Review

Rick and Shane are out on the back roads looking for a place to dump Randall, that will give the captive a fighting chance at survival. Stopping the car Rick confronts Shane about Lori, Carl, and the baby. Later the duo find the Mert County Maintenance Yard, which Rick thinks is as good a place as any to drop off Randall. Unfortunately as they are leaving Randall blurts out that he went to school with Maggie, hence knowing where the farm is. This leads to a fight between Shane and Rick over Randall with Rick finally coming out on top. Unfortunately the fight attracts a large number of zombies and the boys are soon fighting for their lives.

Meanwhile back at Hershel's farm Beth has finally woken up and Lori takes her a meal. Beth doesn't eat the meal but hides a knife from her lunch plate. Lori works out the knife is missing and manages to get it back from Beth. Maggie and Lori immediately go into suicide watch, which breaks down when Andrea decides to get involved. A major fracture in the survivors is exposed with Andrea, who wanted to end it all at the CDC, tries to enforce her view of it being a person's right to choose their time of dying against Lori and Maggie's belief that you have a responsibility to the rest of the group. High drama and zombie attacks, awesome sign me up!

If anything this episode highlights a couple of issues that have been brewing all season and perhaps points to what is coming in the rest of the season. Clearly Rick and Shane get it on, with Rick still clinging to some shred of humanity and Shane going pragmatic about all things. There's a real teosterone fuelled fight that perhaps underlines the primitive concept of the challenger taking on the leader of the group. Maybe reading a tad too much in there, but if Rick thinks his issues with Shane are resolved then he's going to be in for one hell of a surprise. While the boys are on the road again Maggie and Beth let rip at each other in the sort of chick argument that grown men will leave the suburb to avoid. This proves to be the introduction to Lori and Andrea opening up on each other in a carpet bombing blitzkrieg attack that would have grown men running from the suburb. Interestingly Lori asserts the men can look after the camp and protect everyone while the women provide the stability, that would be your defined gender roles brought about by a clear and present danger. Andrea quickly learns she has no one on the female end who is going to back her up.

It's episodes like this one that make me a dedicated viewer

I'm trying to think if one scene is meant to be a wink at the audience, for sure it's adding some black humour to events going down, but I can't think of where I've seen something similar. Rick is battling zombies in the maintenance yard and shots one particularly aggressive example, said zombie then collapses on top of Rick followed by a couple more as Rick is in danger of being crushed by the crowd. For sure I've seen this somewhere before but can't pin point it.

Director Ernest R. Dickerson scores a first for The Walking Dead, the opening scene is shown and then we hit flashback to see how Rick, Shane, and Randall came to be in the predicament they find themselves in. Regular dark genre television viewers will note this is pretty much a staple device of shows like Supernatural but is less common in more serious outings. For mine it worked and was a surprising departure from the linear nature most episodes of The Walking Dead take. Dickerson had this episode on a leash and while not overly throwing the cinematic kitchen sink at things still scored with some awesomely good sequences and outstanding viewpoints.

In terms of our zombie mythology I was taking a couple of things from this episode. Zombies can be distracted by fresh blood; they sort of lap it up like dogs. And Rick wants to use knifes as gunshots attract even more zombies, which to me sounded like some sort of plot foreshadow and notably Rick isn't backward in letting rip with his side arm when the whip comes down. So zombies are sort of like sharks if you equate noise with fish floundering and blood with, well, blood in the water. Okay the analogy sucked, moving along here people, let's not beat it to death.

There's been a prevailing feeling this season that Shane and Andrea are the outsiders in the group, the two who don't fit in with the others. Shane has been increasingly alienated since the Otis thing, and Rick even tells him it's time to come back. The last poignant shot of this episode focuses on Shane deep in thought watching a sole zombie lumbering through a field in the background. Andrea runs into major confrontation mode this episode with both Lori and Maggie. In the end both Shane and Andrea are alone, which I think might be a bit telling in terms of the characters' long term survival prospects.

Guess Beth gets into a bit of plot foreshadowing as well, will try and keep the spoiler blinker on as I've read the graphic novel series of the same name that The Walking Dead uses as source material. Anyways she believes they should commit suicide and die on their own terms rather than wait for the farm and house to be overrun and then get gutted. Clearly the Producers of season two are starting to note things are still drifting somewhat and are gearing up to finish the season on a high. As last week's episode demonstrates the show is starting to wake from its slumber and get things moving at the station.

I kind of dug what was going down with the reduction in the number of characters being focused on. This one is all about a few of the characters and their conflicts which threaten to derail the safe haven Hershel's farm apparently is. Generally each episode bounces in all directions and takes a lot of trial and error to describe as a multitude of characters are going in their own direction. Breathe of fresh air here as the episode focuses on the conflicts that should define the season.

I really dug this episode for some reason, the tight focus on a few characters, the all out zombie onslaught, and the black dog haunting Beth. While the episode didn't move the season in new directions it underlined what has been building steadily and should help focus the next two episodes before the final episode sets us up for season three. What is going to be important is Rick's decision on the fate of Randall, this will define how far removed the group are from their humanity or restate their humanity. Of course Shane remains the fly in the ointment, can he came back?