{"id":29903,"date":"2014-03-17T03:12:30","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T07:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=29903"},"modified":"2018-12-14T03:18:19","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T08:18:19","slug":"the-walking-dead-season-4-episode-14-the-grove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/17\/the-walking-dead-season-4-episode-14-the-grove\/","title":{"rendered":"The Walking Dead Season 4 Episode 14: The Grove"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“The Grove” is what I’d think of as the “Of Mice and Men” version of “The Walking Dead.” It’s a twisted tale of a beast without knowledge of how to survive in the world, and the inevitability that they’ll be a danger to themselves and everyone around them. Easily the most disturbing episode of the series yet, “The Grove” begins on a very eerie and absolutely surreal note that’s both cryptic and terrifying. Are we watching a dream? A flashback? A fever delusion? A memory? Or perhaps the life of someone who owned a sweet house in a grove once upon a time? One of the interesting ideas presented behind “The Grove” is the idea that perhaps Sophia died simply because she just didn’t see what was before her. Maybe Sophia didn’t view the walkers as a threat, or just didn’t view them as monsters when all was said and done.<\/p>\n

While it’s very debatable at this point, we’ll never truly be sure, but Carol spends a lot of time trying to project her past regrets for Sophia on Mika and Lizzie. She goes over time trying to teach them that the walkers are threats and have to be dealt with, but Lizzie, we’ve seen, is just too far gone. Perhaps at one time she was a sociopath dropped in to the apocalypse, or maybe she just never accepted it. Even after her mom died and turned. “The Grove” plays on the long running theme from the series on the perception of right and wrong. The concept has changed drastically since the end of the world, and even then it was always fuzzy, only really decided by the law. Now that the law of the land is gone, it’s all about what the majority perceives as right and wrong, and how to deal with it. Lizzie is convinced still that the walkers are merely misunderstood victims that can be tamed and wrangled up.<\/p>\n

Maybe she can even be accepted among them like apes. What matters is that Lizzie sees them as victims. Brighton Sharbino’s freak out as Lizzie, after Carol brings down the Griselda Walker is a moment of sheer lunacy that outweighs anything we’ve seen in the past. Lizzie is convinced beyond any proof that they’re pets and does literally everything to prove they can be assimilated and humanized. Everything<\/b>.. What I truly enjoyed most about the episode is that the writers are finally reaching for the lengths of shocks and surprises that the comic book did for years, and it hasn’t come back since. The scene of Lizzie standing over Mika’s body with a blood soaked pair of hands and a knife is haunting, if only because there’s a great chance Lizzie intended to turn Judith and sacrificed her life, in the end.<\/p>\n

“The Grove” garners some of the most disturbing and mind blowing imagery from the series yet, and answers a lot of lingering questions from the first half of season four. Episode director Michael Satrazemis is very skilled in depicting quiet, ominous moments with obscured shots that could be interpreted in any way. Take for example the opening shot. It’s a serene moment, but outside is where the horrific reality looms, and much of the gruesomeness is viewed through the kitchen window of the house, away from the cold hands of fate and the inevitable. The performances from the cast in this episode are mesmerizing and Melissa McBride really manages depict a woman who is worn, weathered, and anxious to lie down and die, but simply can’t. “The Grove” is an amazing episode and likely to be the installment fans will discuss for years, if only for the direct references to Steinbeck. It’s kept me looking through its subtexts and themes right down to the tee.
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“The Grove” is what I’d think of as the “Of Mice and Men” version of “The Walking Dead.” It’s a twisted tale of a beast without knowledge of how to survive in the world, and the inevitability that they’ll be a danger to themselves and everyone around them. Easily the most disturbing episode of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[64,302,477,856,1079,1087,1219,1221],"class_list":["post-29903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tv-tomb","tag-adaptation","tag-drama","tag-horror","tag-robert-kirkman","tag-the-walking-dead","tag-thriller","tag-zombie-apocalypse","tag-zombies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29905,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29903\/revisions\/29905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}