An unequivocably excellent episode to cap the mid-season off. Now, of course the same things that drive me crazy about certain characters are still driving me crazy, but this episode went and took those “bugs” and made them “features”, to use programming parlance. What I mean by that is that negative character traits, which up to this point have seemingly been just annoying and arbitrary, were actually used to move the plot forward, and draw clear distinctions between the various survivors. And for once (you could argue twice, last episode was awfully good, too), the show actually shifted into into high gear and things happened.
It seems like the writer’s theme of “survivors” versus “nice guys” is starting to come into focus as we watch what is essentially a coup. We don’t know how extensive it is just yet, but that’s what’s going to have me hot and bothered for the start of season 2.5 in a few months. Herschel has been over thrown. The survivors might be nice enough about it, moving forward, but if they want to stay they are going to stay… they have the guns and the will to sweep away anything standing in their way. And if they leave, they’re leaving on their own terms. So Herschel is done. Is Rick? Or did his handling of Sophia, when no one else, not even the Mighty Amoral Power Ranger Shane could, do just enough to save his leadership in the eyes of the rest of the survivors?
Goddamn, this payoff of the Sophia plot line, honestly has just about made up for the rest of this season’s shortcomings. Again, yes, the writers, actors, directors, or more likely a combination of all three, have thrown away about five episodes just dicking around this season. They could have used the slower pace to really establish the characters and have them grow and have us care for them. That didn’t happen, save for Daryl, and maybe (surprisingly) Dale. But with the change in creative leadership that went down taking effect roughly about now, I’m really excited for next season.
In fact, I’m wondering, and this is sure to be a lively topic for debate in this week’s podcast… are the writers actually kind of brilliant? Making these characters out to be softheaded fools, only to have them wake up, one by one? First Shane, then Andrea, then Glen? Even Rick seems to be going along at the end. And Dale made his impassioned speech about “not going down with the world when the world went to shit”, I at least felt it was ridiculous, and Shane’s amused response “fair enough” as he walked off with the guns was the perfect response.
Here’s hoping that the show can bring the thunder like this each episode next season, and better utilize their downtime. I don’t mind when the group spins their wheels, but let’s make it more interesting next time.
Random thoughts, and some things that bothered me…
- Daryl and Carol? Oh, hell no. And am I going to hell when my first thought after Daryl violently hurled the saddle and called her a stupid bitch was “that was an incredibly effective pick up line?” Yeah, I’m probably going to hell. I just don’t see this as an interesting story line at all.
- Here is my score on the break down of the survivors: Real Survivors: Shane, Andrea, Daryl. Maybe: Rick, Glen, Maggie, T-Dog, Carl. Walker-bait: Dale (president of team Walker-bait), Herschel (vice president), Lori (first lady), Carol. Thoughts? And how is this going to be resolved moving forward?
- God, Dale is dumb. I like him, I honestly do at this point, but Shane’s got him pegged. He’s just not cut out for this world. Also, I liked that his hiding the guns, was the same thinking writ large that fake repairing the RV was. Just a way to enforce his was of thinking on the group, by removing or making difficult the ability for them to act without his consent. I don’t like it, objectively, but it is a consistent character trait at this point. And he’s very fortunate it did not get the group killed.
- Speaking of Shane. He’s an outright villain at this point, but it’s kind of freed me to root for him. Back when he was an ambiguous good guy, his attempted rape and murder of innocents put me off, to put it mildly. Now that he’s in full bad guy mode, I kind of think he is awesome. His creepy confrontation with Lori (“Even if [the baby] is yours it will never be yours, and there is nothing you can do to change that” / “I don’t need to”) was chilling. His confrontation with Glen and then Dale was tense, well written, and darkly humorous. And finally, his demonstration of the walker’s inhumanity and take over of the farm was just plain awesome.
- Speaking of that last scene, it was so well shot and well acted, that you almost forget to question why, if Herschel wouldn’t relieve Rick of the snare so he could stop Shane, nobody else would even try? Almost.
- I loved Shane’s debate with Carl as Rick Jr. Loved everything about it.
- Kind of interesting that Rick didn’t address the pregnancy thing and Shane’s relationship with her when he dropped that bomb on Shane. Seemed like it would have been a good time to get that water under the bridge?
- Here’s hoping that Glen doesn’t join the Sheriff’s Hat Club. Oh, and “why would you waste an egg like that?!” Well played. Last word on Glen: Glen, meet spine. Spine, meet Glen. I’m glad you two have finally gotten acquainted.
- Rick playing along with the walker leading was insane, wasn’t it? I love the fact that the rest of the group rightly lost their shit over that.
So that’s what I thought! How about you? Send us your take via email, Facebook, or Twitter. We’ll read as much as we can on air during our podcast, which records and is released Tuesday evening. Be looking for an article or two from Jim this week, as well as my weekly Survival Review which comes out Friday. Don’t forget, if you like what we do, please help support us through our Amazon affiliate link, amazon.baldmove.com. By using it, you get the same great deals and pricing through Amazon, and we get a tiny percentage of your purchase to help us keep the bandwidth flowing. See you Tuesday evening for the podcast!