Minicap: The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead

By Saint Clare of Assisi | Monday, November 28, 2011 | 12:09 am | 31 Comments
Tagged: , , , ,
Posted in: Featured, MiniCaps, Recaps, The Walking Dead

s2e7 minicap pic

What up, TWD-ers. This is your minicap for episode 207, aka “Pretty Much Dead Already”, aka the Midseason Finale.

Hoo boy, what an episode that was. In a season that’s lacked much momentum, a lot of shit sure goes down.

This week’s episode opens with Glenn. The rest of Team Rick is having breakfast around the campfire, and he’s got an announcement to make: he’s finally decided to tell them that Dr. Greene’s barn is full of zombies. So now, everyone knows. All the other concerns, like Lori’s pregnancy or Sophia being missing, are put on the back burner while they try to figure this out.

On one side of the debate is Rick. Above all he knows they have to stay at the Greene’s farm because it’s the only suitable place in the world for Lori to give birth. They’ll all have to do what it takes to stay, even if it means respecting Dr. Greene’s twisted logic that mandates zombie be treated like people. On the other side is Shane. These zombies are an immediate threat. Either they ignore Dr. Greene and kill the zombies immediately, or they leave the farm. There can’t be compromise. It’s your basic idealism vs. realism conflict we’ve seen throughout the show: does Team Rick fight to uphold human decency, or does it do anything to survive?

But Rick knows that whatever he thinks is immaterial because he still hasn’t gotten Dr. Greene’s permission for everyone to stay on the farm. He and Dr. Greene have gone back and forth over this for the past few weeks, and now it’s time to settle things once and for all. Rick begs Dr. Greene to reconsider. Dr. Greene has been isolated on the farm since Wildfire hit, and Rick tries to explain to him just how awful the world is now. Dr. Greene won’t budge. In his mind, he’s given Rick and his flock more than enough help. Rick has two more cards to play, and he plays them both. First, he reveals that he knows about Dr. Greene’s secret stash of zombies in the barn. That only pisses Dr. Greene off more. Then, he reveals that Lori is pregnant. And even that won’t do it.

Rick returns to Shane in defeat. Shane thinks Dr. Greene’s refusal makes their decision pretty straightforward, and he can’t figure out why Rick is so hung up on staying on the farm. It’s here that Rick tells Shane about Lori’s pregnancy—until now Shane hadn’t known. That changes things.

Shane goes straight to Lori—after all, in Shane’s mind at least, there’s a good chance the baby is his. And even though Lori tells him flat-out that he’s not the father, Shane’s paternal instincts are in full force now. He now believes they must stay on the Greene’s farm. But there won’t be any compromises. The zombies have to go, Dr. Greene’s rules be damned.

Meantime, Dale approaches Andrea to talk about her tryst with Shane last week. Andrea bristles. She thinks Dale is just being his usual overprotective, avuncular self. But it’s more than that. Dale’s always been firmly on Rick’s side of the debate and felt that they should always be ethical no matter what. Last week Dale finally realized that Shane is the antithesis of that mindset, and now he realizes that Shane is getting his hooks into Andrea. Dale doesn’t like the direction the group is headed in, and there’s only one thing left he can do…

Shane finds Dale in a nearby marsh, about to dump the group’s gun stash. Dale thinks that the only way to avoid violence is by getting rid of their weapons. But Shane won’t let him do that. He demands the guns, and lets Dale know that the only way he’s giving up is if Dale shoots him. Dale aims his rifle at Shane’s chest…and he can’t pull the trigger. Dale tries to maintain moral superiority, but Shane isn’t interested. He heads back to camp and begins handing out the guns. They’re going to take care of the barn problem.

Quickly, over to the subplots before our grand finale…

The Sophia matter is still unresolved, and with everyone focused on the zombies-in-the-barn problem, only Daryl seems to be concerned about the girl any more. He’s determined to continue looking, even if he’s nowhere near recovered enough from his injuries. Carol doesn’t want him to go back out into the woods. She claims it’s because she’s worried for Daryl’s safety, but the real reason, she later admits, is that she’s beginning to lose hope herself. Only later, when Daryl finds a second Cherokee rose for her, does her optimism return. (By the way, this subplot doesn’t seem clumsy because I wrote it that way. That’s how it actually is. Seriously, rehashing the Cherokee rose thing?)

Maggie is hella pissed at her Dad for being so stubborn. She thinks kicking them off the farm is a pretty dickish move, and Jesus would never do something like that. But she’s still hella pissed at Glenn for betraying her trust and telling Rick and Shane about the zombies. Glenn initially tries to shift responsibility—she put him in an unfair position in the first place and he wasn’t strong enough to keep the secret. But then, he nuts up. Yeah, he told the others, because he wanted to. Glenn knows the zombies are dangerous, even if they’re locked inside a barn. That makes them a threat to Maggie, and Glenn wants her safe. Her heart melts.

And now, the finale! Dr. Greene has taken Maggie’s admonishment to heart. Maybe it IS unchristian to kick Rick and his people off the farm, especially since Lori is pregnant. But Dr. Greene has a little problem to take care of first, and he asks Rick for help. Off in the swamp, (away from where Shane and Dale are having their spat, I think), a couple zombies have gotten stuck in the muck. This has happened before. Dr. Greene needs Rick to help him fit collars around the zombie’s collars, drag them onto land, and take them back to the barn. And he’s going to let them stay, but only under the condition that they leave the damn zombies alone. Rick agrees.

But Shane and the other members of Team Rick are still back at the house, armed, ornery, and thirsty for zombie blood, and the sight of Rick, Dr. Greene, and Jimmy the farmboy is too much. Shane tears off across the field. He’s going to show Dr. Greene once and for all that zombies aren’t people, and to prove it he shoots one of the zombies about five times in the chest. Obviously, it doesn’t die. That ain’t natural. Shane puts it out of its misery.

And THEN, Shane runs over to the barn. Rick tries to stop him, but he takes a pickaxe to the doors. Everyone else in the group joins them just as the zombies start to emerge. They all raise their weapons and mow the zombies down. Dr. Greene and Rick look on with horror

All the zombies are dead now, a dozen or more. It was easy. Even the milder members of Team Rick, like T-Dog and Glenn, managed to put the zombies down without much thought. It looks like pragmatism is the new group philosophy.

Except one final zombie emerges from the barn. Sophia. A while back, when they were first planning their search for Sophia, this very issue came up: to do if she turned into a zombie? Shane was confident he’d be able to put Zombie Sophia down, but now, not so much.

And that’s when Rick steps forward, draws his .357, and blows her brains out.

So, we’ll see you Tuesday for the full recap. Being that this is out “Midseason Finale”, we won’t be getting any more new episodes until February 2012. (But it’ll still be Season Two).

And in the meantime you can get caught up here.

 

Saint Clare of Assisi attended Boston University and has written for The Onion.  He took his name from the patron saint of television, who was a virgin and saved a boy from a wolf one time.

31 Comments

  1. 1
    ohralphie
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 5:51 am

    I’m not sure why Rick doesn’t take Lori and Carl and seperate from the group (mainly Shane). Now that Lori has told Rick about her affair, why not tell Rick that Shane is being a possessive dick? After screwing up their safe haven, Rick should have no problem cutting Shane and whomever wants to go with him loose. Not that Heschel is likely to forgive anyone including Rick for what he must perceive as the murder of his family.
    Great mini-cap! Can’t wait to read the full one.

  2. 2
    Bioscotto
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 5:52 am

    It was about time we got some real pay off for the dragging, slow, lethargic story lines we’ve been dealing with!

    I was watching, and they ominous music started after they killed all the zombie and one more was immergeing, and I was all…is this the Dr.’s granddaughter, and then it dawned on me in the seconds before the reveal….HOLY CRAP IT’S SOPHIA OMG!!! Such a good, and needed, twist!

  3. 3
    CattyFan cattyfan
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 6:17 am

    I’m really confused. Like most people I was all shocked when Sophia shambled out of the barn…but then I started thinking.

    First of all, she was nearly completely intact. Did a zombie bite her, decide she wasn’t a tasty enough morsel, and then simply wander away?

    When did it happen? The writer was on Talking Dead, and said the reason no one seemed to know she was in the barn was Otis was the one who caught and tended the Barn Walkers. But Otis was killed a day after these folks arrived on the premises…and we know it takes time after being bitten for someone to die and then come back all grey and hungry.

    And wouldn’t someone from Rick’s group have noticed Otis or someone else wrangling the Walkers into the barn?

    Also, they have been feeding the Barn Walkers all the way along. Why didn’t someone speak up that there was a new, not rotted little girl in the barn that matched the description of Sophia? Instead the Farm People let Rick’s People put themselves in danger repeatedly looking for a girl who was right there…albeit dead.

    Lastly, I wish someone had shot Shane during the massacre. He’s surpassed Andrea for irritating.

  4. 4
    spinal11
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 8:20 am

    @ Cattyfan -

    My fanwank is that Sophia was attacked by a lone, weak walker, got bitten but managed to escape, and then hid somewhere until she bled out and died. It probably happened within hours of running away from Rick. I always doubted she could survive more than a few hours what with her tiny size, lack of skills, and the sheer number of walkers in the area.

    As for Otis, from the way Herschel talked about the walkers in the swamp (“I don’t know that guy, he’s got a uniform on”) they were just catching them willy-nilly and throwing them in the barn. And Otis’ wife just kind of grabbed the chickens and threw them in, she wasn’t looking closely at the walkers or doing a headcount. Plus she seems traumatized and disconnected after her husband’s death. I doubt she knows or cares what the outsiders in the yard are up to. And if those two were the only ones to go inside the barn, it’s definitely possible the new little girl was overlooked.

    And is it just me, or did Sophia look kind of cute as a zombie? I felt the same way about the little girl who took a headshot from Rick in Ep 1. I know I’m supposed to shoot them, but can I just hug them first? I know, I wouldn’t survive long.

  5. 5
    Ravencall
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 9:50 am

    Yay for Shane and his serious bad-assery! That’s who I want on my side in the zombie war. Get ready people, it’s coming…
    I’m glad it was Rick that finally put Sophia to rest. Maybe this means he finally realizes that tough decisions have to be made.
    Great resolution to the Sophia story-line as well. It would have been a real cop-out to have found her alive at this point…

  6. 6
    suedisco
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 11:55 am

    I am of the opinion that Herschel knew Sophia was in the barn and kept letting Team Rick go out looking for her anyway rather than tell them and obviously blow the secret about the zombies in the barn. I think both sides come out of this looking bad.

  7. 7
    spinal11
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 1:17 pm

    @ suedisco -

    See, I don’t get why he would do that. It seemed like he REALLY wanted them to leave his farm, and there was no chance of them doing that as long as Sophia was out there. How hard would it have been for him to wrangle her out of the barn somehow, and then give her to them like, “Here, we found her in the woods”?

    I still think he didn’t know.

  8. 8
    plockeness monster
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 1:35 pm

    HOLY SHIT, THAT EPISODE WAS A-MAZ-ING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  9. 9
    lindaw205
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    On the talking dead last night, Robert Kirkman actually said that Otis is the one who put her in the barn and the others knew nothing about it. It was explained in a scene that they cut which I don’t know why they would cut something as important as that.

  10. 10
    lindaw205
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 2:13 pm

    @cattyfan – sorry, just saw your post. Yeh, I’m having problems with the timeline, too. He would have to wrangle Sophia before he shot Carl, since after he shot him he was a pretty busy and visible fellow.

  11. 11
    plockeness monster
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 2:52 pm

    Wasn’t Carl shot in the same area where Sophia ran away?

    I don’t think any of Dr. Greene’s crew that Sophia was in the barn and, for the longest time, they acted like they didn’t want Rick’s crew there to begin with.

    AHHH! Why didn’t Rick tell Shane he knew that Shane humped his wife?!?!

  12. 12
    Pedestrienne
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 5:08 pm

    I was pretty impressed by how cheesy the scene was at the beginning with Glenn looking to Maggie who’s head-shaking ‘no’, then Dale and his head-nodding ‘yes’. Was that meant to be comedic or dramatic or just rubbish?

    I agree that it doesn’t seem like Doc Green’s gang knew much about the walkers in the barn – maybe Otis was just telling them when there were names of note. It does seem odd that he wouldn’t have told them he found a child, since it looked like Sophia was the only child-child in there. I guess we can make the leap that Otis could see how much it was all bothering Herschel, and tried to protecting him by not divulging a detail like that? Clearly Otis and Maggie were the only two that had anything even approaching a clue what the world beyond the farm was like. Might have been that Otis was more emotionally and intellectually capable of dealing with the realities while Herschel just kept the farm running, and that was their dynamic.

  13. 13
    Liz
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    @suedisco – I was thinking the same thing, but spinal11 makes a good point.

    I also was glad to see Rick end Sophia. It seemed to bring everything full circle. And, in a way it was Rick taking responsibility for what he did but still making a tough call that the others didn’t seem to want to follow through with. I also think Rick doesn’t want to say anything to Shane because they’re besties or whatnot, and because he knows Shane. In the scene where he told Shane about Lori’s pregnancy, I almost thought he was rubbing it in his face – like “you have to get over this.” But really, who knows.

    Also – count me out of the Shane group. He is crazy. Even if I was Lori (and Lori actually knew everything Shane has done), I’d still be worried that if it were between me and him he’d still choose him. Because honestly, Otis could have made it back if Shane had sacrificed himself, and Carl still could have been saved, so I don’t believe it was entirely for Carl that he killed Otis.

  14. 14
    maryedith
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 8:18 pm

    I liked this episode much better than the ones preceding it (although there are still plot weirdnesses), mainly because the dialogue actually went with the action for once. My take on the Lori/Rick/Shane dynamic is that Lori is attracted to Shane because he’s focused solely on her, while Rick is always thinking about the group as a whole. (A King Arthur vs Lancelot kind of thing). There has been tension (interminably drawn out) between Rick’s way of looking after the group and Shane’s way, which is actually based on self-interest and animal instincts. It looked like Shane had convinced everyone except Dale that his way is the only way to survive in the zombie apocalypse, but when Sophia walked out of the barn only Rick had the objectivity to do the right thing for everyone and shoot her. I found it very satisfying.

  15. 15
    maryedith
    Posted November 28, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    I also thought Doc Greene did a very good acting job in that last scene.

  16. 16
    Snootchy Bootches
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 5:13 am

    I sort of felt like Hershel had a breakthrough when Shane shot that zombie in the heart and lungs and she kept walking. Like he finally started to see that they might not be sick after all. Time will tell, I guess.

    If anyone is interested, there is an interview with Robert Kirkman about the finale and the rest of the season. No spoilers. It is mostly discussion of what happened this episode.

    http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/11/28/walking-dead-finale-kirkman-2/

  17. 17
    maryedith
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 6:10 am

    AAAGGGHHH — DON’T read the comments after that interview, though! One spoiler after another! I wish I could turn back time!

  18. 18
    plockeness monster
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 6:45 am

    Thanks for the heads up, Mary!

  19. 19
    plockeness monster
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 8:02 am

    OMG. Someone may have already brought this up, but the guy that plays Rick is British?!

    Also, I loved the scene between Carl and Shane. I am really starting to like Carl.

  20. 20
    Snootchy Bootches
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 8:27 am

    Sorry Mary, I honestly didn’t even see there were comments after the interview. :( I hate spoilers.

  21. 21
    maryedith
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 10:51 am

    @Snooty Bootches, I know you do — that was my own fault for looking. The interview was interesting; thanks for posting.

  22. 22
    maryedith
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 10:53 am

    I had NO IDEA Rick was English — the only thing that would surprise me more would be to find out that Shane is Southern.

  23. 23
    lindaw205
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 12:11 pm

    I knew Rick was English because I recognized him from the movie Love Actually. He’s doing a pretty good job with the southern accent, I think, and so is Daryl. Some of the others….not so much.

  24. 24
    Pedestrienne
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 3:28 pm

    I was pretty familiar with Andrew Lincoln from other things (if you ever get a chance to watch a comedy series called ‘Teachers’, give it a go!) and I was pretty baffled when I read he’d been cast as Rick. He really pleasantly surprised me, and I think he’s going a grand job.

  25. 25
    itchy
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 4:30 pm

    So, two minutes of coolness is supposed to make up for 40 minutes of plodding plot-holey sameness? At least there’s evidence the writers can make a good show, if they’d only try.

    My first thought: Hooray! Sophia’s dead! The show can get moving again!

    Second thought: yeah, right. All of a sudden there’s a kid in the barn and no one put two and two together to figure out it was Sophia? Sure. I realize some of you are bending over backwards to make this plausible, but I’m just going to put it as number 967 on the list of this show’s plot holes.

    And yeah, I’m seriously annoyed by the Shane character and hope he’s off the show soon.

    And, hey, since when is there a black guy on this show?

  26. 26
    plockeness monster
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 5:05 pm

    Anything that involves horror has to have a token black dude.

  27. 27
    lindaw205
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    I’m disturbed by some of the interviews Kirkman has done….he doesn’t see a problem with the pacing or writing on the show, as a matter of fact he thinks it’s just fine and dandy and we can expect much more “character development”. This concerns me that the second part of this season isn’t going to move any faster.

  28. 28
    maryedith
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 5:28 pm

    @lindaw, thankyou! I also wanted to smack him for his smugness over the “huge surprise” of Sophia being the barn. Quite a few people on this site speculated about her being in the barn, if I remember. The only thing that stopped me from flat-out assuming she was there, and that Herschel knew it, was the timeline inconsistencies. That’s not fooling the audience; that’s cheating.

  29. 29
    Liz
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 9:21 pm

    “the only thing that would surprise me more would be to find out that Shane is Southern.” Bwahahaha! Awesome.

  30. 30
    lindaw205
    Posted November 29, 2011 at 9:29 pm

    @maryedith – yeh, exactly. People had been speculating about it on several sites so I don’t know what the big reveal was supposed to be. Unless it was supposed to be that big ole way out of shape Otis could cover that much ground that quickly in order to get back to shoot Carl. Yeh, that’s cheating. And lazy, sloppy writing. Maybe Kirkman figures if he tells his tales enough, and with conviction, people will buy it.

  31. 31
    itchy
    Posted November 30, 2011 at 12:04 am

    “Maybe Kirkman figures if he tells his tales enough, and with conviction, people will buy it.”

    Depends on if he graduated from the Sarah Palin School of Political Relvancy or not.

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