Family--of both the biological and makeshift varieties--forms the central theme of "Vatos," the fourth episode of The Walking Dead. The episode opens with Andrea and her sister Amy reminiscing about fishing with their dad when children (and also now wondering whether their parents might still be alive down in Florida). An unbalanced Jim digs grave-like holes near the camp following a dark dream, and laments the earlier loss of his wife and children to zombie feasting. Meanwhile, Rick, Glenn, and T-Dog join Daryl in his continued search for his brother Merle (who's on the loose with a cauterized stump and a stolen van). The searchers have a tense standoff with the Latino gang members protecting/caring for the "abuelos" at an abandoned nursing home. Even Dale sounds the theme of family with his fireside parable (drawn from the fiction of William Faulkner) about a father passing a watch onto his son.
"Vatos" builds to a chaotic, action-packed climax when the survivors' camp is suddenly attacked by a horde of ravenous walkers. This scene requires some suspension of disbelief (hard to imagine that the survivors would leave their grounds completely unguarded at night so they could all sit down and have themselves a fish fry), but the ensuing drama makes this sketchy bit of plotting easy to overlook. There are casualties aplenty, for both the living and the undead (in a sequence that features more head shots than a Hollywood casting call). The episode concludes with one sister wailing in heartbreaking grief over the other's death; families have been literally ripped apart by the assault, and their quasi-idyllic community will never be the same again. Obviously no longer safe in that location, the (remaining) survivors will need to move on in the next episode, back out into the wide, zombie-rife world.
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