The Walking Dead: S02 Ep13 – Beside The Dying Fire

What happened?

The farm was besieged by a horde of zombies that forced the survivors to stage a desperate battle before retreating. A couple of Hershal’s family members didn’t survive, but the remaining group rallied at the freeway meeting point. Only Andrea did not join them – instead she was pursued through the woods before meeting a strange person with a samurai sword.

Rick eventually lost his temper with the group after Lori reacted badly to the news that he knew they all carried the zombie virus and that Carl had shot Shane’s reanimated form. Losing his diplomatic calm, he demanded everyone either stop second-guessing him or go their own way.

Thoughts

So the second season of The Walking Dead closed out with a wallop of zombie action and some left-field events that turned up to sprinkle some enticement for the next season. There wasn’t any surprise that the fringe members of the cast found their way into the mouths of zombies – Hershal’s wife and son (tellingly I can’t even remember their names) always seemed marked as fodder quite some time back, so no shocks that they were swiftly devoured. And given we’ve recently had both Dale and Shane killed off I was perfectly fine that the remaining core cast were kept in place.

The first third of the episode giving way to full-on zombie mayhem was interesting for me in the sense that it provided proof that a whole show based around this wouldn’t work. The attack was sustained and intense but just about ran its course before I started to want things to progress. The fact of the matter is you just can’t watch people running and shooting and avoiding being eaten by rampaging hordes for an overlong period before it becomes monotonous. If they had retreated into the farmhouse and there had been a siege – in the way so many zombie movies tend to become – then that could have held my attention longer. But the moment everyone was out, loose, driving cars and shooting with unerring accuracy the need for them to either escape or become victorious drove the momentum.

As per usual, Lori annoyed me this episode. As per usual she was fretting about Carl’s whereabouts because she’d allowed him to slip out of her sight and the only time it occurred to her to wonder about him was when the shit was hitting the fan. Still, that was nothing compared to her reaction to Rick when he told her the extent of what he knew at the end of the episode. The look on her face, the sheer hostility, actually beggared belief. I couldn’t properly understand why she turned on him the way she did, considering all he’s done for everyone and all they’ve been through. For some reason the thought occurred to me that him killing Shane had brought up a conflict in her she didn’t know was there.

I had the impression she held feelings for Shane that perhaps she hadn’t fully acknowledged and, hearing he had been killed by Rick, she suddenly resented him for killing the man she had strong feelings for. If it reads as weird that’s because I think it is weird, and not something the show has earned. Of course I might be misinterpreting that overly-angry reaction she had to Rick, but whatever the underlying reason I didn’t feel it was deserved.

Really the script was engineering it so that Rick could have his moment where he stopped being tolerable and understanding and decided that if he was going to have to shepherd people to safety then they need to stop undermining him. Naturally the deed of killing Shane (an event just hours old, don’t forget) weighs heavily on him. I liked that he pointed out that he had killed his best friend, that it had become impossible to do anything else. In that moment he was laying out his sets of commandments, yes, but he was also seeking forgiveness. Since his own wife had turned her back on him he, more than ever, needed to hear from someone that he had done the right thing.

I’m not sure this is going to be a permanent change of character for Rick, though. The show needs his leadership and decency and I don’t imagine he’ll lose that completely. He’s pissed off now, but it won’t last forever. But if he is a little less patient with his flock when it comes to making decisions and getting things done then I don’t think that would be a bad thing – so long as they stay in line. . .

Again, rather irritating, Carol was whispering in Daryl’s ear that he didn’t need to be Rick’s right hand man. It’s like she’s grooming him to become the next Shane, which is something I sincerely hope doesn’t happen. I very much appreciated how Daryl nonchalantly remarked that Rick had always been good to him. Quite right.

From Carol’s perspective I imagine she’s still feeling bitter and unsure about Rick since he was the last one to be with her daughter and, had he acted differently, could have kept her alive (in fairness I think he could have, too, considering the scrapes he has got other people out of!). Still, it’s irritating. I share Rick’s view that they are a rather ungrateful, conniving set of people and his exasperation has been a long time coming.

The episode opened with the startling appearance of a helicopter flying over the city. It was a stark, unflinching signal that there was life out there that had perhaps more organisation and control than the ragtag bands of survivors we had previously seen. The suggestion was that the herd of zombies that eventually found their way to the farm were drawn in the same direction having seen the helicopter. (I recall in the first episode of this second season, when there was a walker horde encounter on the freeway, there were a brief and subtle remark about how it had appeared strange to see so many all moving with a sense of purpose. By the end of the episode I believe we were allowed to glimpse where this helicopter had been heading.

The large fenced off facility in the woods has surely to be a big part of season 3. It’s impossible to know what they are, who is in there, and what their agenda is. Are they government of some kind? Military? Scientific? Did this facility get rapidly put together in the wake of the outbreak or was it already there as a precautionary measure? Do the people inside know about how the virus exists in everyone? Are they even in some way responsible? All these questions and more spring to mind but they are completely unanswerable. Which is as it should be, naturally. The Walking Dead needed to give people a reason to get excited about a third season and a facility waiting to be discovered seems like a good one to me. Rick’s tribe just can’t keep wandering from one desperate situation to the next, there has to be more progression.

I personally thought the episode’s most enticing prospect was with the character that Andrea encountered in the jungle. I did enjoy her desperate escape, too. It did feel apparent that she was unlikely to be reunited with the rest of the group so I did wonder if we weren’t just going to watch her run to an exhausted collapse where she would meet her end. She didn’t. No. Instead she was ‘saved’ by a strange figure in a hood, wielding a sword and carting around what looked like a couple of armless walkers, chained, and subservient!

What the hell?

Considering that The Walking Dead was launched from a comic book, this was the first moment that felt like a comic book origin. The character in the woods was so outlandish, so extreme and bizarre, it felt too strange to be real. It’ll be interesting to see how the show plays it. This new character immediately feels otherworldly and ultra cool so I expect the first task The Walking Dead will have to deal with is making this strange character retain their allure whilst also making them believable.

I expect the figure in the hood will probably be a female, which might make for an interesting dynamic between Andrea and this newcomer. Whether they get along and become a weird duo remains to be seen, but if it means Andrea’s character can turn the corner from the obnoxious and suicidal traits she’s generally conjured it’ll be an improvement.

This second season of The Walking Dead has been a triumph, for me. I’ve really enjoyed it, and it’s more than answered the question of whether it was able to manage with a longer episode run. (I also know that there were background issues regarding creative control passing away from original showrunner Frank Darabont, which is also something that the show has absorbed without any dip in quality – quite the opposite.) With Shane dead, the secret out about what Rick heard in the facility at the end of last season's finale, it feels like the show has brought itself to a resolution with much of what it had set up and is now set on charting new ground with as close to a clean slate as it can muster. Sorry to see it end, can’t wait to see it return.

What was the best part?

Not often I’ll say this, I imagine, but the scenes with Andrea escaping in the jungle to then be confronted by the hooded figure with the sword were just too cool to ignore. Long after the episode has finished and I’ve been left thinking about all that I saw, that figure in the woods and the walkers chained and following them was what my thoughts kept coming back to. It was altogether too strange and intriguing and, of all the elements this episode laid down for the next season, it was this that had me wanting to see what happens next more than anything else.

What do I think will happen next?

Assuming the figure in the cloak that Andrea encountered is operating alone, then their experiences will perhaps initially be a side plot that ticks along independently. The main plot must surely feature Rick and his group finding (or being found by) the people at the facility close to where they ended up. Whatever and whoever they find there, I expect that even if they are initially offered the hand of friendship then conflict and jeopardy will find them sooner rather than later. The one thing I’ve seen many times over in this genre is that any apparently well-organised, controlling force invariably means deep-down bad news and they aren’t interested in doing the right thing on a humanitarian level.

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep12 – Better Angels

What happened?

Randall was kept interred in the barn whilst a decision continued to be deliberated over how much of a threat he represented. Shane, however, secretly released him into the woods. Leading him far out on the pretence of cutting him loose, Shane broke his neck and feigned injuries before returning to claim Randall had broken loose.

Daryl and Glenn traced the tracks to where Randall was killed, then encounter his reanimated corpse. Shane, meanwhile, took Rick out to an isolated area where it was apparent Shane intended to murder him. Rick pleaded with Shane to find another way before he managed to turn the tables and stab Shane, killing him. Carl arrived on the scene and to see Shane reanimated and shot him. However the danger had not passed as out of the woods could be seen a horde of walkers charging towards them. . .

Thoughts

So the crunch that was inevitable finally came. Shane decided to once and for all eradicate Rick from his life little realising that Rick is the leading man in this show and Shane ain’t! It marked the conclusion to a tension that has been simmering to the boil over the past few episodes, although Shane’s downfall really occurred, I think, after he killed Otis. The moment he committed that atrocity he lost a portion of his humanity that he just could not get back, not to mention his hair. Maybe he thought Lori would be the one person that could make him feel right, but she was well and truly with Rick. You can see why Shane’s twisted mentality had it that Rick had to go. With his slack-jawed expression and unfeeling eyes, however, it looked to me like Shane had really slipped into insanity and there was no helping him.

Almost perverse how it was that Lori for once offered up a friendly front towards Shane. I wasn’t entirely sure what her play was. I figured she had sided with Rick’s view that Shane was a part o the group and he wasn’t going anywhere so she ought to make the best of it. Maybe she thought her saying thanks for saving their lives was going to be enough to bring him back to how things were, without her actually being with him. Ultimately in retrospect I think the scene was there to remind us that Shane wasn’t always bad or unhinged and that there was a certain tragedy in what would happen to him, I also think the scene helped generate a sense that Shane was being accepted back a little and so wasn’t going to be going anywhere, to help the surprise of the ending.

Shane was, also, a good man to Carl. Even at this late stage Carl would still come to Shane when he was in a fix about what to do with Daryl’s gun. Again, in retrospect, this played into the gruelling ending since it was Carl that would show up and kill Shane (who, I suspect, simply believed had been bitten and turned into a walker). Of course, we now learned for absolute certain that a person doesn’t have to be bitten to become one of the undead.

As has been hinted at over the last few episodes with the discovery of bodies that have not been bitten, it appears that if anyone dies of just natural causes they will resurrect as a walker. This certainly caps off a grim picture with a horrible surprise ending. Even if Rick were the last man on Earth and managed to see to it that he killed every last walker in the end he too would become one, unless he blew his own brains out before he died. Not exactly a hopeful future for anyone. I am figuring that perhaps Lori’s unborn child might be a hope if it is somehow immune, because the next logical question is how it is that everyone has become infected in this way. I mean, I have to presume this is how the dead began to walk, that this virus had been released amongst the living and so the moment they started dying that was when zombies were all over the place.

Is this a worldwide thing? Has everyone all over the world been exposed to the same virus? I find it hard to imagine how this could be, but maybe it was something that got released into the air and maybe other people could pass it on to other people and that was how it spread around. . .? A lot of guesswork, though I don’t suppose I’ll have anything else to go off for this season at least.

Daryl and Glenn would appear to be just a little behind Rick in figuring out that the dead will rise again regardless of the circumstances, though I don’t blame them for not reaching that conclusion immediately. They were still trying to get their heads around the fact that Shane had done what he did in luring Randall away and killing him. I liked that Daryl figured it out. Though he perhaps just a little too readily stepped up to Rick’s right hand side (not so long back he had isolated himself away from the group entirely!) it’s a good match up. I could happily see Rick and Daryl buddy up and taken down the zombie hordes if not just for their skills in the field but also for how they get along during downtime. Daryl remains a fascinating character and I hope that continues and he doesn’t just suddenly start toeing the lime and being a cookie cutter good guy.

Rick walking through the woods with Shane, being lead to a quiet spot to do a dastardly deed, was really good stuff. The final location, in the wide open field with thick mist under a large full moon all around them, gave the scene as epic a feel as could be managed. Rick was a tad fortunate to get out of it, though. For a man who had clearly figured out what Shane was intending before he did it, Rick allowed things to be taken to the last point where Shane could have easily killed him quickly had they not had to stall and drag out the agony of the deed.

So Rick managed to get in close and take Shane down, and then he sat and waited for him to turn. Must have happened quickly, but it did allow Carl time to arrive on the scene. Again, my exasperation for how it is that boy just won’t stay put and stay safe totally blows my mind, and also how it is the likes of Lori just obliviously allow him to wander away from their sight and go off on his own considering the world they live in. It must be some kind of running joke the show writer’s are having, about how often and how annoying they can make Carl’s solo forays because I just don’t buy into a kid of his age being that carefree given the horrors and terrors he has witnessed and experienced.

The episode could have ended on that oblique moment, with Carl having shot zombie Shane and Rick reeling from what he had done. If The Walking Dead had closed out on that sombre note it would have been more than considered another first rate episode. But it wasn’t done. Because there at the end, out of nowhere, leaving Rick and Carl scarcely time to draw breath, there was a massive horde of zombies streaming out of the woods. Just after the show has made you go whoa it then lays on something to make you go WHOA! I am not sure where this horde has come from but they looked numerous and they looked rapid and it all paves the way for a heck of a season finale.

What was the best part?

Easily the final showdown between Rick and Shane. Even when Rick was imploring with Shane that nothing had been done that could not be fixed I just knew it was way past that point. They both knew it, really. They were just desperate cries from a man unwilling to kill his best friend. It’s hard enough for Rick to just kill another human being, but Shane was a whole new level. I have to wonder if this won’t forge a watershed in Rick, similar to how Shane cracked after killing Otis. There’s simply no way such an act will slide off him, I’m sure of that. Great scene, though. Absolutely worth the build-up.

What do I think will happen next?

I am fully expecting the siege of the farmhouse that I have been anticipating for ages to finally happen. Rick and Carl, and Daryl and Glenn, will probably have to make a run back to the farmhouse and warn the rest. And maybe it’ll go a bit Night Of The Living Dead and they’ll board up the doors and windows and try and hold out as the zombies hordes try and get in. I don’t foresee it lasting, though. I fully expect that they will have to abandon the farm, and I expect one or two fringe characters to find their way to being devoured rather than escaping. Mostly, from this next episode, I am simply expecting a whole lotta zombie action to be letting rip and running wild.

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep11 – Judge, Jury, Executioner

What happened?

The group keep their prisoner, Randall, locked up whilst they debate whether to execute him. Dale is at first a lone voice crying out for civilised understanding and tolerance but eventually finds an ally only in Andrea, who also agrees it would be wrong to execute the prisoner. Majority rules, however, and Rick, Shane and Daryl go to end things. Rick is stopped when he sees Carl appear to watch, to urge him to kill.

Dale’s screaming alerts the group. Caught alone in a field he is attacked by a zombie, that Carl had earlier provoked, and is subsequently killed.

Thoughts

Well, Lori can take a backseat for an episode as the most irritating character on The Walking Dead. No, for this episode, that honour goes to her son, Carl. Now I’m not going to outright blame him for killing Dale (on balance Carl’s inadvertent encouragement to kill Randall saved his life so if he’s to blame for one he saved another!) but his rank stupidity with the zombie in the swamp got on my nerves in a way that only Lori or Andrea usually manages!

Of course, the question should be asked about how it is a kid like that gets to wander off unnoticed and unattended to by the adults, least of all his mother and father, considering the situation the world is in. You would have thought that the loss of Sofia would have embedded in Lori and Rick a near-paranoid, overbearing necessity to never let their boy out of sight. And yet there he is wandering off alone, stealing Daryl’s gun and taunting a stuck zombie that turned out to be not quite so stuck.

The main issue of this episode was the matter of justice within the farm – and mostly it came down to a matter of moral imperative rather than anything to do with legality. Legality is a foundation of a fully-functioning society. The world of The Walking Dead has had to backstep to a more primitive means of existence but, in the likes of Dale, there is still a sense of requirement that they not also allow their morals and sense of right and wrong to fall away as well. Whilst at first Dale’s crusading appeal for the hearts and minds of the people was irksome he did eventually win me around to see that the fundamental things he was battling for actually did matter.

I honestly didn’t think I’d believe that, too. Whilst I recognised it was brutal I did, like the majority of the people on the farm, figure that Randall was too much of a liability to be left alive. Especially in consideration of the fact that he’d been taking sniper killshots at Rick, Glenn and Hershal then this wasn’t a pure as the driven snow innocent we were dealing with. They saved him, and gave him a chance at being cut loose – but then he went and announced that he knew Maggie and suddenly he retained his potential to crop up as a threat in the future. When the world has gone to hell and danger lurks at the end of every minute then inviting in new potential dangers isn’t a wise move.

So I did fall down on the idea that killing Randall was, for practical purposes, the smartest move. That thinking does put me in the Shane mentality, of course. And that’s a mentality that forgoes the moral and humanitarian aspects of such a ruthless decision. Dale was there to counter the argument that there were worse things they could become, and new precedents they could set for themselves, if they went down the route of cold-blooded murder just to eliminate a potential problem. Ironically it was Shane that was one of the few people willing to go along with Dale’s ideas if he could convince other people. Andrea was the sole voice in agreement with Dale, another unlikely ally. At least she, out of everyone, won’t have a sense of guilt to go along with their grief following Dale’s death.

Dale’s death did feel untimely. I didn’t get the sense that his character was one that had run its course. In fact it was that very fact that he was really a lone voice of moral righteousness that will really open up the biggest hole in the group. Without his dissenting voice, who will step up to argue the alternative reasoning?

Dale’s death was also a tad annoying in how one solitary walker managed to completely take him by surprise in a wide open field. Sure, it was dark, but Dale was stood in a quiet, open field and had just encountered an eviscerated cow. Once more I’m surprised by how the characters that really ought to be on high alert are so easily taken down. In a world infested by the walking dead and having just come across a freshly killed cow I’d like to think I’d have had my eyes everywhere, and every sense keen. Not so Dale, who not only got physically bested by a walker but then had his guts torn open (in a feat of very improbable strength – a regular person would struggle to do such a thing to another person, let alone a rotting, muscle-atrophied walking corpse perform such an horrific act!).

Certainly a death that won’t be forgotten easily, though, and for a character of Dale’s standing in the show then that’s only right and proper.

So by the episode’s end the matter of what to do with Randall was still unresolved. His chances of being executed are surely a lot less now, however. Not only did Rick change his mind but killing Randall would surely be an affront to the memory of Dale and what he stood for. They might just choose to risk keeping Randall alive as a legacy of Dale’s life. Naturally I don’t expect Shane to see it that way. Whilst he was willing to go along with keeping Randall alive if the group wanted it there’s no question he wanted Randall dead and, since that was what the group decided I imagine he’s going to push Rick to see it through.

Friction between those two is surely set to continue – although I suspect if it wasn’t about Randall then Shane would find a bone of contention over something else to beef with Rick over. Hostilities might have been abated for a while at present, but it’s a situation that cannot last.

Another great episode of The Walking Dead. It was one that featured a whole lot of talking and, briefly, threatened to be one where not a lot happened. But the great thing about this show is that every episode delivers something defining or remarkable or shocking to make it worth tuning in for. It has definitely confirmed itself as one of the best shows around at the moment, and is easily the one I am most excited about seeing the next episode of. It’s a shame that this season is nearly over, but I’ll happily take these shorter season runs for the quality I’ve been treated to.

What was the best part?

Really it ought to have been Dale’s death scene, but the manner by which he got caught out rather got on my nerves. So the best scene for me was that escalation in events when Rick, Shane and Daryl set about performing the execution of Randall. As it was playing out I couldn’t see there being anything that was going to stop the grisly act from occurring and I thought I was simply going to be confronted by the horrible reality of what it is to kill a man in cold blood. As it turned out Carl arrived, urging the kill, and Rick instantly realised what he was in danger of becoming himself and what his son was already at risk of turning into. Execution aborted.

What do I think will happen next?

Well, I’ve been banging on for episode after episode about how certain I am that the group are going to have to hit the road soon and leave the farm behind. And episode after episode that has continued to not happen. Yet I see no reason to not keep talking about how that surely must happen soon since, otherwise, The Walking Dead is just going to become like some kind of undead version of The Waltons! Realistically, the matter of what to do with Randall still hangs over the group and, as mentioned, I just don’t see Shane letting that slide without it going his way. Conflict will ensue.

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep10 – 18 Miles Out

What happened?

Rick and Shane transport their prisoner to a remote location to leave him there, but he reveals that he knows Maggie. Rick and Shane fight over what is to be done but before a decision can be made walkers attack them. The trio eventually escape, with no clear decision reached about what to do with the prisoner.

At the farmhouse, Maggie and Lori tend to Maggie's suicidal sister but feel that Andrea’s intervention almost ruins their efforts.

Thoughts

Heavy symbolism heralded the head to head between Rick and Shane. The episode began with them driving to a crossroads and there Rick confronted Shane directly. A crossroads meeting point for this crucial tipping point in their relationship. The symbolism certainly wasn't subtle!

Well, actually, the episode really opened with a 'flashforward' teaser of full-on zombie mayhem. It's become a bit of a tired trope for me, for shows to lead in with a teaser of an exciting event that will then be got to later on. It’s like sticking a promotional advert at the start! I’m already watching – there’s no need to dangle the promise of excitement to keep me there! (I realise the same is not true for all television audiences and, naturally, it is those potential floating, casual watchers they are trying to ensnare.) The Walking Dead did eventually live up to the prospect of zombie mayhem, of course, which was just as well!

But back to Rick and Shane, in the crossroads discussion that saw them air everything and yet really resolve nothing. By the close of the episode there was the sense that, rather than becoming clearer and united, they had forged an impasse between them. Shane, in particular, was just flat out unwilling to back down in his head to anything Rick was saying. He can’t. He just cannot get past the idea that Rick is the man making wrong decisions and, furthermore, that Lori and he had something special and the child she is carrying is his. In a sense, Shane’s attitude towards Rick’s leadership is his most easily fixable problem, and he ought to recognise that whatever there was with Lori disappeared the moment Rick returned. Telling Shane outright to forget the notion that the child she is carrying isn’t his, though, that’s a much harder thing to ask of him. If he deep down suspect it’s his then he’s never going to get over that.

If zombies hadn’t turned up when they did then it’s hard to say how the fight between Rick and Shane would have been resolved. Most likely inevitable outcome appeared to be that one of them would have been killed – only the thing is Rick, being Rick, would have had to be pushed right up to that point to go through with it. Shane, being Shane, would have probably killed Rick more readily. And even after the zombies had attacked – if their roles had been reversed and Rick had been in the bus and Shane was getting away in the car – I don’t believe that Shane would have returned to save Rick the way Rick saved Shane.

Will the act of saving his life be enough to force a change in Shane? I don’t see it. I just don’t see there being anything that will stop Shane in the long run other than him completely parting from the group or being killed. The way things are going, there’s a good chance that Shane and Andrea may find themselves exiled and choose to depart together.

The farmhouse subplot didn’t quite work for me, this episode. Andrea and Lori were being paralleled as the female equivalent of Rick and Shane, but this felt forced. Andrea simply had to be more uncompassionate and single-mindedly bent on Maggie’s sister in a way that didn’t feel natural. Andrea’s most natural reaction would have been apathy not direct intervention. Yet it transpired that she managed to ‘prove’ the girl wanted to live after all, but the net result was that she was no longer welcome in the house, same as if the girl had killed herself!

For all the unsubtle symbolism of the crossroads scene, I was confused by the seemingly important shots of Shane staring out of the car window at the walker in the field. The episode even ended on this view so it had to be meaningful but I didn’t quite get the point being inferred. Was it futility? Was it to highlight the isolation? Was the fact that Shane kept quiet about it somehow suggesting that there was a clear and present threat he wasn’t willing to share? I don’t know. It felt profound but I couldn’t get the measure of why.

The episode also ended undecided about what to do with the kidnapped kid. He was presented as a likable innocent, although there was a certain zealous quality about his killing of the walker as he repeatedly stabbed it to death. I liked that. Painting him as a complete innocent, caught up with the wrong crowd, would allow us to side with Rick’s view that he might be worth allowing to live and join them. Let’s not forget that he was on a roof taking shots at them with a rifle. Shane’s view that killing him to make sure there was no risk to the safety of the group does have a grim logic backing it up.

Final point to end on was another small, almost innocuous moment that might prove to be extremely significant. I refer to the moment where Shane found the two walker bodies and noticed that they didn’t have any bite marks. He didn’t conduct a massively thorough search of the bodies, but his observations were noted by me all the same. Fact is, why would The Walking Dead highlight this if it were irrelevant? Answer is they wouldn’t. And, furthermore, Rick’s reaction felt just a tad like he was brushing it over quickly so it didn’t linger.

My conclusion is that this ties into what Jenner, the CDC man, whispered into his ear. Up until now I really had no firm kind of idea what Jenner may have said. Now I believe that Jenner told Rick a rather terrible prospect: that the virus which makes the dead walk has either become airborne or is, somehow, already present in everyone.

The airborne one feels too ghastly to contemplate. (Our heroes can all become zombies just by breathing the wrong air!?) So I am plunging more on the idea that Rick has learned that everyone, most likely, has the virus in them, laying dormant, and that when they die, no matter what, they will become a zombie. I do believe that Rick shot dead the two people in the bar, and shot them in the head. If he hadn’t done that would they have eventually reanimated as walking corpses? As far as I can remember we have never seen anyone die of anything other than a zombie attack so this principle has never been shown on screen to be disproved.

If true then it presents a dire situation indeed. It means that, unless a cure is found, no matter what Rick does to lead his people to safety they will all die eventually and, as such, become walkers. If humanity survives, walker’s survive with them. Unless, as in Lori’s unborn child, perhaps those born into this world will somehow have escaped the contamination. . .

What was the best part?

As ever with The Walking Dead the most exciting parts are often to do with the walkers. As much as the character drama really, and rightly, drives the show (and special mention has to go to the crossroads scene and the fight itself between Rick and Shane) the moment those zombies poured through the broken window the entertainment level went up several notches. This episode’s unique zombie killing moment came when Rick found himself pinned down by a couple of slain walkers whilst a third walker that he couldn’t get a clear shot of tried to take a big bite out of him. Solution: shoot the attacking zombie through the mouth of one of the dead ones. Works every time!

What do I think will happen next?

Aside from my hunch that humans are already walkers-in-waiting, the crunch decision concerns Rick and Shane and the kidnapped boy. Unless there’s some convenient escape clause (like the boy escapes, or Rick and Shane kill him when he makes an attack) I expect Rick is going to have to make a straight call on it. And whilst it’s been totally in keeping with his character to imagine he will try and make him a new member of the group I am actually going to predict Rick will kill him, perhaps also to gain more of Shane’s loyalty. I doubt Shane will be pacified for very long no matter what.

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep09 – Triggerfinger

What happened?

Rick, Glenn and Hershal survive attacks from man and zombie and escape town – taking with them a blindfolded but injured man from the group that attacked them. Bringing him back to the farm further aggravates Shane, who perceives Rick as a danger to the group. He also tells Lori he believes the child is his and they had a special relationship before Rick returned.

Lori is adamant that she wants nothing to do with Shane and her unborn child is Rick’s no matter what. She tells Rick that Shane is dangerous and may present a threat to him in taking Lori and the child as his own.

Thoughts

Once again, for me, The Walking Dead delivers another top notch episode that combines tension, strong characters and truly grisly events to great effect. This episode was like a mirror flip of last week’s, with the real tense action occurring at the beginning and allowing the talking to close things off. Although when it comes to Shane’s increasingly volatile nature leisurely conversations aren’t easily forthcoming.

The reveal that the two guys that Rick had killed in the previous episode were part of a larger, gun-toting group was a surprise. It certainly further cemented what a wise move it had been not to let them into the farm group; no doubt they’d have sought to infiltrate, compromise and overthrow the group and take the farm for themselves. I did like how the gang outside were kept vague and unknown – speaking through closed doors and viewed in shadows. Their numbers were kept elusive and their threat all the more menacing. When it comes down to it real people are far more dangerous and scarier than ‘walkers’ are (although I’d rather be shot dead than have my face eaten off as I screamed like what happened to one of the attackers).

The debate about what to do with the injured man between Rick and Hershal was interesting. Whilst it was clear that Hershal and Rick were in clear alliance and working together (good to see) Hershal’s instinct just to shoot him and leave him certainly felt merited. Considering this same guy had been shooting them it’d be an understandable response. Rick, however, is more interested in keeping his conscience relatively clear. He could tell himself that the two men had drew on him first before he killed them (and he was right) because for him, for now, there’s a line over which he will not go in outright murder for self-preservation. The matter of Shane may bring that level of self-preservation morality to its utmost limit.

I liked how the matter of cutting the leg off and cauterising the wound and so forth was dismissed for the more immediate ‘pull leg off railing and run’ technique. Honestly, I can’t believe that wasn’t their first thought! He was already a dead man if they left him anyway, so yanking the leg clear and taking their chances that way improved his odds immeasurably.

Shane, of course, does not share the view that any attempt to save him should have been made. The line Rick won’t cross has already been crossed by Shane in killing Otis. I can see his point of view. Andrea addressing the issue that it wasn’t necessarily what he was saying that was the problem, it was the more the way he was saying it that created so much friction and antagonism sounded close to true. Unfortunately Shane’s feelings for Lori betrayed much about him. He is fuelled by the memory of the good time they had in those early desperate days together, and his belief that Lori also feels the same are crucial. Throw in the fact that he surely believes the unborn child is his and, yes, I think she was right when she told Rick that he could present a credible, irrational threat to him.

Lori’s presence of mind against the threat here went some way to addressing how she almost got herself killed following the car crash. Her getting out of the car and getting the gun to fend off the attacking walkers was creditable, but at the same time she stumbled out of the car having killed one and didn’t notice the other one shambling along behind her! I mean, really. In that situation you’d have thought your senses would have been blazing and your survival instinct have you panicking and checking all around you for threats. Still, she did manage to save herself from the mess she got herself into so I suppose I’ll chalk that up as a minor plus point.

Glenn didn’t fare so well when it came to saving his own skin (although when the zombies were closing in around them he did OK with some well-aimed, long range shotgun blasts!). His change from being the plucky survivor to a rabbit frozen in the headlights due to his improbable state of falling in love (although the farmer’s daughter is pretty hot so, you know, I’ll cut him some slack) has hit him hard. Their relationship is a tad frustrating for its forever dodging of a straight love story, but really that’s a more sophisticated path for the two to take and ought to make their eventual union all the more rewarding.

Or potentially heartbreaking, should one of them not make it. . .

Another unlikely love relationship doesn’t threaten to blossom between Carol and Daryl. His switch to outsider is just about believable, although I think his character has been given a short amount of screen time to really make us comprehend where he is at right now. But I like how Carol has emerged as brittle yet strong, and not willing to just wither away following her devastating loss. This is a woman with incredible courage, and a willingness to live and make the best of the life she has left. Whilst Daryl’s ungracious sulk and scathing outbursts are brutal, she takes it and perseveres. I have to hope that perseverance will be rewarded.

What was the best part?

Lori’s escape from the car could have been the standout moment, but her bungling her own fight for survival and only just making it made it more frustrating than entertaining. So the plaudits have to go the intense peak of the walkers closing in around Rick, Hershal and Glenn whilst they debated what to do with the man impaled on the railings. This many episodes in, this many walker attacks down the line, and The Walking Dead can still make its action sequences inventive and exciting.

What do I think will happen next?

Rick appears to be being steered on an eventual collisions course with Shane, and with just three episodes to go I have to wonder if this isn’t something that will come to absolute head for the finale. I expect skirmishes to be forthcoming, but the all-out one-on-one showdown isn’t quite ready to be brought to the boil, I think.

I still believe that Hershal’s farm cannot remain a permanent residence for the survivors for much longer and the open road beckons. And I still believe that really the only thing that can force them to move on, especially now that Hershal and Rick are seeing eye to eye, has to be a threat from outside that overpowers them. To that end I still anticipate either a zombie infestation descending on the farm, but there is now potential that the gun-toting gang we barely saw this episode will make another appearance.

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep08 – Nebraska

What happened?

Rick is forced to venture into town in pursuit of Hershal who has taken to drinking following the slaughter of the barn zombies and a crushing sense of hopelessness. Rick eventually talks him round, but not before they encounter two survivors that also want to join them on the farm. Rick shoots them both before they get the chance to shoot him.

At the farm, Hershal’s wife has entered a catatonic state. Whilst some of the group bury the dead they knew and burn the rest, Dale tells Lori that he is certain Shane was responsible for killing Otis. Lori leaves in a car to find Rick but crashes en route.

Thoughts

The Walking Dead is back after its mid-season break and it’s returned with. . . well, more of a canter than a spring, let’s put it that way. Not that I’ve had any trouble with the pacing of the show but I know the internet is teeming with its detractors at how it seems to be dragging its feet. Yet without the more leisurely pace how would we ever get to know the characters? And how would scenes like the meeting in the bar carry so much tension and effect if The Walking Dead was quickly-edited and injected with the pace of, say, 24? It just wouldn’t be the show it is and I like the show how it is.

Events kick off immediately after the devastating gunshot that ended zombie Sophia. The episode was primarily concerned in dealing with the effects that had on the group. From Daryl’s withdrawal to Hershal’s despair, it’s fair to say the effects weren’t good. I didn’t quite buy Glenn’s remarks about how, because it was Sophia, her death had caused such upset. I mean, I get that was what the episode was stating but it didn’t quite feel earned with what we had seen before. I don’t recall the group all fondly hugging Sophia and loving her youthful presence as the life and soul for them in dark times. Up until she went missing I didn’t even know her name!

Shane’s sense of being perceived as the right man always viewed in unfairly negative ways only became more pronounced this episode, too. He has a case to defend himself with. Aside from putting a crosshair on Rick to rid him of his love rival, Shane’s actions have been brutal (killing Otis) but generally for a purpose. In principle emotional terms I do tend to side with the view that Shane is bad news, but at the same time his conversation with Dale, rebuking his moral authority stance and generally useless practical help, does make me realise where he is coming from.

It’s not so much that his behaviour is completely wrong but his hot-headed anger and unreasonable outbursts make it hard to consider him an ideal leader of the people.

The love romance between Glenn and Maggie continues, again not quite as good a sell as the show’s creators perhaps expect of the audience. Maggie’s sudden dependency and professed love for Glenn feels unearned and more a product of plot necessity than organic development. I buy that they have potential, and I get that Glenn being torn between Maggie and the group provides some dramatic meat, but as a real deal loving couple they’ve got some way to go. I expect that Maggie is willing to go with Glenn and his group as things stand – though when it comes to it I expect her and maybe one or two others from Hershal’s group will be hitting the road with Rick’s tribe before too long.

Lori hit the road in a more literal manner this episode, cementing her position as the show’s most unintentionally annoying character. Barely a week goes by without her doing something dumb. This time she decided it was of the utmost importance that she go and try and find Rick to tell him to hurry bringing Hershal back (as though without her prompting him he would just be kicking back taking his sweet time!). Along the way she takes her eyes off the road, mows down one walker and then flips the car. Terrific. In a world full of problems that’s the kind of problem you really need to avoid!

It seems unlikely that it would have been just one solitary walker she hit, which means her crash is bound to have alerted other walkers to her position. I can well imagine a scenario where she escapes, is chased, and leads a whole bunch of the undead back to the farm, if anything just to compound what a complete idiot she is!

Meanwhile Rick was in the bar with Glenn and Hershal. Their conversation was interesting; Hershal’s despair was countered by Rick’s sense of duty when it came to how they continued. But, of course, the real talking point and the highlight of the episode came about when the two survivors turned up in the bar and ushered in a dialogue-heavy few scenes that were thick with tension.

I liked how we stayed with this scene for lengthy periods. In fact, the naysayers that argue about the pacing of the show would do well to take a long sober look at how well this particular scene worked precisely because of the measure and stately pacing. The faux-friendly jostling of introductions gave way to the two survivors masking their smiles to hide the ruthless instinct that had got them so far. As they tried to pick up the clues about where Rick and his group were located an impasse was inevitable. The proverbial immovable object (Rick) meeting the unstoppable force (the two survivors).

The moment Rick shot the pair of them just jolted me with the abrupt coolness of it. In fact, once I watched the episode through, I actually rewound back to that moment just to see it happen again. It was so fast, so slight, so brilliant. Further demonstrating that Rick is the natural choice for leader (you can imagine Shane might have got out of that situation but would it have been as elegant, and would Hershal and Glenn both made it, too?). He has now crossed new boundaries – dispatching real people in the same manner as walkers. At least he let them make the first move; he’s not a mercenary murderer and still just a man trying to keep himself and his family alive.

What was the best part?

The entire scene in the bar with the two survivors. Interesting conversations with a constant tension and rising unsettling feeling. As it played out it was clearly reaching an untenable point between Rick stoutly rejecting to give the two shelter, and the survivors being unwilling to take no for an answer. The result was Rick being quicker on the draw and me on my sofa going, “Whoa!”

What do I think will happen next?

The previews clued me in a little to what I probably would have concluded needed to happen: it’s time to hit the road. It appeared that Hershal’s farm was getting besieged by walkers, perhaps attracted to the area after Lori’s crash, or all the gunshots Rick fired in the town, or just from all the gunshots at the barn massacre – possibly they just happened to be wandering by! Either way, their arrival should only usher in the necessity for our survivors to hit the road again. Quite how many of them will survive is another matter. If Hershal’s wife doesn’t snap out of things soon then I don’t see her making the journey. . .

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep07 – Pretty Much Dead Already

What happened?

Rick’s group learn about the walkers in the barn. Whilst Rick tries to appeal to Hershel to change his mind about letting his group stay, the majority of the group, and in particular Shane, seem convinced they are to stay and that to do so they must remove the threat in the barn.

Enraged when he sees Rick with Hershel wrangling walkers for captivity, Shane hands guns out to everyone and advances on the barn. It is opened and every walker that emerges – the friends and family of Hershel and his people – are shot and put down. And then, at the last, Sophia emerges from the barn; she is a walker. As everyone near-collapses in shocked despair, Rick steps up and shoots her in the head.

Thoughts

I had been accidentally spoiled before I watched this episode, having caught a line on some Twitter feed about Sophia being in the barn. I didn’t read anymore but, I figured, if Sophia was in the barn then she certainly wasn’t going to be ‘alive’. Thus the dramatic and shocking ending was somewhat diminished for me and I can’t ever really know just exactly how much of an impact not-knowing would have had on my viewing experience. I’d like to think it would have been effective and I’m a bit pissed I was deprived of that.

We have to assume that Hershel and his people discovered Sophia, rounded her up and stuck her in the barn shortly before Rick and the rest arrived. Sophia had bites on her neck, so it figures a zombie got to her but she wriggled free and perhaps roamed the woods for a while (maybe stayed the night in the house cupboard that Daryl found) before she eventually ‘turned’.

This certainly blows quite the hole in Rick and Hershel’s group relations!

On the one hand Hershel had to endure watching his friends and family shot and killed by Shane and the rest. If the scene had ended there then you can only imagine Hershel never being able to forgive or live with them. However, Rick’s group now have justification to round on Hershel and demand explanation about how he let them go off searching for Sophia when he knew she was almost certainly the little girl he had found and contained in his barn.

He’ll claim he couldn’t say anything because he was keeping the whole barn secret but, really, that’s not going to sit very well with anyone. And the issue still stands that it seems impossible that he would allow them all to live side by side. Yet, with an enraged Shane and the group carrying all the guns, and Rick desperate to stay to keep pregnant Lori and his son safe, it seems to me that if Hershel demands they leave then they’re going to feel they have no option but to take Hershel’s farm by force and claim it for themselves. And if that means killing Hershel then so be it. Shane would certainly see it that way – his survival attitude that Dale remarked he was made for definitely possesses the wherewithal to commit such an act.

Although Shane’s bluster and self-righteousness took quite the dent in the eyes of the group when he was unable to kill Sophia – so maybe a lot of his claims for leadership will evaporate.

There’s slim chance of a reconciliation, but it has to be Hershel that concedes. At least Shane did pump bullets into a walker’s vital organs to show him that it was ‘dead’ before he put it down. Hershel has, apparently, been oblivious to the true nature of these things (I struggle to properly comprehend that, I really do) but how can he deny what he saw with his own eyes? He’s been played as a bullish, old-fashioned man but not one without a sense of reason.

On saying that, however, I have to figure that The Walking Dead as a show needs to get back on the road and start moving things on. Put bluntly: the show can’t just stay at the farm indefinitely otherwise it’ll lose dramatic inertia and turn viewers off. They’ve finally laid the hunt for Sophia to rest now, and it’s in the best interests of entertainment that they get moving, so unless there’s a mass walker infestation descending on Hershel’s farm I’m intrigued how the show handles the need to provide dramatic excitement with plot logistics.

Plot logistics dictate they’d stay at the farm. Dramatic excitement demands they get moving.

Daryl and Carol took some small steps towards developing a relationship, though partly I think their conversations about hope were partly to fuel audience belief that Sophia would be found so the surprise at the end was all the more brutal. There’s no doubt it’s a bold step; having a small girl shot in the head as a zombie is a harsher occurrence than I figured The Walking Dead had the capacity to be. I’m pleased it did, mind. So long as it continues to have the audacity to do the unthinkable on television it remains vital – if the show ever goes soft it’ll be pointless.

Shane’s rapid disintegration has been brewing, and there’s no doubt that the catalyst for his rage was learning that Lori was pregnant and then have her tell him the child would never be his. I’m surprised that Rick didn’t at least address that he also knew about Lori and Shane when he delivered the news; the little look back indicated he knew there was more to be said, and he could expect more reaction from Shane, but it felt remiss that he wouldn’t have brought it out in the open.

I thought Dale was going to fare badly when Shane caught up with him in the woods, particularly when he pulled a gun on him! It turned out that Shane didn’t even see him as enough of a threat to bother killing, which is perhaps the most undignified insult Shane could have delivered. I did like Dale’s response; confounded by a man like Shane and how he could flourish under such terrible conditions. There’s a little piece of me that thinks Shane’s character has been too swiftly morphed into this ‘wild survival persona’, content to throw out logic and humanity to do what needs to be done, but as stated the catalyst and his pronounced emotional turmoil can be traced back to the news of Lori’s pregnancy so it just about scrapes past.

Lori isn’t being portrayed particularly sympathetically, really, and it’s almost as though the writers don’t want us to like her. She can be silly and unrealistic and then shrewish and fierce – she can display such range and never once does it feel like it’s the appropriate response. Indeed, I have read some critiques that suggest the treatment of women in general on the show hasn’t been great – from Lori’s difficult spikiness, to Andrea’s over-reactionary victim, to even Maggie’s flip-flopping romance with Glenn. I’d suggest if there’s a flaw in their portrayal it’s that the women have been too defined by how they react to the men rather than being defined in their own right. Personally I’m not up in arms about it, but it would help them from being generally irritating and more admirable if they were adeptly and in-depthly depicted.

Nit-picking aside it was a good episode, and presented a devastating and powerful emotional and visceral climax. Where do they go from here? That’s the question all good drama asks, and The Walking Dead has asked it under the most extreme circumstances you can think of.

What was the best part?

Easily the final scene at the barn, which it’s perhaps is fair to say has been the season’s most gruelling and powerful scene. From the look on Hershel’s face to the sense of release as the group got to fire upon the ‘walkers’ and vent some of their own demons to that final, cruel reveal of Sophia. I’m glad, in a strange sense, that Rick was the only one that had the courage to step up and do what had to be done. For all Shane’s angry bluster, Rick has more steel running through him.

What do I think will happen next?

Ain’t that the question! Well, I believe the show has to move on from the farm now. There’s a long shot that the group will feel so ruined by what they’ve done to Hershel, and having found out that Sophia is dead, they’ll want to go. Failing that circumstances will dictate that they have to leave – whether that be because the farm becomes an impossible place to stay at (zombie invasion!) or they get wind of a different destination; maybe they hear a radio broadcast or something. I appreciate the show needs them to move on, I just want the reason for that on-screen to work logically.

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep06 – Secrets

What happened?

Glenn attempts to keep it a secret that the barn houses zombies. Maggie, and Hershel, know they are kept there as friends and relatives that may one day be cured. Glenn does eventually tell Dale about it, and about Lori being pregnant. Lori sends Glenn to get morning after pills, and he goes to town with Maggie where they narrowly survive a nasty attack.

Shane takes Andrea shooting and they run into a zombie horde but survive, and have sex shortly after. Returning to camp Dale confronts Shane about what kind of man he is and suggest he leave, only to have Shane threaten him. Meanwhile Rick discovers Lori has taken the pills and finds her. She states she threw them up and also confesses that she slept with Shane.

Thoughts

This episode crunched down to a few pivotal conversations between two people to make it worthwhile but, really, it was perhaps the weakest of this season. A weak episode of The Walking Dead is still good television, mind.

Glenn’s inability to keep his mouth shut does, at times, feel slightly too stretched to believe but at least it gets the plot wheels turning. I particularly liked how Dale has been Glenn’s confidant because he, on the surface, appears to be the wise elder of the group. And whilst his handling of Lori and her pregnancy was relatively delicately done it was inconsequential. And his conversation with Hershel achieved nothing. So by the time he made the mis-step of confronting Shane it marked a triple whammy of blows to his stature.

As I suspected, the Hershel zombies are people they’ve known and people they believe may one day be cured. Having been so insulated from the outside world Hershel considers it a disease rather than the actual resurrection of a corpse. I struggle with this. One man, like Hershel, being swayed into this notion is one thing – but for someone like Maggie to share that view feels risible. I mean, they were attacked on some level consider how many are in the barn – so they must have seen the extent of what this ‘disease’ is truly about, no?

Maggie will, perhaps, be quicker to align with Rick’s group’s view considering what she saw in the well and, more pressingly, the encounter in the pharmacy. When Glenn stepped up and battered the zombie with its head hanging off Maggie ought to be under no illusions that these are just people that are ‘unwell’! Glenn’s actions here, and his care for Maggie, as well as her words to him may also mark the point where he stops being the skivvy of the group and decides to stand up and be counted more, too. He certainly isn’t leadership material, no matter what Maggie says.

Shane and Andrea’s shooting training foray was one of the less successful elements for me. I don’t particularly like Andrea’s character, for one thing (which may turn out very intentional). But the shift from absolute shooting no-hoper to stone dead zombie killing marksman was too severe a shift. There’s the scary potential now that someone as unhinged as her, learning how to detach her emotions to fluidly and effectively kill, may make her a seriously dangerous antagonist down the line. I just didn’t buy the transition. Some successful shots would have been acceptable – but standing there picking off zombies with ruthless aplomb within moments of being a gibbering wreck just didn’t not go over for me at all.

Fair play to her for being direct. Girls, want to have sex with a man? Just reach down and grope his cock and balls. And fair play to Shane for an equally charming response: park car and say, “Come on then”. They certainly do seem made for each other, for all kinds of wrong reasons, and together they may be worse then they’d have been apart – perhaps vying for Rick and Lori’s status as the king and queen of the group.

It was surely impulsive jealousy that prompted Dale to give Shane an ill-advised dressing down and suggest he leave. Dale, of course, will firmly believe he is acting in the bests interests of the group but there’s no doubt his affection for Andrea tainted his judgment. Shane’s rebuke, that if he was the man Dale painted him as then that would make him a threat to Dale, was totally predictable (in terms of his character) and a net result Dale would have foreseen had his emotions not got the better of him.

Fractures and leadership rivals are appearing in the group all over the place, and this feels like the beginning of the disturbances. The only thing that might bring some harmony and unity, and restore morale and faith in Rick, is if Sophia is finally found alive and returned to the group. It’s been so long hunting for her now. At first I thought it might remain unresolved but, after all this time, I can’t conceive the show letting this hang as a loose thread. Dead or alive, she will be found.

For what it’s worth, I’m fully expecting her to be alive. Even The Walking Dead wouldn’t be so brutal to hit the group and the audience with the despair of a dead little girl, right?

The episode abruptly ended following Rick and Lori’s conversation – the last of the big secrets finally outed. Lori confessed that she and Shane had been together when she thought Rick was dead, and Rick was surprisingly accepting of it. Indeed, he’d apparently even suspected as much. I did like that his reaction wasn’t to lose his head and go out looking for blood. Given how heated and upset he was already, finding out that Lori was pregnant and had attempted abortion without consulting him, he showed remarkable restraint in keeping his head.

I expect Lori will feel much better that the weight of her secrets will have been lifted, and might bring back more composure from her. She’ll need it. If she has, as it seems, caused no permanent harm then the pregnancy will be going ahead and she faces tough times. I expect the urgency to get some place safe, to set up as ‘home’, will become paramount. Hershel’s farm certainly isn’t it, and not just because Hershel doesn’t want them there. With the zombies in the barn and friction between the factions, not to mention the threat of zombies appearing at any time, the place feels like a powder keg waiting to explode. If and when that happens, I expect Maggie will join the group – but Hershel and the rest will be left behind.

What was the best part?

The zombie attacks were cool, although Andrea’s sudden transition from useless to marksman shattered disbelief and ruined that scene. So for me the best scene was Dale’s confrontation of Shane. The expression on his face when he saw Shane and Andrea return, fuelling his sense of righteousness, to finish up with him looking dumbstruck and slapped down after Shane issued his threat was really well-played.

A well-earned second place for best scene, though, to the part where the woman (not quite sure who she is in relation to Hershel) broke the leg of the chicken and fed it to the zombies. As if the twisted nature of feeding chickens to zombies wasn’t messed up enough, hobbling it and carting the distressed and pained bird to its horrific doom was a very unsettling concept.

What do I think will happen next?

As I understand it, the next episode marks something of a mid-season break. As such I expect there might be fireworks to come, potentially to end the Hershel’s farm tenure. One way or another the zombies in the barn are literally going to be the cats that got out of the bag and create mayhem. Hopefully Sophia will be found before the shit hits the fan, clearing the way for Rick and his group, and probably Maggie, to cut their losses and hit the road once more. Hershel, surely, will pay for his pious foolishness with his life.

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep05 – Chupacabra

What happened?

Daryl’s solo hunt for Sophia turned into a fight for survival when his horse threw him into a ravine. Terrorised by both walkers and visions of his brother, Merle, he cuts a shambling figure that the group initially mistake for a walker and nearly kill. His plight comes into direct conflict with an argument between Rick and Shane about whether the hunt for Sophia is justified – the search for one girl against the greater good of the group.

Friction between Rick and Hershal’s factions quietly mounts, with a peace-offering dinner merely a tense affair. Despite her father’s request, Maggie persists in seeing Glenn, but his suggestion of hooking up at the haybarn prompts him to discover that Hershal has been keeping at least a dozen walkers locked in there for reasons unknown.

Thoughts

I knew there was something in that barn! The moment Maggie read Glenn’s note it was a terrific sense of surprise waiting to be sprung. And I had predicted that the most likely thing to be kept in the barn were ‘walkers’, though I still don’t know precisely what Hershal was doing with them. My previous guess from last week, that they are friends and relatives waiting to be cured, still holds. Yet it has occurred to me that they might be held there for more practical reasons.

What is the lifespan of a walker? It’s an important point. Perhaps Hershal has herded them all in there and keeps them, unfed, just to see how long they last. Once they all die off he can perhaps figure that the rest of them ought to be suffering a similar fate. It seems like a good plan, right? Or maybe I’m thinking too much like how I would be. Hershal, with his strict manner and religious leanings, may have an altogether more far out reason for keeping zombies in his barn!

Hershal certainly isn’t the host with the most. That dinner scene was so tense, so awkward, I couldn’t help but laugh at how awful it was. The group eating in stilted silence. And that only got worse when Glenn tried to diffuse things with the suggestion of playing the guitar, asking if anyone knew how. Of course, Otis could play brilliantly!

(On this Hershal was being something of a dick. Let’s not forget that Otis was the one that shot Carl with a hunting rifle. He was the one that brought them there in the first place. No one knows that Shane made the hard call and killed Otis to save the boy so, from their view, Hershal's group drew first blood.)

Shane’s survivalist mentality does walk the line between common sense and inhumane. For now Rick will not cross that line and give up hope, or at least give up trying. Given that they do have leads – like the child’s bed and Sophia’s doll – I think I side with Rick’s view that they need to keep looking. I mean, it’s not just about abandoning one girl – it’s also about living with her mother and expecting her to just take that. Carol is quietly shaping up as a worthy character in her own right, and perhaps she’s just there to do the non-glamourous chores of cooking and cleaning, but that sill makes her a vital part of the group.

I really liked that she went to pay Daryl a visit and remarked that he was every bit as good as either Rick or Shane. He didn’t betray much emotion but I hope he did take some comfort from that, especially after the day he had. This was very much Daryl’s episode and if he hadn’t already earned his place as a fan favourite I think this instalment should have cemented it. Only question mark is whether his loyalty and decency are being eroded by his conscience and, perhaps, sanity.

His hallucinations of Merle were fascinating scenes, managing to deliver some insight into the kind of upbringing he had as well as reveal his state of mind. It’s important to remember that everything Merle said really came from Daryl’s mind, albeit projected onto Merle’s foul and objectionable manner. So Merle’s criticism for abandoning him betray those feelings of guilt Daryl possesses.

And Merle chiding him for following Rick exposes Daryl's nagging sense of selling himself out to a man that doesn’t deserve it. (If anything, Carol’s compliments about him being as good as Rick might actually throw fuel on his fire in that respect and make him resent following Rick’s leadership.)

I thought it was curious that Daryl established for himself that this Merle was not the real Merle (teased as long as possible for the audience by not revealing both hands for quite some time) and seemed rather comfortable with it. Are we to infer this might not be the first time he has had such visions? Like Merle remarks about the titular chupacabra he claimed to see, it’s every bit as likely to have been another figment of his imagination. . . As I said, maybe there’s a question being raised over Daryl’s sanity.

For what it’s worth I sincerely hope I’m wrong. I like Daryl as the capable, but dependable, outsider of the group. For as long as he can deliver sequences like how he saw off the two zombies here – smash the head in of one then rip out the crossbow arrow from inside himself, arm it and fire it at the other – he is the man!

Lastly, Andrea is establishing herself as a rather unsympathetic character this season. When she’s not wanting to kill herself she’s wanting to establish herself as one of the men, and she nearly killed Daryl in the process. Irritating woman, but mostly understandable. Dale, on the other hand, was a little too easy-going on her for my liking. Passing off her stupid actions with a quip about how they’d all like to shoot Daryl sometimes to try and win back her friendship was like crawling on his belly through dirt – an intended indignity, I am sure. Dale is the kind of man that, under Shane’s survivalist laws, wouldn’t last too long and he knows it.

What was the best part?

Without question the captivating ‘appearance’ of Merle and the exchange between him and Daryl, then bluntly proceeded by the zombie attack. Although Daryl coming round to discover a zombie eating his shoe made me think that it was the dumbest zombie ever it still didn’t stop the scare being effective and Daryl’s actions to see them both off nothing short of gory and cool.

What do I think will happen next?

Dependent on just how weird Hershal’s barn full of walkers turns out to be will depend on how tolerable it is for Rick’s group to accept it. If it’s purely as a measure of waiting for an antidote to cure them, or to see how long they last, it will be just about surmountable. However, there’s every reason to believe Maggie will convince Glenn to keep his mouth shut (and if he wants to use any more of those condoms he has he’ll keep it shut, too!) so the rest of them may remain unaware of the dark secret locked away. . .

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep04 – Cherokee Rose

What happened?

The group convene at Hershel’s Farm, ostensibly to allow Carl time to recover and to mount a more rigorous and controlled search for Sophia. With Rick still weak from gjving blood, and Shanae limping, it’s left to Daryl to continue the hunt. He finds a house and potential signs of life, but ultimately no Sophia.

Whilst Glenn and Maggie take a supply run to town, and get it on, Rick requests that Hershel reconsider his stance that the group are not welcome to stay permanently. Lori had asked Glenn to bring her back a pregnancy test and, in the secrecy of night, she steals away to check herself. The test comes back positive.

Thoughts

Whilst this episode felt a little like filler, it’s hard to imagine many other shows having filler episodes that house this much quality. Whilst there may be those that feel The Walking Dead needs to kick things up a gear and get moving I totally disagree. I like the leisurely pace and, besides, where exactly is the plot in a hurry to get to? Barring whatever information the CDC man told Rick at the end of season 1 (I’ve read a theory that he informed Rick that Lori was pregnant, but I’m not overly-convinced) there is little reason for the group to be in any rush to get anywhere.

Indeed, the fundamental issue comes down to wanting to stay at the seemingly idyllic Hershal’s farm. I got the first sense of things being not quite right about the place in this episode. They were only small touches, like the look on Maggie’s face when the zombie was brutally killed, or Hershal’s remarks to Rick that their staying here would depend on certain conditions. . .

I really can’t identify exactly what is going on, but I get the sense it’s something grim. I can’t help but wonder if the large building Rick offered to stay at (which Hershal refused) contains something rather unpleasant. Like what? My best guess, and it’s a total stab in the dark, is that Hershal and the others keep zombies there, perhaps people they know and love, awaiting the arrival of a cure that will bring them back.

Potentially the fat zombie stuck at the bottom of the well was one such zombie that had gotten free or something and thus Maggie had to steel herself and keep it a secret that she knew who it was, thus explaining her curious reaction. Like I said, it’s a total guess. But whatever the truth of it, I am definitely expecting dark revelations to be unearthed.

The zombie in the well did offer up the coolest scene and perhaps the most disgusting moment The Walking Dead has put on-screen so far. Glenn’s descent and hurried scrambled ascent in and out of the well was adeptly handled though I would have been mightily shocked if it had ended in tragedy. Very cool was the moment Glenn handed Dale the rope to show that, despite his panic, he had still managed to lasso the zombie anyway. Very cool indeed.

And, of course, dragging the zombie up out of the water (honestly, would you have drank from that well even if the extraction had been successful considering the drooling, bloated beast had been sloshing around in it for God knows how long?) ended spectacularly; it burst into two pieces and the camera near-delighted in giving an unflinching view of the guts and entrails flooding out.

Truly revolting. I absolutely loved it.

There was also time for some levity and humour, too, which was very welcome. The sense of dread and jeopardy is only increased the more we like these characters and the more we feel they are ‘safe’. Glenn and Maggie (hello farmer’s daughter indeed!) getting it on was a fun scene that humanised the pair of them as well as carrying the dark undertow of just how scarce choice and other people truly are. It was played for laughs but possessed an all too understandable truth about loneliness and the need for intimacy, if only casual and shortlived.

Daryl continued to transform into a new man. His determination to find Sophia yielding perhaps the best sign of hope yet with the discovery of the house and the small makeshift bed in a cupboard. There’s no definitive way of knowing if it was Sophia that had been staying there (and how much did you just want Daryl to find her?) but it’s the best lead so far. His finding and presenting the Cherokee Rose to Sophia’s mother was a symbol of hope, but also stood as a metaphor of beauty and life flourishing in unlikely circumstances, a concept echoed in Lori learning she is pregnant.

First question is: Who’s the daddy? I suspect Lori’s dread is formed from that potential quandary, and also from the opinion she expressed in the previous episode when she considered if it was better for Carl to die rather than live in this world. Now she faces the prospect of bringing a child into this hell. It’s certainly a daunting proposition but, if the human race is to survive, it’s precisely this that needs to happen.

With Shane still a brooding presence, wrestling with his conscience (he practically gave the game away of what he did to Otis in his near-confession to Andrea) and potentially misconstruing Lori’s meaning when she requested he stay with the group, things are set to get continuously edgy between him, Lori and Rick. No question this is a plot dynamic that is going to be painfully wrought out. It’s testament to the quality of the show that both Shane and Lori can be considered both to blame and yet totally sympathetic. Only Rick continues to play the role of burdened but thoroughly decent leader – the moment he becomes conflicted with immorality might be when this ragtag band of survivors really unravel.

What was the best part?

Has to be the whole exercise in attempting to get the zombie out of the well. It had drama (Glenn’s near-death), heroics (Glenn’s reveal of achieving the goal), gore (bursting zombie!) and humour (TJ’s remarks about how at least they didn’t do something like just shoot it). Wonderful stuff, even if the speed of how Shane and the rest were pulling on that rope didn’t quite tally with the complete lack of upward movement of Glenn in the well.

What do I think will happen next?

The previews I glimpsed somewhat help me here, as next week’s episode seemed to suggest that Daryl will get into trouble on his own – injured, and perhaps even seeing his brother (hallucination or real, that’ll be the key question, I suspect). That he seemed to stagger out in front of Rick I anticipate will trigger a tense moment of deciding whether Daryl has become infected or is just seriously injured. With any luck he’ll have suffered but survived and, please, finally have recovered Sophia!

The Walking Dead: S02 Ep03 – Save The Last One

What happened?

Shane and Otis try to escape from the school; running low on ammo, and both of them unable to move quickly, it doesn’t look like an easy escape. Shane eventually arrives at the farmhouse, telling how Otis and he got separated and he lost him. However, with the medical equipment he brought, the Doctor is able to perform the operation on Carl and save him.

Daryl and Andrea venture out into the woods to continue hunting for Sophia, with only Daryl holding hope that she could be still found alive. All they discover, however, is a zombie hanging from a tree and return to the camper van without her.

Lori pleads with Shane to stay with the group, little realising the truth that Shane was responsible for Otis’ death, having shot him in order to make his own escape. He shaves his head as he remembers the horrific act he had committed.

Thoughts

What a difference a final scene makes. Before the last reveal I have to say I was getting rather annoyed with this episode, particularly when Shane turned up without Otis and stated that he had been killed. I think I literally threw my hands up at the screen and remarked, “What?” I was already set to be annoyed if they killed off Otis, but to have done it off-screen just felt doubly-insulting.

And then, of course, the last scene revealed what had really gone on between Shane and Otis and it was devastatingly effective. Hats off to all involved; they totally got me with the surprise. Seeing Shane shoot Otis (and I loved how he angrily fought to hold him back) and then return to the farmhouse, shaving his head, was a shocking way to end the episode. In a good way.

With Lori imploring Shane to remain with the group, unaware of just how unstable he has become, it sets up a really precarious dynamic between the trio of Rick, Shane and Lori. I recall in the first season the moment where Shane had Rick in the sights of his gun and Dale caught him in the act. He held back then, but maybe Shane is moving closer to a point where he realises the consequences of his actions no longer come with the threat of law and order and he is turning to more brutal measures to get what he wants.

That’s not to say I believe Shane has suddenly turned into a murderous psychopath. The Walking Dead is smarter than that; Shane did perform a terrible act for the greater good of saving Carl. Clearly this is going to weigh heavy on his conscience and create strain and tension there that might push him into a bad state of mind. But, as stated, I also suspect that an awakening to what he can do to get what he wants may push his character into dark territory.

Also effective in this episode was the discussion between Rick and Lori about whether it was even right to battle to keep Carl alive, considering the world he was set to grow up into and the desperate life he would be forced to lead. It was a gruelling conversation and, perhaps it’s because I have a one-year old son and the feelings of protection and love as a father are ones I well understand, I thought the whole scene was powerfully charged. Lori, especially, really sold the steely yet fraught emotional state exceptionally well.

It was a little trite that Rick’s counter-argument basically boiled down to the fact that Carl remarked about how beautiful the deer had looked in the brief period of consciousness he had. Surely there are better arguments to be had? Like how there is hope for humanity to survive, and how if the current survivors last long enough they will see off ‘the walkers’ and face a world to re-populate for themselves. And even if they face only a desperate future, those little pockets of joy and happiness and the right to live surely count even more in such circumstances. Those are the kinds of arguments Rick could have laid out, and it would have been in keeping with his character, but let’s just say he wasn’t thinking entirely clearly on account of all the blood he gave away!

The scenes with Daryl and Andrea were also nicely observed. Daryl had a little more time to shine and ever more his character and personality show flourishes and depth that really mark him out as a personal favourite. That he seemed alone in the belief that there was a chance for Sophia was refreshingly unexpected, and the shared jokes between him and Andrea were nicely played. Who knew that these two might make an unexpected couple? Even if they do fundamentally disagree on the rights and wrongs of shooting walkers that have strung themselves up!

A lot of good stuff this episode, though the experience of watching it was also frustrating. The scenes of Shane and Otis desperately trying to escape the school were well done, but annoyingly short and interspersed with duller scenes at the farmhouse, away from the real action. I appreciate in hindsight that this was so the episode could load and spring its surprise conclusion, but during the watching of the episode it just became an irritation.

Other subplots, like Glenn trying to pray for the first time, felt superfluous here – almost as though they were included just to keep these characters in the mix, inventing ways to justify their inclusion and screentime rather than them naturally commanding attention as a result of events occurring to inform their actions and responses.

The last scene saved the day, then, on an episode that I was all set to condemn as a clunker of bad decisions (killing Otis!) and wasted tension on diluted, interrupted action sequences at the school. What I got was the rug pulled out from beneath my feet with Shane firmly in place as a serious liability within the group who is totally unpredictable.

What was the best part?

The last scene flashback, showing exactly how Shane managed to escape the walkers. Intercutting the shaving of his head and the reveal of scratches and marks on his body, the actual truth of how he shot Otis to make his own escape was nothing less than shocking. Shooting him in the leg so his screaming, prone body could be devoured by the walkers was nothing short of horrific. In retrospect I ought to have seen it coming, but I’m not going to pretend the episode didn’t fool me and thus make the revelation an absolute surprise (which, frankly, is how I prefer my television drama to accost me – it’s way more fun to be shocked than to predict stuff before it happens).

What do I think will happen next?

It’s hard to imagine what Shane will do next. For the short term I anticipate he will stay with the group and remain an uneasy, brooding presence that we the audience know houses terrible potential. The group will have to remain at the farmhouse to allow both Rick and Carl to recover, so I expect the other group will join them there, and still hopefully continue their search for Sophia from this new base. Fingers crossed they’ll find her alive and well. There’s still hope.