We join the survivors after some time has passed and they are in an abandoned house  which we soon see that they see that they can’t stay so they move on.  Laurie is large with child indicating at least 6 months have passed since we last saw them. They congregate in the middle of a country road with map out trying to figure out where to go next.  It is implied or outright said that they have been going in circles for sometime.

They spot the prison.  Now, we see this prison at the end of season 2 and it led me to wonder if they had not seen it before since they have been going around and circles and perhaps didn’t find it a feasible place to try to conquer due to it being overrun with walkers.  They decide now to try to seize the prison.

Faced with a prison yard and an outer parameter full of walkers they decide that they can take it and what ensues is possibly the best Walker massacre in show history.  All of them get in on it with makeshift weapon, bow and arrow and guns.  After a bit of work they claim the prison yard and sit down for a rest.  Rick, of course, tells them that they must push on further for a little longer.  He feels that there could be a treasure trove of things in the prison that will help them survive.

They proceed to clear a cell block where they can stay for the night.  Laurie confides in Hershel that she is concerned that her baby is dead and makes Hershel promise to do whatever it takes to her, or the baby to protect the others.  If the baby is dead will it tear itself out of Laurie’s body?  Will Laurie die and become a walker herself?  Those are the questions we have to ask ourselves.  Laurie discusses with Rick the need to make a place for the baby. She only wants to do what comes naturally to a pregnant woman – nest, and Rick isn’t having it.

It seems that many fans of this series hate Laurie.  I don’t hate Laurie I think that she is a victim of circumstance.  How was she to know that her husband would survive a zombie apocalypse?  She needed a man to take care of her and Carl.  It just all went wrong.  I don’t believe that it was her fault that Rick killed Shane.  It needed to be done as Shane was out for himself as evidenced by his actions and not for the good of the group.

Pushing further on into the prison looking for supplies the group comes upon a very large number of prison walkers and beat a hasty retreat.  In the process of that retreat, Hershel is bitten on the leg by one of the walkers.  He screams as the walker chews on him.    Rick, thinking fast, takes his belt off, forms a tourniquet above Hershel’s knee and proceeds to perform a rudimentary and very sloppy below the knee amputation of Hershel’s leg in an effort to keep him from dying and becoming a walker.  Will he survive?  Seems to me he may bleed out and die and if not die from sepsis from the wound.  But who knows what is in the prison?

Just as this is going on we see they are being watched by some prisoners that have survived the walker apocalypse.  What will happen with these people I can’t wait to see?  Will they have an adversarial relationship or will they work together?