Once again, nothing is what it seems...

"Vatos"

After losing Merle on the roof of the department store, the guys decide to go ahead with rest of their plan and retrieve their bag of guns. But just as Glenn grabs the bag there's an altercation with a gang of survivors, the vatos from the title, and Glenn gets kidnapped. Sheriff Rick, T-Dog and Darryl stand off against the gang, only to find out that the apparent gang of toughs is actually a gang of rest-home employees protecting the helpless elderly. Back at camp, Shane's authority is challenged again, this time by Jim who seems to be losing it, but who may actually be a prophet. Zombies attack and get Ed the wife beater first (yay?) and Amy second (boo! very boo!) Worst. Birthday. Ever.

Back on the roof with Merle's dead hand for company, they guys decide to head out and rescue the bag of guns before they go and get Merle. I get it, too; they need to put the safety of the many, who would be protected by the guns (sooner than you think!), ahead of the safety of Merle alone. Once again, Glenn gets the best line of the episode; as he formulates a workable and only slightly insane plan to retrieve the guns, Darryl asks, "What were you, before all this?" and Glenn responds, "A pizza delivery guy. Why?" Anyway, just as Glenn grabs the guns a tough guy, alive for a change, pops up in the alley with Darryl and shouting, alerts his friends to come and try to grab the guns. Darryl shoots one of them in the butt with his crossbow but they escape, taking Glenn with them. No! The remaining three head off to retrieve him, taking the first vato with them for a trade.

What is up with the sheriff's hat, by the way?  Glenn risks his life, turning back in the street to get the hat with the guns; then Sheriff Rick does the same.  It is so 'Indiana Jones'.  I love it.

"We realize how hard it must be to play good cop, bad cop, when you're just one guy"

At the camp Jim is digging holes for no apparent reason except to act like a crazy person. When Shane tries to get him to stop, Jim breaks down and goes through his zombie plague story about losing his family. He challenges Shane and has to be physically restrained - tied to a tree, actually.  Shane's credibility must be at a low point here and yet, he presses on. His authority in camp is about all he's got left. But as he brings Jim a glass of water, to the tree that Shane himself tied Jim too, we realize how hard it must be to play good cop, bad cop, when you're just one guy.

Speaking of which, Sheriff Rick, T-Dog and Merle have a Mexican standoff with the vatos to get Glenn back, offering to trade the guy they captured for Glenn. Their leader, Guillermo, tells them he'll take his guy and the bag of guns for Glenn. They regroup and head back in, ready for some Tarantino-style action, when the standoff is interrupted by Felipe's abuela. She begs Sheriff Rick not to arrest Felipe (he's a good boy!) and leads the guys out of the factory, to a... rest home? It turns out that Felipe and Guillermo were a nurse and custodian, respectively, at the nursing home and decided to stay when the rest of the employees abandoned the elderly and infirm. Sheriff Rick shares out his guns and ammunition and the four head back to the... van? Yep, the van has disappeared from the railroad tracks, just like Merle did from the roof.

Ah HA!  Forgot about Merle, did you? Well, he hasn't forgotten about revenge, and it's a safe bet that he stole the van and headed up to camp for just that.

"Aside from the Atlanta zombie scenes in the second episode, this is the first real zombie attack we have seen on this show, and it is horrifying.  Terrifying. Well done, to the point of being unbelievably hard to watch"

Back at the camp, Andrea is looking for some wrapping paper for Amy's birthday present; the mermaid necklace that she got from the department store. (Speaking of which, why was she so reticent about taking the mermaid necklace in the first place? Wasn't looting the whole purpose of their visit to Atlanta?) At the fire, RV guy quotes some Faulkner, and Ed has a creepy and incestuous conversation with his wife and child shortly before he gets eaten in his tent by the 30 or so zombies attacking the camp.

Aside from the Atlanta zombie scenes in the second episode, this is the first real zombie attack we have seen on this show, and it is horrifying.  Terrifying. Well done, to the point of being unbelievably hard to watch.  The zombies get Amy and are fought off, just in time for Andrea to hold her as she dies. Laurie Holden's acting was absolutely incredible.  I want to watch everything she's ever done, just on the basis of about sixty seconds of acting, right here. In the interviews at NY ComicCon, someone asked her if she would survive the real zombie apocalypse and she answered, "If everything you loved was taken from you, would you even want to?"  Touché.

Sheriff Rick, T-Dog, Darryl and Glenn are running up the mountain when they hear the sound of gunshots, and burst into camp to help the campers fight off the last of the walkers. Shane, to his credit, did a good job of keeping things under control, trying to fight and to herd people to safety. Somehow, though, Sheriff Rick still turns out to be the hero with the last-minute save, and he is the one hugging Laurie and Carl at the end. That's got to suck for Shane. Just as Andrea is wailing over Amy's body, crazy Jim from the beginning says, "I remember my dream. Why I dug the holes," as the camera pans out to show the bodies of walkers and campers all over the ground.

So things are not what they seem. The vatos are actually caring nurturers, taking care of abandoned abuelas. The bag of guns wasn't really a prize beyond measure, as it made more sense to share with others whose needs are as great as those of the campers. The threat to the camp didn't come from Merle in the stolen van, but from the zombies. And Crazy Jim isn't so crazy after all, he may be tapped into the future. Yes, keep us guessing. This show just keeps getting better.

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