Another brilliant, nail biting episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead has come and gone. Though it was oddly, a brief episode, they crammed a helluva lot into the 42 minute running time.

In a flashback before the zombie outbreak, Shane tells Lori that Rick has been shot and wounded during a bad highway shootout, and Lori eventually tells Carl. Back in the present, Carl has been accidentally shot by a hunter named Otis while observing a deer. Otis takes Rick, Shane and Carl to the farm home of veterinarian Hershel Greene, who manages to extract one of six fragments of the bullet. Hershel’s daughter, Maggie, is sent to the group searching for Sophia and brings Lori to the Greene home to be with Carl and Rick. Rick willingly donates blood to Carl.

Meanwhile Otis and Shane frantically head to a former FEMA aid station at a nearby high school to gather medical supplies. Dale and T-Dog wait at the RV; Dale fears that T-Dog may have contracted an infection from his arm injury, and the two search for antibiotics. Eventually Darryl finds some in his deceased brother’s med stash. Shane and Otis find the necessary supplies from the FEMA aid station, however they are forced to lock themselves inside the school after zombie walkers surround them.

The episode while short plays at an insane clip and we watch poor Carl, played so believably by Chandler Riggs, suffer while undergoing surgery. It was brutal to watch. Another very well directed episode helmed by Spike Lee’s former DP, Ernest Dickerson. Enjoy zombie acolytes!