Tell It to the Frogs

"**Tell It to the Frogs**" is the third episode of the first season (and the third episode overall) of *The Walking Dead*.

The episode was written in a team by Frank Darabont, Charles H. Eglee and Jack LoGiudice, and directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton. It premiered on Nov. 14, 2010.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the episode has a score of 92%, with an average rating of 7.09 out of 10. The site's critical consensus reads: "*Tell it to the Frogs* restores the show's focus on character-driven drama, getting a groundbreaking season of unique horror storytelling back on track."

## Plot

Rick makes a decision to go back to Atlanta to retrieve the bag of guns and save a man's life. Lori and Shane must deal with the surprising return of someone they thought was dead.

## Synopsis

In the roof of the department store, a handcuffed and delirious Merle mutters to himself about a violent incident from his past. When a couple of walkers start to fiddle through the padlocked door, he becomes hysterical until he spots a hacksaw from the overturned toolbox. Taking off his belt, Merle desperately tosses the buckle end to try to grab the hacksaw lying just out of reach.
On the road, Rick is driving to the camp while Morales advises him not to feel bad about having abandoned Merle since no one is going to miss him, except perhaps for his younger brother, Daryl.

At the camp, Lori gives Carl a haircut while Shane promises to teach him how to hunt frogs in the lake. The trio shares a moment but their tranquility is interrupted by the sound of Glenn's sports car alarm approaching. Jim disconnects the alarm while Shane chastises Glenn for drawing attention to their location.

The van arrives at the camp. Andrea and Amy tearfully reunite, as do Morales and his family. Upon seeing the happy reunions, Lori leads a tearful Carl away to console him. Glenn says that a "new guy" helped them escape the city and Morales then adds that he's a police officer like Shane. Rick emerges from the van and recognizes Carl and Lori. The family runs towards each other and tearfully embraces in a warm hug as the rest of the group watch the reunion astonished, especially Shane.
That night around a campfire, Rick describes the disorientation he felt waking up in the hospital. Lori explains she was told Rick would be evacuated to Atlanta but it never happened and then Carl adds that his mother had told him that he had died. Rick replies that she had every reason to believe that and then thanks Shane for saving his family. Lori exchanges a guilty glance with Shane.

Nearby, Ed Peletier stokes his family's fire with a fresh log. Shane intervenes and asks him to remove the log so that they cannot be seen from a distance. Ed reluctantly obeys and orders his meek wife Carol to pull the log from the fire. Shane then bids Carol and her daughter Sophia good night as Ed glares unpleasantly.
Dale asks what they will tell Daryl about his brother while Andrea reasons that Merle was out of control. Rick volunteers to deliver the news, as does T-Dog, still filled with guilt for dropping the key. He tells the group that he locked the stairwell door before escaping and therefore Merle was still alive.

Later in their tent, Rick says goodnight to Carl and then crawls into bed with Lori. They reflect on their past mistakes and are grateful for the second chance that life was giving them. Lori returns him his wedding ring she had been keeping in her locket and they make love discretely. Outside, a melancholic Shane stands guard on top of the RV and stares at Rick and Lori's tent with anger.
The next morning, Rick wakes up to find a fresh pair of new clothes laid out for him. Outside, he finds Carol ironing his freshly laundered uniform and thanks her for her kindness. Nearby, Glenn laments as Dale and Jim strip down the sports car for essential parts. Rick comforts him by saying that maybe they could steal another car one day. Shortly after, he tells Lori he plans to return to Atlanta for Merle and she gets shocked. Before she can say anything, they are interrupted by screams.

After finding the kids unharmed, Rick, Shane, Glenn, Jim, and Morales run to a clearing where they find a walker eating a deer that has some crossbow bolts sticking out of it. They beat the walker until Dale arrives and decapitates it with an axe. Jim mentions that they had begun to run out of food in the city. A man with a sleeveless top, Daryl Dixon, emerges from the woods and laments that the walker has eaten the deer he had been hunting. When the walker's head starts growling, Daryl fires his crossbow into its skull and then heads to the camp in search of Merle.

Shane tells Daryl that Merle failed to return, but Rick confesses that they left him handcuffed on the roof of a building in Atlanta. Daryl pulls out his knife but Rick is able to disarm him and Shane locks him in a chokehold. T-Dog cuts in and adds that he chained the door to the roof shut so he was probably still alive. Rick informs him that he had already planned to go back to Atlanta.

Dressed in his uniform, Rick prepares to leave with Daryl. Shane questions his decision to risk his life for Merle but Rick reminds him that he was left like an animal caught in a trap. Rick recruits Glenn and T-Dog volunteers as well. Shane tells Rick that he is putting them all in danger because they need everybody to protect the camp in case more walkers show up but Rick replies that they need more guns, which he'd be able to retrieve from the bag he dropped in the streets. Lori still isn't convinced but Rick confesses that he also needed to retrieve his walkie-talkie from the bag so he can warn the man who saved his life, Morgan, away from the city. Carl tells his father that he's okay with his reasons for going back to Atlanta and they hug goodbye.
Before leaving, Rick and T-Dog make a deal with Dale for a set of bolt-cutters in exchange for parts of the van. Shane then hands Rick the last four bullets from his revolver and wishes him good luck. In their tent, Lori frets about Rick but Carl assures her that if everything that happened to his father until that moment did not kill him, it is because nothing can do it anymore. When the group arrives in Atlanta, they park beside a railroad and continue their mission on foot.
At the camp, Lori asks Dale if he saw Carl and he replies that he was at the lake with Shane. In the quarry lake, Andrea, Amy, Carol, and Jacqui do laundry and discuss the division of labor. Near them, Shane and Carl try to hunt frogs with a net and a bucket while playing around splashing the water. In Atlanta, Rick and the others open a gap in a metal fence and enter the city. They decide to look for Merle first for being closer and then they would recover their weapons.

While washing the clothes, the women begin to miss the luxuries of modern life. Amy misses texting, Jacqui her coffee maker, and what Andrea misses the most is her vibrator. Carol mischievously admits that she does too and her confession causes them to laugh. Ed, who watched them from afar, reprimands them for making a lot of noise and orders them to focus on their work.

Lori arrives at the lake and orders Carl to return to the camp. She warns Shane to stay away from her family, still full of guilt for their romance, but Shane wants to talk with her to explain how things happened. Lori snaps and says that he could tell it to the frogs, and Shane asks if she thinks he is not happy for Rick's return. Lori replies that he shouldn't be since he told her that her husband had died and storms off as Shane looks down in frustration.
In Atlanta, the group moves stealthily through the store. Rick notices a walker roaming around and gives a signal so Daryl kills it with his crossbow before they can continue moving.

Meanwhile, Ed continues to loom over the women doing laundry. Andrea finally confronts him and Ed threatens to knock her and then demands Carol to leave with him. A strong discussion takes place between the women and Ed, and when a tearful Carol tries to calm him, she ends up receiving a hard slap across the face.

Shane, still fuming from his confrontation moments ago with Lori, throws Ed to the ground and begins to punch him aggressively. The women look in despair and Carol cries asking him to stop. Shane warns him that if he hurt his wife, daughter or any other member of the camp again, he won't stop next time. He then kicks Ed hard in the chest one last time and leaves as a crying Carol runs to help her husband.

In Atlanta, Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and T-Dog cut through the chains on the stairwell with the bolt-cutters and emerge onto the roof where they find on the ground the hacksaw beside Merle's severed hand as well as the bloodied handcuffs hanging from the pipe above. Daryl screams in desperation as the others look on helplessly.

## Cast

* Jon Bernthal as Shane Walsh
* Sarah Wayne Callies as Lori Grimes
* Laurie Holden as Andrea
* Jeffrey DeMunn as Dale Horvath
* Steven Yeun as Glenn Rhee
* Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes

Guest Starring* Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon
* Michael Rooker as Merle Dixon
* Emma Bell as Amy
* Juan Pareja as Morales
* Andrew Rothenberg as Jim
* Adam Minarovich as Ed Peletier
* Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier
* Jeryl Prescott Sales as Jacqui
* Madison Lintz as Sophia Peletier
* Maddie Lomax as Eliza Morales

Uncredited* Viviana Chavez-Vega as Miranda Morales
* Noah Lomax as Louis Morales
* Greg Nicotero as Walker

## Deaths

* 1 deer
* Several squirrels

## Trivia

* First appearance of Daryl Dixon.
* First appearance of Carol Peletier.
* First appearance of Ed Peletier.
* First appearance of Sophia Peletier.
* First appearance of Miranda Morales.
* First appearance of Eliza Morales.
* First appearance of Louis Morales.
* The title of this episode, **"Tell It to the Frogs"**, refers to a metaphor for words going unheard or unaccepted, which recurs throughout the episode:
	+ Merle talking to a possible hallucination on the roof.
	+ Ed telling Shane to mind his own business over the log on the fire.
	+ Rick trying to explain to Shane and Lori why he needs to go back to Atlanta.
	+ T-Dog explaining to Daryl why he has to go back to Atlanta.
	+ Lori and Shane fighting about the return of Rick.
	+ The women arguing with Ed because they get fed up with his behavior.
* According to the commentary track of the next episode, halfway through this episode, Dale's hat changes color from blue to white, because Robert Kirkman stole the blue one.
* The shirt that Carl is wearing when he and Lori are reunited with Rick is the same one he wore in the comic version of the same scene.
* The walker eating the deer Daryl was tracking was portrayed by Greg Nicotero.
* When Jacqui questions why the women in the group were in charge of laundry, she compares them to Hattie McDaniel, an African-American actress known for portraying housemaid roles.

## Comic Parallels

* Rick reuniting with his family and Shane at the Atlanta Camp.[Issue 2].[Issue 3]
* Rick spending time with Lori while a jealous Shane watches them.[Issue 3]
* Some members of the camp finding a walker eating a deer in the woods. [Issue 3]
	+ In the original issue, only Rick and Shane find the walker.
* Dale chopping the walker head off with an axe.[Issue 3]
* Rick planning to return to Atlanta to save Merle and retrieve his lost bag of guns.[Issue 2]
	+ In the original issue, Rick plans to scavenge for guns.
* The women doing laundry by the river.[Issue 3]
* Lori telling Shane that what happened between them was a mistake.[Issue 4]

## Goofs/Errors

* In the scene where Shane gives Rick four rounds, Rick says "thank you" but his lips do not move.
* When Rick reunites with his family, just as they embrace, the camera pans to a shot with the Challenger where a crew member is visible on the left.

## Gallery

The following are all the photographic stills released to promote this episode.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the\_walking\_dead/s01/e03
2. ↑ https://www.amc.com/shows/the-walking-dead/season-1/episode-03/tell-it-to-the-frogs