Bloodletting

"Bloodletting"  is the second episode of Season 2 of The Walking Dead.

Plot Synopsis
Gonçalo is running relentlessly through a field, with his friend unresponsive in his arms. Daniel follows behind with an overweight hunter, who's struggling to keep up. The man shot Sophia.

"How far?" Gonçalo yells, turning back around for only a second, and the hunter breathlessly sends him ahead. "Ask for Hershel. Tell him Otis sent you."

Gonçalo crosses a tree line and a farmhouse is visible; he quickens his desperate pace. A young woman with a brunette bob sees him running across the field through a pair of binoculars. "DAD!" she shouts from the front porch.

Gonçalo stops when he reaches the front steps of the farmhouse, staring up at an old man surrounded by his family and begging, "Are you Hershel?"

He explains that Hershel's man, Otis, shot his son, and Hershel immediately enlists the help of his daughter, Maggie, and another woman, Patricia, to save Sophia's life. Otis and Daniel finally arrive, and Otis is beside himself with guilt.

Back inside the house, Hershel Greene demands to know what happened. "I was trackin' a buck," Otis sputters, seeking comfort in Patricia. "I didn't see him until he was on the ground."

Hershel asks Sophia's blood type and Gonçalo says, "A-positive. Same as mine." But Hershel looks no less relieved when he replies, "That's fortunate. Don't wander far. I'm gonna need you." Daniel looks at Gonçalo wondering how Gonçalo knew Sophia's blood type.

Hershel determines that the bullet broke into pieces in his abdomen and he would likely need to operate.

Meanwhile, as they trudge back to the highway, the others have heard the gunshot in the woods, and no one's more concerned than Johanne. "Why was it just one gunshot?" she asks, knowing Daniel and Gonçalo wouldn't waste a bullet to take down a single walker. Ruth agrees that Daniel and Gonçalo should have caught up to the group by now, but Paquete, brandishing a baseball bat, calms them down. Bruno gets worried by Daniel's safety and Cristiana calms him down. Leandra and Carina offer support to Cassandra who was really sad over Ana's disappearance, and Cassandra admits she just keep thinking on the promise she made to Zita, in the day the CDC exploded, she promised she would take care of Ana.

Mariana steps in. "It's a waste of time, all this hopin' and prayin'. We're gonna find that little girl; she's gonna be fine."

Back at the traffic snarl on the highway, Kiko and Caramelo are trying to salvage what they can to survive, while Fábio rests on the RV.

Kiko goes to the Rv to check on Fábio. Lifting Fábio's makeshift bandage, Kiko notices that he's developing a blood infection. Fábio laughs. "Wouldn't that be the way. World's gone to hell. Dead people risen up to eat the living, and I get done in by a cut on the arm?"

At the farm, Gonçalo blames himself for what happened to his friend as Hershel works to save the girls’s life. "I should have sent her with Johanne. Little girl goes missing - you look for her," Gonçalo says, clearly understanding that it was the search for Ana that led to Sophia being shot. But Daniel stands behind him, telling him not to blame himself for everything that happened with Sophia and Ana. He assures Gonçalo that Sophia will survive getting shot.

Hershel calls Gonçalo in, and tells him that Sophia needs blood. Patricia, who acts as Hershel's nurse, sticks a needle in Gonçalo's arm as Sophia screams in agony. "You're killing her!" Gonçalo screams, as Daniel holds down Sophia and Hershel pulls a bullet fragment from his wound, before Sophia passes out from blood loss.

Hershel has removed one of the fragments, but the other five are buried too deep for him to operate without putting Sophia under. If Sophia moved and screamed like he did the first time when he went deeper, Hershel explains, he'd sever an artery. Daniel insists that Johanne and Paquete have to know.

Hershel tells Gonçalo that Sophia will need major surgery to remove the last fragments, but that there was internal bleeding, and they were unequipped at the farm for such a process. and that they need a respirator and more equipment from the FEMA command post that had been set up at the local high school five miles from the farm. The place was overrun last time he saw it, says Otis, but he adds hopefully, "Maybe it's better now."

Back at the RV, Caramelo tries to convince Kiko that the three of them should take the RV and run, believing that the group will be quick to kill them as he sees himself and Fábio as the two weak links and nobody really cares about Kiko. Kiko blows him off, and checks on Fábio. He realizes that Fábio's infection is getting worse and continues looking for antibiotics.

About 100 yards from the highway on their way back from searching for Ana, Cassandra is attacked by a walker. The group rushes back to help her, but the walker has her pinned to the ground. She's terrified, and wondering if this is it. A horse gallops out of the bush and Maggie, brandishing a baseball bat, knocks the walker off Cassandra before any damage is done.

Maggie tells Paquete and Johanne that Sophia was shot and tells them to get on the horse, giving the rest of the group directions to Greene Farm. Ruth looks on panicked and tries to object to her leaving with a stranger, but Johanne, stunned, isn't taking any chances. Johanne and Paquete jump on the back of the horse and head towards the farmhouse with Maggie.

Daniel admires Hershel's picturesque farm, which Hershel says has been in his family for 160 years. Hershel tries to reassure Daniel that the virus is a temporary thing and that a cure will be found, but Daniel tries to tell him it's a lot worse than he thinks as Johanne and Paquete arrive to be with Sophia. Johanne breaks down when she sees her lying passed out in bed with gauze to cover his wound. Suddenly, 5 teenagers go down the farmhouse's stairs asking Hershel what was going on. Daniel looks at the teenagers and discovers that these 5 people were actually former schoolmates and among them were two of his biggest friends: Inês and Diana, who embrace him as soon as they realize who he was. The other three were a young girl named Cristina, a blond and tall young man called Alexis and Diana's boyfriend, mentioned in season 1 in "days gone bye", Fábio.

Hershel explains Sophia's situation to Johanne and Paquete, and Paquete decides to go on his own to get the equipment in the school, but Otis volunteers to go along to right his mistake. Patricia, his girlfriend, tries to object, but he won't hear it.

After Gonçalo gives his second blood transfusion, Hershel hands him a glass of orange juice, and assures him and Johanne that she'll have a far better chance of saving Sophia if Paquete and Otis get back from the high school with the proper equipment. He tells them he's done the surgery before, but he informs them he's a veterinarian, not a doctor. Johanne struggles to accept that this is the best care available for her friend.

Back at the highway, Cassandra won't speak to Leandra. Once the group get's to the RV Kiko tells Cassandra to help him take take Fábio to Hershel's farm for medical treatment while the others stay behind to wait for Ana. They can rig a sign for Ana in the morning before they all move to the farm, Cristiana suggests.

Paquete and Otis arrive at the high school at dusk, finding it still overrun by walkers as they formulate a plan to cross the parking lot for the abandoned FEMA trailers. Paquete pops the trunk of an abandoned police cruiser and finds a set of flares. He sets them off, distracting the walkers and enabling them to reach the trailer unharmed.

Hershel warns Johanne and Gonçalo that Sophia's pressure keeps dropping, and soon they'll have to decide whether or not to do the surgery without the anesthetic, which could kill her. But he says she'll die without the surgery. Daniel and Gonçalo want to go after Paquete and Otis, but Johanne commands them to stay for her sake and for Sophia. Daniel tells her that he's not needed in the farm and should go after Paquete and Otis but Hershel tells him that Otis can handle it and Inês and Diana ask him to stay too.

After successfully collecting the necessary equipment from the trailer, Paquete and Otis are quickly overrun. They lock themselves inside the school by tying a gate shut with a shoelace, pressed in by an overbearing herd.

Trivia

 * First appearance of Hershel Greene.
 * First appearance of Maggie Greene.
 * First appearance of Beth Greene.
 * First appearance of Otis.
 * First appearance of Patricia.
 * First appearance of Jimmy.
 * First appearance of Alexis.
 * First appearance of Cristina.
 * First physical appearence of Fábio.
 * This episode marks the first time Inês and Diana are seen since "Days Gone Bye".
 * Bloodletting (or blood-letting) is the withdrawal of often little quantities of blood from a patient to cure or prevent illness and disease. The episode title is both a physical and metaphorical term for this episode. Carl is losing blood at a rapid rate, and the future of the group will hinge on whether or not he survives.