viewers?

Beth makes it to a golf course, hoping to find her drink there, but all there are so far is zombies. This whole drink story is getting old. Give the blonde a drink already and let her puke her guts out. Daryl deserves a better story than this. They make their way to the clubhouse, where there are a bunch of zombies hanging from the ceiling, and piles of dead bodies are on the floor. As they dig through the mess, grabbing supplies and cold hard cash, the walkers threaten to bust down a door, and the pair are forced to take cover inside of the dark kitchen. Daryl finds spices, and Beth climbs a rack for a bottle of wine, but her score is short lived. She busts the bottle and is forced to use it to kill a walker when he jumps out at her,. More bodies are stacked up in the kitchen. She blames Daryl for not coming to her rescue, but she did say she could handle herself. Beth grabs some new preppy duds, and takes pity on a body that's posed with a sign. Someone came through and murdered some folks because of their wealth. Daryl refuses to help move her, but does cover the body. They continue to search around, when a grandfather clock chimes the hour, and brings the walkers. Daryl pauses to take down a few, while Beth just sits back and does nothing until Daryl splatters her new cardigan with zombie. She finally finds her bar, as if having a drink is going to solve anything. Beth finds a bottle of peach schnapps, and hesitates while Daryl throws darts at pictures. She can't bring herself to drink, and cries, and Daryl isn't sure how to proceed. Her tears continue, and finally Daryl breaks the bottle. Peach Schnapps isn't going to be her introduction to alcohol.

Beth places her guess about Daryl's job before the turn, as they traipse through the woods again but he doesn't want to play. He brings her to a place he found with Michonne, some time back, not the liquor store she was expecting, something better. The place has a cash of moonshine. Daryl does things right, and gives her a real first drink. Beth still hesitates, saying that bad moonshine could make you go blind, something that dear old Hershel told her. Daryl tells her that there's "nothing to see out there anyways." The moonshine gets better with the more drinks she takes, and Daryl declines, someone needs to keep sober. The home is similar to what Daryl grew up in, so he recognized it from the get go, right down to the moonshine store. Daryl fortifies the shack, and finally sits down and makes the best of their new digs with a drink.

Beth wants to play a drinking game, Never Have I Ever. They both reveal things that they've never done, and one of Daryl's answers surprises her, he's never been to jail. Beth really knows how to stick her foot in her mouth. Daryl's life hasn't been all roses, he's had a hard life, not the shelter life Beth has, but a different rougher kind of shelter where love and caring had whole new meanings. Daryl's little outburst, brings one from Beth. She wants Daryl to feel, but she's missing the point again. He feels too much. He tells her that he isn't afraid of nothing, but he's afraid of a lot, and he blames himself for so much that went wrong at the prison. He lost a lot like she did, maybe more since he was responsible for people, people depended on him and now they're dead.It's Daryl's time to cry, and finally let it all out, and Beth holds him in support.

So Beth spend a whole day drinking moonshine and she's all good, she's just numb to the world. Seriously. And Daryl is a dick when he's drunk. Daryl opens up to Beth about where he was before all of this. He was a drifter who followed his brother, he was nobody, nothing. Pretty much the person that we met at the beginning of season one. Poor Daryl misses Merle, and Beth misses her family too. She thought the prison was really the answer. It was going to be all white picket cell blocks and growing old and quiet, that her father would die surrounded by people he loved. He was, just not the way he thought it would be. Beth wishes she could morph into Daryl. He tells her that he's use to the ugly, but Beth tells him that she has to remind him sometimes. She tells him that she'll be gone soon enough, that he'll be the last man standing. Thank goodness she's not trying for a lets repopulate the world speech. She tells him to stay who he is, not who he was, and then happy drunk Beth suggests they burn the shack to the ground. They bathe the place in moonshine, and burn down Daryl's crappy past. The two set off into the forest with a little more giddy up in their step.