Minicap: The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead

By Saint Clare of Assisi | Monday, February 27, 2012 | 2:07 pm | 22 Comments

Daryl’s not in the show this week. Sorry.

I probably just discouraged half of you from even reading this. Damn it. This is going to be a BLAST writing this, knowing I just sabotaged myself.

All right. This episode was two-thirds excellent, one-third dud. I’ll focus on the excellence first…

When we last left off, Rick, Glen, and Herschel had just brought the injured Randall back to the farm—aka, the guy who was part of the gang of hostile strangers. It’s probably a REALLY bad idea to keep him alive, because that always bites you in the ass in the movies. (See: Saving Private Ryan). The plan was for Herschel to patch up Randall’s leg nurse him back to enough health, then take him a few miles away and release him, and hope he doesn’t come back with his armed and unscrupulous buddies. This caused another yet another fracas between Rick and Shane of the “idealism versus realism” variety. And on top of that, things were coming to a head between Rick and Shane over Shane’s short-lived relationship with Lori.

Now it’s one week later. Randall is reasonably healthy, and for our A-story main course this week, Rick and Shane are about to let him go. But before they do, Rick wants to discuss his myriad problems with Shane. Well, I shouldn’t say “discuss”…more like, “lay down the law”. Rick reveals he knows everything Shane’s been saying about him—that Rick can’t protect Lori and Carl, that Shane thinks the baby is his and not Rick’s, that Rick is weak, etc—. That gives him the upper hand, and he tells Shane flat-out to shape up or ship out. Shane SAYS he agrees, but we don’t buy it for a second.

Then it’s time to deal with Randall. They meant to drive him 18 miles away, blindfolded so he wouldn’t know how to locate the farm, and drop him off. But there’s no civilization at exactly 18 miles, so Rick goes a little further to give Randall a fair shake. It’s yet another gesture of high-mindedness out of Rick, and as always, they’ll have to pay for it. They arrive at a mostly abandoned construction depot and stab a couple zombie-cops, then scrounge for supplies. (Shane also notices that the zombie cops have no bite marks on them, meaning they may have contracted Wildfire by other means…does this mean Wildfire is airborne now?)

Finished scavenging, they take Randall out of the trunk of their car. His arms and legs are bound. They leave him in the middle of the depot and Rick drops a knife nearby. Randall quickly realizes what’s up, that they’re about to abandon him alone in zombie country, and tries to bargain. And Randall actually winds up having something important to say: he went to high school with Maggie, and knew the Greenes before the zombiepocalypse. This is a game-changer. If he’s telling the truth, Randall already knew where the Greene’s farm was. They can’t let him go. It’s either kill him, or keep him.

Surprise! Shane thinks they have to kill him. Rick STILL won’t let him. He wants to bring Randall back to the farm and sleep on it. Shane comes right out and says what he wouldn’t at the top of the episode: he tells Rick to his face that Rick can’t protect Lori and Carl. So a fight breaks out. Shane hurls a gigantic wrench at Rick and it goes through a window. And sure enough, zombies.

Rick and Shane get separated and each try to avoid the new zombie horde, while Randall, still bound, inches toward the knife they left. Shane winds up trapped inside a school bus. Randall manages to free himself, elude a zombie, and find Rick, Since all the zombies are massing outside the bus, Rick and Randall COULD make a break for it and abandon Shane. It looks like Rick is going to do exactly that, and Shane looks screwed, until Rick and Randall show up in the car and plow through the horde.

Once they leave the depot, Rick and Shane re-tie Randall and put the blindfold on him again. Now that Rick has saved Shane’s bacon, he has the leverage again. They’re going to spare Randall for now, take him back to the farm, and decide whether to kill him or not. Rick reiterates what he told Shane at the top of the episode: shape up, or ship out. Shane’s momentarily cowed.

Pretty cool, and tons of action I didn’t go into detail for since this is a minicap. But for our B-story side dish this week, we get…suicide! Which is like the macaroni and cheese of B-stories. Seriously, is there anything heavier? Beth is the suicidal one…she’s Herschel’s younger daughter and has been bedridden with grief since she witnessed Shane gun down her zombie-mom. She confesses to Lori that she’s lost her will to live. Lori tells Maggie, and a big fight breaks out between the sisters. Maggie can’t quite convince Beth that life is worth living, but she seems to have it under control for now.

But that’s not a hourlong drama B-story, so someone’s going to have to mess things up, and this week Andrea gets the call. You remember how Andrea lost her own sister to the zombies, and wanted to kill herself in the CDC explosion at the end of Season One? She’s been in Beth’s position before. And she REALLY resented how Dale wouldn’t let her carry a gun until he felt it was safe. Rather than be grateful she had other members of the group to look after her during a dark moment, Andrea STILL feels bitter about it and thinks everyone should get to make their own decision whether to keep living or not. (Also, while Andrea’s telling Lori this, a bizarre fight breaks out about Andrea not doing enough laundry for the group. Maybe I’ll have this figured out for the full recap tomorrow, but probably not). Which is all bad news for Beth.

Andrea gets a moment alone with Beth, tells her what she told Lori, and then leaves Beth ALONE to make the decision. A short while later Lori and Maggie hear glass shattering and Beth sobbing. Beth cut herself. But hey, the cut was non-fatal! That means Beth wants to live, right? Andrea tries to show them how this means her plan worked, but Maggie bars her from the house indefinitely. Oops.

You’ll notice I didn’t mention any of the other characters this week…that’s because they weren’t in this episode. More on that, and the full recap, tomorrow!

Brains,

SCOA

 

 

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.

22 Comments

  1. 1
    CattyFan cattyfan
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 2:18 pm

    I hate Andrea. And Lori. So when they were fighting…I was rooting for zombies.

    Half the cast was missing this week. No Daryl, Dale, Glenn, Herschel, Sofia’s mom (whose name I can never remember.) What the heck? Budget cuts already?

    If Rick had been on the bus, Shane would have left him. He’s proven that’s the kind of guy he is over and over. What a creep.

  2. 2
    plockeness monster
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 2:29 pm

    I was hoping Lori and Andrea would get in a death match-like fight and they would kill each other and then we could forget that they ever exsisted.

  3. 3
    maryedith
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 2:36 pm

    I had a HUGE problem with the lengh of that fight scene. There was a part where it looked like Shane was going to kill the dude and I thought, “But he won’t. Rick’s going to get to him and this fight will go on for another minute or so. Just because, even though this is a zombie show, these writers are too afraid of violence.” And that’s my problem with the show in a nutshell. It always pulls its punches when it comes to showing anything real or dealing with any real situations. Just like Rick, it’s always saying, “Let me think about this.” The Shane/Rick fight has been going on since they arrived at the farm and they KEEP going back to square one with it. Now we’re going to have this to execute or not to execute question dragged out over at least one more episode — I bet it will be more than one. I bet, in fact, it will be over the rest of the damn season. And how the HELL was that guy even moving let alone moving so WELL when his leg was just completely shattered not 24 hours before? I’m mad. I’ll shut up.

  4. 4
    maryedith
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 2:37 pm

    Oh, ok — it was a week ago. But still. I was limping worse than that for a longer time when I twisted my ankle once.

  5. 5
    lindaw205
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 2:53 pm

    @maryedith – you’ve forgotten that they’re all on Hershels magical farm!

    I liked this episode a lot, even though we didn’t get to see the rest of camp dinner bell. I’m hoping they’ll make up for it next week and give us lots of Darryl.

  6. 6
    Ed
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 4:02 pm

    I think Lori feels that while Andrea THINKS she’s contributing to the group, Lori feels she’s just sitting on top of the RV working on her tan, as she outright said. I think it’s about Andrea thinking she’s doing something important and Lori thinking she’s not. And truth be told, since Andrea did take up the sentry position, all she’s done is almost kill Daryl even though Rick and Shane and T-Dogg were telling her they’d take care of the “walker”

  7. 7
    CattyFan cattyfan
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 4:57 pm

    It’s also a matter of Andrea being jealous of Lori. Andrea may have had sex with Shane, but she knows it meant nothing to him. The two strongest men in the group are in love with Lori…and Andrea hates her for it.

  8. 8
    plockeness monster
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 6:04 pm

    I think Rick always thinking things over is an attribute to his character. It’s the yin to Shane’s jump the gun yang.

  9. 9
    maryedith
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 7:12 pm

    I have nothing against Rick thinking things over. Although, ok — I kind of have something against him thinking over killing Randall. That seems cruel to me, prolonging the agony for the sake of Rick’s conscience. It seems to me that if they didn’t kill him right away they should consider themselves stuck with him and deal with it. And they’re going to have to come up with a plan for dealing with outsiders. They can’t just shoot everyone who wants to see the farm, can they? Anyway, sorry for the digression there, my problem is with the show thinking things over, not Rick. And cattyfan, I laughed out loud when Andrea said, “I heard” about Beth trying to kill herself. From WHOM? NO ONE else was there this week!

  10. 10
    FuriousFlipper
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 7:54 pm

    Exciting episode. I’ve long given up on trying to understand the zombie creationist theory logically…just have to let go and enjoy. However, there is a bit of a plot hole in this one. Anyone notice it? Ten Furious Flipper points if you get it. :)

  11. 11
    CattyFan cattyfan
    Posted February 27, 2012 at 8:07 pm

    Yeah…here’s a puzzler. Shane stabbed zombies in the head, then used his knife to cut himself so he could wipe blood on the bus and distract more zombies. I didn’t see any alcohol to wipe the knife down, so wouldn’t this mean Shane is now infected?

  12. 12
    itchy
    Posted February 28, 2012 at 12:18 am

    What I don’t get — why kill the kid at all? Rick’s (well, really, Shane’s) whole group were just a bunch of random strangers a couple of weeks before themselves. It’s still pretty soon after Wildire — just a month or so, right? I don’t buy society breaking down THAT fast. There’s still plenty of food around, and it makes sense to have more people able to kill zombies.

    On the other hand, I agreed with everything Andrea said. It’s a Zombie Apocalypse and Lori wants to play house? Should an apocalypse mean that women revert to pre-1950s roles? (Not to mention the Asian who can’t “man up”).

    Who’s writing this show?

  13. 13
    lawyergal
    Posted February 28, 2012 at 7:12 am

    cattyfan – I totally agree. If, as Shane and Rick suggested, the two zombie sherrifs were infected by scratches, then ALL of these people should be infected by now. For crying out loud, Rick had all kinds of open wounds on him from the fight, and he pulled dead zombies on top of him to hide! If it takes saliva – a bite – fine. If it is simply zombie blood or tissue in your blood stream, then the entire group woudl be zombies by now!

  14. 14
    plockeness monster
    Posted February 28, 2012 at 8:36 am

    Lawyergal – I thought the same thing about Rick and the zombies. He had cuts all over from his fight with Shane and then he killed 3 zombies, while they were on top of him, and none of the zombie juice got in the cuts?! Right…

    And what about if it gets in their eyes? Mouth? Nose?

    I think it’s been about a month and a half since the zombies took over. Shane also mentioned how fast everything went to shiz when the outbreak occured.

  15. 15
    FuriousFlipper
    Posted February 28, 2012 at 8:39 am

    Yes, cattyfan – that is a particularly good one. Mine logic hole was if Trunk Boy knows Maggie and Hershel, well, then, wouldn’t he have some pretty good idea of where he is and where they live? Ah, but still….good show.

  16. 16
    plockeness monster
    Posted February 28, 2012 at 9:16 am

    FF – Shane mentioned that to Rick, I think. He said that if gate boy knew Maggie, then he knew where the farm was, thus, they should kill him.

  17. 17
    Mimo
    Posted February 28, 2012 at 9:51 am

    I was thinking – I didn’t know everyone in my highschool, but that’s ’cause I grew up in the city and my highschool had over 1,200 kids in it. I was incredulous that a farming community, and the nearest town doesn’t look that big, would have so many students Maggie wouldn’t know him. Then, as I’m typing this, I realized he didn’t say he went to highschool with Maggie, just that he went to school with Maggie. Maggie went away to school, so did he know her at college. That’s understandable. But then didn’t he also say he knew both Maggie and Hershel? Someone please enlighten me. Thanks ever so much.

  18. 18
    CattyFan cattyfan
    Posted February 28, 2012 at 10:01 am

    Some smaller rural communities combine their students for high school…so the school may have had several hundered students. And if she was popular and he wasn’t, it’s certainly possible she wouldn’t know him.

  19. 19
    Lawyerbitch
    Posted February 28, 2012 at 10:01 am

    Regarding infection of zombieitis via blood/body fluids/airborne spores, etc., Rick may know something the others don’t (and we viewers don’t unless one read the graphic novels and assumes the show will follow that plot point); whatever the CDC guy whispered in his ear before blowing himself up.

  20. 20
    Mimo
    Posted February 28, 2012 at 10:53 am

    I’d forgotten the whisper Lawyerbitch, thanks for reminding me.

    Also, did anyone else go “oh my” when he said “bring it bitch”?

  21. 21
    maryedith
    Posted February 28, 2012 at 7:37 pm

    @FF — that was the whole reason Rick couldn’t leave Randall there, because he would know how to get to the farm. Although, I agree with itchy that that seems a little extreme at this point. If the guy can shoot and he’s not an imminent threat it seems like he would be more of an asset than a negative on the farm. As for the scratches, just to be clear — Did Rick or Shane actually say that the sheriffs/security guards had been infected because of scratches? I thought they just said they couldn’t see any bites on them.

  22. 22
    plockeness monster
    Posted February 29, 2012 at 6:33 am

    Mary – They specifically said it was from scratches

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