Ten million viewers. 10.9 million to be precise, with 7.3 million in the coveted 18-49 age bracket. So yeah, it seems like the zombies will be with us for a while.

You may recall that when we last left our intrepid band of survivors, they’d just been cast out of paradise as Herschel’s farm became overrun by a herd of walkers. We pick up several months later. Lori, Rick’s wife, is noticeably pregnant and everyone is kind of tired and bummed (post-Apocalyptic life is not for the whiners among us).

Good episode: focused, violent and poignant. It’s a simple story well told.

We open with one of my least favorite framing devices, though, the flash forward showing us where we’ll be later in the story. That device is generally a crutch for weak plotting. When it isn’t, as in this case, it’s also generally not needed. So I’ll pretend it isn’t there.

Well…

Something is definitely out of place on the farm. More about that later. This is another generally good episode, but I’d be remiss, in light of my criticisms of Falling Skies, if I didn’t note that the missing Sophia situation is being milked. It’s not a critical flaw at the moment, but it is what it is.

Wow.

Ron Moore, eat your heart out. This show definitively earned its dark survival spurs this episode, bit by carefully laid bit.

We open with someone shaving his hair as a shower runs in the background. Not sure who it is until they finally reveal it to be Deputy Shane. Not sure when it is, either, after the flashback that started last week’s episode. But by the end of this episode we know—it’s heartbreakingly today.