The Walking Dead, S4 Ep 11: Claimed

~~~SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS~~~Oh, where to begin.This episode covered two groups' story arcs: Rick/Michonne/Carl in their attempt to play house in Zombie Mayberry suburban Georgia, and Glenn/Tara, who recently met Abraham Ford and crew. We'll start with Rick & Co. Just, you know. Because.So Rick, Carl, and Michonne have found one another and are, for all intents and purposes, nesting. They need a new safe zone since the destruction of the prison.  Rick needs a place to physically heal as it's only been a few days since The Governor nearly strangled him into his forever home, and he's nursing at least one broken rib though it's probably more like a dozen. Michonne and Carl, after breakfast together, go on a bonding-heavy supply run.Michonne opens up to Carl about having had a son, Carl reminisces about being allowed to name baby Judith and gets shaken out of his angry-teen-legitimately-upset-mourning-the-loss-of-his-sister (remember, he doesn't know a thing about Tyreese having Judith, yet) depressive funk. They scavenge, eat squeeze cheese, and find the bodies of a family who had all the trappings of upper-middle-class "normalcy"--a tastefully decorated home, lots of living space, someone spent a lot of time painting mediocre still-lifes and hanging them on the walls--who all killed themselves together rather than live through the zombie apocalypse. Michonne won't let Carl in the room once she finds the bodies. Why? This is the kid who iced his own mother to prevent her from going walker; what's a few strangers in the most aggressively pink room in the history of paint?My guess: she didn't want Carl to see that there could be another way out besides seeing this thing through to its probably nasty, dirty, unholy hell of a conclusion. The family in the room together haven't seen the horrors of the post-apocalyptic world, they didn't turn and eat their own families. They just...died.  Sometimes it's hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other when you know there's an option to just lay down and not have to get back up. Because when you get up you might have to face......Meanwhile, Rick, resting and napping, wakes to the sound of a gang breaking into their refuge. They're totally bad-ass; Rick wakes because they're having some kind of argument/fistfight downstairs. He slides under the bed to hide; Gang Guy 1 comes up with a big, bad gun and, of course, wants to sleep on that very same bed Rick is under. Gang Guy 2 (whose faces we don't really see and names we don't yet know, but one of the members was played by character actor and Vedic yogi Jeff Kober (yes way), so my guess is they'll show up again in later episodes, unless Kober was just dying for a walk-on role) also wants to sleep in the same bed, so he chokes GG1 into submission.Because friends choke friends in a sleeper hold in the post-zombie apocalypse world. GG1 falls to the ground and passes out, but not before getting a good long eyeful of Rick. So. That will be fun in future episodes, since he can identify the currently enfeebled Rick. And why does that matter? Because as Rick is figuring out how to escape from the house, he hides in the bathroom, which is unfortunately occupied by a doody-making Gang Guy 3. Bad timing! Rick dispatches GG3 but leaves him to become zombified, creating chaos in the house, making instant enemies for future conflict and opening up an opportunity to get away, just in the nick of time, with Michonne and Carl.I admit it, the entire time Rick was trapped in that house with the gang, I wanted to throw up. It was really well done. And foreboding. The folks wandering around in the world keep being murderously crazy. The Governor, this gang. Now Rick, Carl and Michonne are heading to the previously-mentioned "Terminus" place and in this world you just know that anything that calls itself a sanctuary? In all likelihood, is not.When we catch up with Glenn and Tara, we see them in the back of Abraham Ford's massive military truck, traveling north. Glenn, of course, needs to go back to where they came from to search for Maggie, so he freaks out, breaks the window on the back of the truck, and forces Abe Ford to stop. When Abe "insists" that Glenn go with him to deliver the genius Eugene to DC (because kidnapping someone is also OK in the post-zombie apocalypse?), Glenn suckerpunches Abe to get away from him. Go, Glenn! Abe's like three times his size so it maybe wasn't the smartest decision he's ever made, but he certainly wins the Captain Cojones award.The interesting character in Glenn's story arc is Eugene. Tara's busy being annoying but steadfast Tara. Abe's biggest "flaw" (if you can call it such) so far is that he's a bullheaded ex-military guy who seems to enjoy killing zombies, but I'm willing to allow for that. Rosita, as a character, has barely been developed; I feel like I know more about Jeff Kober's Gang Guy 2 than I do about her, though she's really good at looking either bored or annoyed.And then there's Eugene, the pudgy guy with the mullet, who Abe says is the genius who's figured out what happened and knows how to cure the zombie plague. Abe is bringing Eugene to DC to meet with officials. Abe, I think, is earnest in his support of Eugene's claims, and knows that he can't bludgeon their crazy world back into shape. But he can do this one thing, deliver this one guy he believes can do something, to the powers that be. Unfortunately for Abe, Eugene is lying about something. Do I know this for sure? No. But. When zombies came out of the corn field and Eugene had to be the first to react (due to the aforementioned suckerpunch and ensuing fist fight), he took a gun and shot the truck instead of the zombies. The truck's to the left, the zombies are to the right, and guns are little more than point-and-click technology. How did he manage to "accidentally" point in the wrong direction? He's stalling for time. Then he takes off after Glenn, when Glenn heads back to where they came so he can pick up his search for Maggie. Eugene's actions? Are not the ones of a man on a mission to save the world.All bets welcome on how quickly they end up going to Terminus, too, since that does seem to be the place to go.Next week: Daryl and Whatsherface end up hiding in the trunk of a car. And, somewhere, Lizzie is killing something small and helpless.