The Grove

"The Grove" is the fourteenth episode of the fourth season of AMC's The Walking Dead. It is the forty-ninth episode of the series overall. It premiered on March 16, 2014. It was written by Scott Gimple and directed by Michael Satrazemis.

Plot
After finding an idyllic place to establish a new shelter, the group starts to question whether it is possible to go back to the way things were.

Uncredited

 * Eleora & Elisea DiFranco as Judith Grimes

Deaths

 * Mika Samuels
 * Lizzie Samuels

Trivia

 * Last appearance of Lizzie Samuels. (Alive)
 * Last appearance of Mika Samuels. (Alive)
 * The title of the episode, "The Grove", refers to the survivors stumbling upon a house in a grove, and the events that happen there.
 * The song playing at the very beginning is "Maybe" by The Ink Spots.
 * This episode confirms that Lizzie was feeding the walkers at the prison. Carol also reveals to Tyreese that she killed Karen and David and burnt their bodies.
 * The murder of Mika has parallels to Lennie's death in Of Mice and Men. Both Lizzie and Lennie have difficulty understanding their actions and the world around them, Lizzie because of her psychosis and Lennie due to his learning difficulty. Lizzie believing that walkers want to be friends with her is similar to Lennie's habit of collecting dead animals as pets. Lizzie gets very upset when the walkers are killed, in the same way Lennie gets upset when he has a mouse taken from him. Lizzie kills her sister, as Lennie kills Curley's wife. Both are shot in the back of the head to spare them further anguish in a world they do not understand. Both are distracted by their killers by being told to focus into the distance.
 * On Talking Dead Melissa McBride explained that the puzzle on the table was a picture of Sophia in her rainbow t-shirt.
 * This episode marks Rick's longest absence, it is the third consecutive episode where he does not appear in. Gregory Nicotero explained Rick's absence was done to emphasize how split up the group was.
 * After this episode aired, Brighton Sharbino (Lizzie) and Kyla Kenedy (Mika) wrote and recorded a song called "Begin Again," which is based on the events of the episode. The song is currently available for purchase on iTunes.
 * The smoke that Carol and Tyreese smelt/saw, was the fire that Daryl and Beth started in the episode "Still".
 * Judith doesn't appear with Carol and Tyreese because she was put into the knapsack on Tyreese's back to shield her from the cold weather.
 * The effects crew prepared an edible mouse prop for the train track walker to eat. It was gelatin stuffed with grape jelly.
 * Scott Gimple believes the walkers' decaying vision attracts them to fire. Fire represents two of the only things walker can still see: light and movement.

Comic Parallels

 * Mika finding Lizzie feeding a mouse to a walker is adapted from a similar scene in Issue 60, where Billy finds Ben disemboweling a cat instead.
 * Lizzie murdering her sister Mika so she could turn, while claiming that she didn't hurted the brain is adapted from Issue 61.
 * Carol reacting in shock to Mika's murder is adapted from a similar scene in Issue 61, where Andrea reacts in shock to Billy's murder instead.
 * Carol executing Lizzie with a shot trough the head is adapted from a similar scene in Issue 61, where Carl executes Ben instead.