Faith

"Faith" is the second episode of the second season of The Walking Dead Rewrite. It is the eighth episode of the series overall.

Plot
After the last horrific events, Rick and his group try to find some space from their nightmares, while some deal with recent events. On a highway, the group is challenged to survive the most impossible.

Day 69
Rick and the group are on their way to Fort Benning. One day has passed since the group escaped from Wiltshire Estates. Morales is still horrified by his loss, the death of his wife Miranda. During dinner break, Rick goes to Morales who sits alone and isolated from the group and tries to comfort him, as Eliza and Louis are worried about their father. Rick tries to sympathize with Morales but can't find any words. Morales states if Rick doesn't know what to say then he should leave him alone, as he also adds that Rick promised him that his family is safe. Rick leaves him alone again, not knowing how to help his friend. Lori shares a silent and sad moment with Rick.

Day 70
As they continue their journey, Rick sits next to Dale in his RV and asks him how he can help Morales with his situation. Dale answers that nobody can help Morales at this moment, especially Rick since he doesn't know how it feels to lose a wife and Dale tells him about his wife, Irma, who he lost before the outbreak. Rick feels sorry for Dale, as Dale gets nostalgic about how life was supposed to be.

At their lunch break, Shane informs the group that they will soon arrive in Fort Benning and everyone can be safe there, to which Morales complains that not everyone will be safe. It is an awkward moment for everyone and Shane sighs. In a safe distance, Carl and Sophia are with Eliza and Louis which are saddened about their mother's loss. Carl and Sophia comfort the Morales siblings and promise them that they will all look out for each other for now, strengthening their friendship.

Later, the group is again on the road and Rick, Lori and Carl are driving together with Carol and Sophia. Carol, Sophia and Carl are in the backseat, as Rick drives Carol's Cherokee. During the road trip, Rick and Lori recall some memories of their past when Carl was a baby. They wanted to visited the Grand Canyon once but Carl got sick and they had to return home. Lori states jokingly that she never believed a baby could throw up so much, to which Rick states with a laugh. Carl and Sophia then ask their parents if they could see the Grand Canyon one day, to which Rick, Lori and Carol agree.

Dale drives his RV while Glenn studies the road map. Glenn asks if there are any shortcuts but Dale can't answer his question. They then share a short "father and son" moment and they start to laugh. Andrea sits alone in the backroom of the RV and is lost in her thoughts. Shane then goes to her and gives her company. Andrea tells him that they already lost so much and it doesn't gets better with each day. Shane states he tries to not get really close to anyone besides Rick and his family because it would distract him to protect the group and he would be too soft like Rick is. Andrea then questions him if he thinks if Rick is weak but Shane insist that Rick is strong but he should start to prioritize things over his emotions.

Andrea then gets nostalgic and tells about her father and shows her gun to Shane. Andrea's father gave it to her so she could protect herself and Amy from everything what could hurt them. She then gives herself the fault that Amy died and she couldn't protect her from getting bit but Shane thinks that Rick's decision killed Amy.

Dale then cusses from the front seat. The convoy has come upon a traffic problem with hundreds of abandoned vehicles, filled with rotting corpses, blocking the roads. On his brother's motorcycle, Daryl leads them through a snaked out path that was likely carved through by other survivors. Glenn nervously points out a highway overpass a few miles back, but Dale dismisses it. Dale insits that they can't spare their fuel.

The group nervously crawls through the wreckage, with no way to know what sort of dangers lurk within. The situation worsens when the RV's radiator hose breaks down again. This forces the group to stop altogether - their cars are trapped. Shane then points out that Dale surely can find a radiator hose, and the group realizes that they can scavenge the vehicles along the highway for supplies in the meantime. T-Dog suggests that they could siphon some more fuel from the cars due the fact that they have a massive car spot now. Carol states that the group needs more water due their supplies are getting less and less. Lori thinks that the highway is a graveyard and they shouldn't risk too much here. In the end, the group agrees to find some supplies for their journey and everyone heads out, besides Morales.

Dale enlists Glenn with fixing the radiator hose and Dale tells Glenn that the points sometimes get corroded and hands him the proper screwdriver. Then Dale remembers how Jim helped him with issues of his RV and Glenn thinks that Jim is now in a place where he can live in peace, to which Dale nods.

While everyone scavenge the area, Rick takes watch with Dale's rifle behind the RV and sees Morales standing alone in the distance. Rick goes to Morales again and asks him if he is okay. Morales answers that nothing will be ever okay and he starts to regret following Rick and the group, which saddens Rick.

Lori, Carol, Carl, Sophia, Eliza and Louis look through cars further up the highway. Carol finds and holds up some clean clothes to her chest and smiles at a still-unnerved Lori and states that her husband, Ed, never let her wear nice things like this dress.

T-Dog and Daryl work together to siphon some fuel out of the cars. As they do so, T-Dog starts a conversation with Daryl about the past events with him and his brother, Merle. Daryl says that Merle probably would understand what T-Dog did for him in the end but he shouldn't bet on it. T-Dog thinks if things wouldn't have turned out like this, he probably would have understand the Dixon brothers better and mentions that it doesn't care if folks don't get along with each other as long they are working together to survive. Daryl shares his thoughts with him and likes the idea but thinks that Merle would have went his own way anyway.

In the meanwhile, Shane finds a delivery van with several canisters of fresh water still inside. Glenn takes notice of this and hollers joyfully and joins Shane in celebrating their new water supply.

Rick talks to Dale about Morales again and feels heavily guilty about Miranda's death. Dale tries to reason with Rick but then they both catch sight of a walker heading towards them through the traffic snarl. Rick raises Dale's rifle to shoot, but his focus shifts to a second walker coming up behind the first. By the time he has both square in his sights, there is a third walker - but he quickly realizes there are lot more than that. He runs forwards, in a forced whisper telling Lori and the others to get under the cars. On her way down, Lori grabs Carol. They watch together in helpless silence as their children and the Morales kids wait out the sudden danger by themselves.

Dale rushes to Andrea and informs her about the situation. Quickly, they hide themselves in two different abandoned cars and hope that they won't get spotted by the incoming walkers. A mass of walkers passes through the wreckage. Shane then also spots the horde and grabs Glenn, throwing them both beneath a nearby truck.

As T-Dog is running to hide from the walkers, he cuts his arm on a broken car frame. An artery breaks, and his arm starts spilling huge amounts of blood, rendering him almost completely helpless. Walkers notice and approach him. He runs behind a car, but more are coming for him.

Underneath a car further up the highway, Rick is calmly keeping Carl, Sophia, Eliza, Louis, Lori and Carol in his sights as the herd passes. Morales notices the walker herd and has flashbacks how his wife got devoured by them. Enraged, he thinks about to fight the walkers but acts smart, as he flees from the scene when he discover the amount of the walkers.

T-Dog is losing blood fast - his entire shirt, white just minutes earlier, is now a deep shade of red. As walkers descend on him, Daryl emerges from behind a car, grabbing corpses from the abandoned cars and covering him and T-Dog, camouflaging their smell. Morales looks for his children but can't find them and has to hide himself from the walkers, hiding behind two cars, also hoping that his both kids are safe.

The group is almost safe when a few stragglers find Sophia hiding underneath the car. Scared, she flees down a ditch to the nearby woods. Rick sees her and follows her. Carol cries out for her daughter, and Lori grabs her and covers her mouth to keep her from running after them in to the woods or attracting more walkers.

Chased by two walkers, Sophia stumbles, but Rick gets to her before they do. Sophia pleads Rick to shoot the walkers, as she grabs for Rick's gun. He refuses as he doesn't want to risk shooting them and drawing even more walkers into the woods.

Instead, he grabs Sophia and takes her under a creek bed. He tells her he's going to draw the walkers away. Rick states if he doesn't come back, Sophia shall return to the highway, hinting at keeping the sun on her left shoulder all the time. Sophia nods, and Rick begins to chase after the walkers. Using a rock, he's able to kill the walkers, hand-to-hand one at a time. When he returns to the creek bed, Sophia has vanished.

In the meanwhile, the others reunite and discuss the big walker herd. Morales hugs his kids and is happy that they were safe, but they inform their father that Sophia disappeared and Rick went for her. Morales looks at Carol, knowing how she must feel at the moment.

Later, Rick brings back Daryl, an expert tracker, Shane, and Glenn to the creek bed to search for Sophia. Shane wonders if Sophia really understood Rick's direction, slightly blaming Rick for Sophia's disappearance. Rick insits that Sophia understood him fine and the group continues their look for her. Daryl leads them on Sophia's trail. He states that she was headed back to the highway just fine before she veered off in another direction.

While Rick and Daryl continue to search through the forest for Sophia, Shane and Glenn return to the traffic snarl to try to keep peace in the group and occupy them with jobs at the abandoned vehicles. Getting the road cleared means they can turn the RV around once it's repaired, and double back to the bypass Glenn flagged on the map, they explain, to get around the snarl now that they had fuel.

Andrea is still horrified by the massive walker herd which passed them. Shane remembers when the group got attacked back in Atlanta and says that they would have been all dead if the herd back then was big as the herd they just saw. Carol argues that they should all be looking for her daughter, and Lori assures her that they wouldn't leave her behind.

Carl, Eliza and Louis want to help for searching for Sophia but Morales tells them that they shouldn't hope too much, which enrages Andrea. Andrea and Morales have a discussion and Andrea tells Morales that he should have some faith in what the group do to help Carol with her loss, which triggers Morales in a way. Morales angrily storms off and don't want to hear anything from Andrea anymore.

Daryl picks up Sophia's trail again and leads Rick through the forest. They kill a walker, and Rick examines it for skin under the fingernails and in its teeth. He finds flesh and begins to cut him open - but Daryl, the more experienced hunter of the two, steps in and tells Rick that he will do it, pulling out his knife. Daryl guts the walker as Rick tries to keep down what little food he's had. Daryl rips open the walker's stomach only to find that he's eaten a woodchuck.

Andrea comforts Carol as Sophia hasn't returned to the highway and the sun is setting. Dale goes to them and tells Carol that the group will do everything to find Sophia, as T-Dog spots Rick and Daryl, who've returned without Sophia.

Carol is beside herself and asks for Sophia, while she cries. Rick explains her trail went cold. As Carol objects to her daughter spending the night alone in the woods, Daryl steps forward. He tells Carol that hunting in the dark won't help at all, and Rick promises Carol that they will pick up the search tomorrow and make an organized effort at first light. Carol spots blood on Daryl's pants, and as she panics, they admit they gutted a walker to make sure it didn't get Sophia. Carol angrily accuses Rick of leaving her daughter in the woods, and as Rick tries to explain himself, Lori stands behind him. Carol can't look at Rick and he walks away. The rest of the group is quiet amid the confrontation.

Day 71
The next morning, Rick arms the group and inspires the others for the search. Carl announces to his parents that he's joining the search for Sophia, and finds an ally in Dale who thinks that Carl would be in better hands if he was around his parents. Morales states that he will stay back and watch out for his children, for all what he cares now. The survivors leave Dale, T-Dog, whose arm has been bandaged, and the Morales family at the RV, and head out to search the forest for Sophia.

As the day wears on, the group is tired and worn from a long and fruitless search. They come upon a campsite where tracks about a possibly survivor can be found, and nothing of value except a gun. The group discusses if there could be more survivors out there who might took Sophia and saved her. Daryl thinks that they shouldn't be so sure about nice people around here.

At the RV, Dale is taking watch with his binoculars, and T-Dog asks why he's not fixing the radiator hose so they can get out of there if/when the group comes back with Sophia. Dale states that he fixed the hose the day before, but that he's trying to keep the group united in the search for Sophia. He speculates that the group wants to mobilize if they found out that they can drive again. Morales tells them that he would like the idea to continue the journey to Fort Benning without the others. Dale climbs off his RV and faces Morales. With much empathy, Dale says his feelings to him and explains that Miranda wouldn't want Morales acting like he does currently. He then adds that he must be strong - if not for his sake then for his children's sake.

The other group is overjoyed when they hear the sounds of church bells in the woods. They have hope that Sophia is setting them off. They run towards the noise and find a small Baptist church, but Shane insists it's the wrong one, because it doesn't have a steeple.

They head inside anyway - Rick, Shane, and Daryl killing walkers, but they find no trace of Sophia. Shane continues insisting it's the wrong church, when the bells ring again. They run outside, and find the automated bell timer around the side of the building.

Glenn unhooks the timer in frustration as Carol announces she's going back inside the church for a while. Carl, Rick, Lori, Shane and Glenn join her inside, while Andrea takes a rest outside in the shade. Carol asks God to punish her for praying for Ed's death and show mercy on her "fearful" young daughter, so she could raise her right and not let her make the same mistakes that she did.

With daylight fading, the others decide to head back to the RV, but Rick isn't ready to give up the search for Sophia. Reluctantly, Shane agrees to stay behind. Carl, too, insists on staying with them, stating that Sophia is his friend and he will do everything to find her. Lori agrees with it and lets Carl stay with Rick and Shane. Rick tries to give Lori his gun, but she won't leave him unarmed, so Daryl hands her the gun he grabbed in the tent that afternoon.

Before they head back into the woods, Rick heads alone inside the church. Rick starts to talk to God and tells him that he never was a big believer in his life, talking to a crucifix of Jesus though he has little to no faith in God left. Rick pleads for something what could help the group to keep on after everything. Getting up to leave, he turns back around and says desperately that every sign of faith will do.

On their way back to the highway, Carol expresses frustration that their search turned up no new leads on Sophia, and Daryl, too, doesn't like that the group has been further split up. Carol still accuses Rick for Sophia's disappearance but then Lori steps up for her husband, telling the group that they should stop blaming Rick for what happened to Sophia because no one else ran after her like he did. The group then continues back to the highway.

Meanwhile, as Rick, Shane, and Carl search the woods, they come upon a buck stopped in a clearing. Shane raises his gun to shoot it, but Rick holds him back as a curious Carl slowly moves closer to the buck. Smiling, he turns back to Rick and Shane, who watch peacefully, as the deer stands tall, staring back at Carl.

They don't move. Shane grins. Rick has his moment. Suddenly, a gunshot, and as the deer falls, Carl too goes down, blood seeping from his chest. Rick and Shane are shocked and rush to Carl's aid. A man with a hunting rifle approach them and realizes what he did. The man apologizes, after seeing Carl on the ground. Rick, who is obviously enraged, takes out his gun and aims it on the man. Shane tries to hold Rick back but Rick insist to shoot the man. While crying about Carl, Rick yells at the man that he will kill him for what he did.

Co-Stars

 * Maddie Lomax as Eliza Morales
 * Noah Lomax as Louis Morales
 * Pruitt Taylor Vince as Otis

Deaths

 * Multiple unnamed people on the Vehicle Jammed Highway (Confirmed Fate)
 * 1 deer

Trivia

 * First appearance of Otis.
 * The title of the episode, "Faith", refers to Rick starting to believe in God for the group's future. It also refers to Andrea telling Morales to have some faith for what Rick does for the group, as he was questioning his decision to follow Rick.