SYNOPSIS - The group desperately awaits Shane's return. Shane finds himself trapped in a school, surrounded by the undead. Daryl and Andrea search for someone in the woods.
RECAP - In the farmhouse bathroom, Shane turns on the shower and shaves his head with electric clippers. When he's finished, he wipes steam from the mirror and stares darkly at his reflection.
Earlier, exhausted with worry and blood loss, Rick tells Lori about a time when Shane pranked his high school principal by stealing his car, parking it in a chicken coop three miles away and running back in time for class. "Shane's gonna make it back with what the doctor needs," Rick tells her, trying to reassure her as much as himself.
In the RV, Daryl tries to sleep on the floor but is kept awake by Carol quietly crying. Restless, he grabs his crossbow to go look for Sophia. Andrea volunteers to go with him.
Shane and Otis, meanwhile, sprint through the abandoned high school's hallways and end up surrounded by walkers atop the gymnasium's bleachers. They decide that Otis will draw the walkers away through the locker room while Shane escapes with the supplies via a narrow window 20 feet above the ground.
As Shane dangles out the window, a walker grabs hold of him. He shoots it in the head and drops, injuring his ankle.
Glenn and T-Dog arrive at the farmhouse and Maggie ushers T-Dog inside for medical treatment.
In the bedroom, Hershel takes Carl's blood pressure. If Shane and Otis don't get back soon, they'll have to decide whether to operate without the respirator. "It's extremely unlikely" Carl would survive, Herhsel says, "but we can't wait much longer."
As they march through the forest, Andrea asks Daryl if he thinks they'll find Sophia. Daryl tells Andrea a story of a time he was lost in the woods when he was Sophia's age. Nobody was even looking for him and he found his way back. "It ain't the mountains of Tibet," he says. "It's Georgia."
Standing on the farmhouse porch, a distraught Lori tells Rick that Carl's death might be a blessing: "If he dies tonight," she says, "it ends for him."
"What changed?" Rick asks, referring to the moment Lori begged Dr. Jenner to let them try to survive for as long as they can.
"Maybe Jenner was right," Lori admits, but Rick refuses to believe that. "That man surrendered," Rick says. Lori confesses that for a moment, she forgot Jacqui was dead and when she remembered, she realized Jacqui didn't have to be scared anymore. "Tell me why it would be better the other way," Lori says.
Shane limps across the high school athletic field as walkers surround him. As he readies to fire his final shotgun shell, Otis emerges from around the building and guns down the walkers standing between them.
Inside the farmhouse Carl wakes, disoriented and in pain. "You should have seen it," Carl tells Lori. "The deer. It was so pretty." Carl suddenly goes quiet and begins convulsing: a seizure, Herhsel explains — his brain isn't getting enough blood.
In the forest, Daryl and Andrea find a walker hanging from a noose in a tree — a bite victim who tried to commit suicide, but as Daryl points out the guy wasn't smart enough to shoot himself in the head. Daryl is content to leave the walker hanging, but Andrea begs him to kill it. Daryl agrees, provided that Andrea tells him whether she still wants to die.
"I don't know if I want to live," Andrea tells him, "or if I have to, or if it's just a habit."
"Waste of an arrow," Daryl says, firing at the walker.
Patricia stitches T-Dog's arm in the living room of the farmhouse. The antibiotics he got from Daryl likely saved his life, she tells T-Dog. "Merle Dixon's clap was the best thing that ever happened to you," she says.
Glenn goes to the porch, where he sits and tries to pray, though it's his first time. Maggie interrupts him. She's always been a person of faith but realizes that recently an awful lot of prayers must have gone unanswered. "Feel free to believe in God," she says, but "you gotta make it OK somehow."
Inside, Rick tells Lori about the deer in the woods. When Carl woke up, Rick explains, he wasn't talking about the horrors he'd witnessed; he was talking about something beautiful. "Why is it better for Carl to live, even in this world?" Rick tells Lori. "He talked about the deer."
Back at the high school, Shane and Otis are collapsed on the pavement. Shane tells Otis to take the supplies and leave him behind, but Otis insists they go on together.
Carl's condition continues to deteriorate, and Hershel demands Rick and Lori decide whether to operate. Rick looks to Lori, who consents, and Hershel begins prepping.
Outside, Otis's truck arrives at the house. Rick, Lori and Hershel run outside. Shane emerges, alone. "We say nothing to Patricia," Hershel insists. "Not 'til after" the surgery.
Rick embraces Shane, who stares at Lori, shell-shocked. The walkers kept coming at them, he tells Rick tearfully. "He told me to keep going, so that's what I did, but when I looked back," he says, shaking his head. "He wanted to make it right," Rick assures Shane.
Andrea and Daryl return from their hike without Sophia. Disappointed, Carol disappears back into the RV. Dale stops Andrea. "The choices I made for you were not mine to make," he tells her, returning her gun. Dale asks Andrea if she forgives him. "I'm trying," she says.
In the farmhouse kitchen, Maggie cries to Glenn about Otis. Glenn encourages her to talk about who else she lost. Maggie points to photos on the refrigerator of her step-mother and step-brother.
Hershel joins Rick and Lori on the porch to report that the surgery was a success. Rick embraces Herhsel, then goes with him to tell Patricia about Otis.
Lori kneels beside Carl. Shane looks in on them. "Stay," Lori tells Shane.
Upstairs, Shane turns on the shower and undresses. He looks at himself in the mirror, and notices a patch of hair missing.
Shane flashes back to his final moments with Otis at the high school. Walkers gain on them as they fire their final bullets. "I'm sorry man," Shane tells Otis, shooting him in the leg.
Shane and Otis struggle over the supplies. Shane kicks at Otis, who grabs onto Shane's hair. Shane punches him repeatedly in the face and rips free with the supplies as walkers surround Otis. As the walkers tear into him, Otis is still clutching a fistful of Shane's hair.
Back in the present, Shane searches the bathroom cabinets until he finds electric clippers. When his head is shaved, he wipes steam from the mirror and stares darkly at his reflection.
