We’re now three episodes in to The Walking Dead’s second season, and before tonight’s episode, TV’s only zombie-centric series was 1-to-1 with critics (and snarky recappers). The season premiere was well-received overall, but enough online grumbling existed afterwards to prevent the episode from being considered a runaway success. Last week’s episode, on the other hand, was pretty much universally…well, if not “loved”, then “heavily liked”. So, what’s the score looking like after week three—1-to-2 or 2-to-1? You’ll have to find out after the jump, folks.
Last week, I tossed a crazy idea out there– what if The Walking Dead (the show) decided to separate itself even further from The Walking Dead (the comic series) by making Shane the lead? The thinking behind this was simple: Jon Bernthal—as Shane—is a helluva lot more compelling onscreen than Andrew Lincoln, who plays the series’ hero, Rick. His character’s more interesting, as well. Sure, he’s done a few bad things (including some rape-y bad things, which are never OK), but a character with a complex morality is always more interesting than a straight-up Boy Scout.
Anyway, the response to this question was about what I expected (I received a number of outraged emails– how dare I “rewrite history”, did I think I “knew better than [Robert] Kirkman”, and several other overreactions to a casual “What if?” scenario—as well as a number of emails from those that liked the idea), but I know suspect that even daydreaming about this scenario is a waste of time: based on what we saw during tonight’s episode (“Save The Last One”), I’d say that Shane’s days are numbered. Were I the type of man that used emoticons, there’d be a frowny-face one right here.
But I’m getting ahead of myself! Let’s start at the beginning (Worth considering: did this recap begin with a flash-forward because tonight’s episode began with a flash-forward? Discuss), like reasonable people would.
When we last saw Shane and Otis (an always-welcome Pruitt Taylor-Vince), they had busted into a local high school to retrieve some medical supplies, stuff needed by the kindly doctor trying to save Carl’s life back on the farm. They’d secured the necessary items, but had become trapped by the overwhelming number of zombies hanging out in the immediate area. Tonight’s episode began with the aforementioned flash-forward, wherein we saw Shane shaving his head in a steamy bathroom (that one’s for you, ladies), and then we jumped right back to the high school, where Shane and Otis were still working on how the hell to get back to the farm.
A plan was hatched, and soon enough the two had split up with the intention of meeting back up outside the school’s gymnasium. Before going their separate ways, Shane makes some throwaway remark about how committed Otis is to the mission at hand, and Otis says, “I’m just tryin’ to do right by that boy”. The point? This Otis guy? Good people.
And Carl? Well, he was still back on the farm, of course, passed out and gut-shot. Rick (Lincoln) and Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) are worrying over him—as they are wont to do—and eventually Lori says what any reasonable person might be thinking in this situation: why is so much effort being expelled to save this kid? Yes, he’s their son, and yeah, being shot by Pruitt Taylor-Vince in a forest isn’t how any parent wants to see their kid go out, but what sort of life are they saving? He gets better, and then he spends the next (indeterminate amount of time) hiding from zombies and parading around an apocalyptic landscape? Doesn’t make sense.
Now, this scene’s notable for a few reasons. For one thing, it might be the most reasoned, intelligent, non-bitchy thing that I’ve ever heard Lori say (like many of you, I read through recaps on other sites after posting my own here on Collider, and I noticed more than a few of my fellow critics reaching critical mass last week with Lori’s general shrewishness: some of them even deigned to use the dreaded “B-word”). For another, it raises a very interesting point about the idea of survival in this brave, new world our characters have found themselves in. To start thinking along those lines is a slippery slope, of course (one that probably ends with a gun barrel in one’s mouth), but there is a lot of logic in it: what’s the point of struggling to survive when even your calmest, most peaceful moments are wracked with tension and fear? That’s not really a life worth living, is it?
Anyway, Rick reacts to this sentiment about how you’d expect him to, which is entirely understandable. He argues that—even though the world’s gone to h-e-double-hockey-sticks in a handbasket– there’s still the possibility that their family could have some semblance of a meaningful life together (I mean, come on, Carl saw a deer. What else do you need, Lori?). I wasn’t sure that I was buying what Rick was selling as much as I was with Lori, but I understood—from the moment that Lori broached the topic—that this was where the conversation was gonna go. The Walking Dead seems willing to go to some really dark places, but I did not (and do not) expect things to get so dark that two parents might just shrug and let their kid bleed out in a veterinarian’s house. And thus, the decision was made: they would continue their attempts to save Carl’s life.
Y’know, as soon as that medical equipment shows up.
Which brings us back to Shane and Otis, who were still making their way back to their ride outside the high school. After reuniting, the two begin a long, shambling walk towards their car…and then…well, then the scene ended, and we didn’t see what happened until later. We’ll get there, of course, but let’s take a moment to check in with the rest of the survivors to see what they’re up to.
Andrea and Sawyer…er, I mean, Daryl had decided to leave the comfort and safety of the RV to look for Sofia, who’s still running around out in the woods somewhere (presumably; it’s my hope that she’s currently residing in a handful of zombie-stomachs, a fitting end for someone dumb enough to wander away from safety and into a zombie-infested forest). The two talk about life and survival and blah, blah, blah, and eventually they came across a zombie hanging from a noose near a campsite. Apparently, a dude got bit, decided he’d rather die than become a “geek” (C’mon, guys, just let ‘em call them “zombies”), and then promptly became undead after hanging himself. Daryl and Andrea argue about whether or not to put the “geek” out of its misery, eventually Andrea wins, and they wander back to the RV.
Once there, Dale and Andrea have yet another tete-a-tete where Dale tries to speak to her reasonably and Andrea acts like a first class b—uh, Lori. Andrea’s still sour about Dale taking her gun away when she was talking all fatalistically, but tells him—after he hands the gun over, of course—that she’s working on forgiving him. Meanwhile, Melissa McBride’s character lays down somewhere and cries about her missing, somewhat-stupid daughter. And that, my friends, is what the other survivors did this week.
Before we get back to the Shane/Otis-Rick/Lori stuff, let’s take a moment to look at the budding relationship of Maggie and Glenn. In the comics, Maggie and Glenn meet-cute on the Greene family farm, hit it off, and become a couple. It seemed like tonight’s episode was setting these two up for the same romance, and that’s…well, OK, then. I don’t really feel one way or another about this. So far, the series has separated itself from the comic series in many ways, and I’ve been grateful for the differences. The show wouldn’t be interesting if it were a Sin City-style recreation of the graphic novels, so when it comes to things like the “Maggie-and-Glenn” thing, I can take ‘em or leave ‘em. It’s nice that this continuity’s in place for those that like such things, but—if given the option—I’d always push for more differences from the comics than less. All that said, I’m fine with it if Glenn wants to get some post-apocalyptic ass. You go, Shortround.
To be perfectly frank, the episode up to this point didn’t blow my skirt up in the same way that last week’s episode did—felt like there was a good amount of wheel-spinning and pontificating going on tonight—but things did take a turn for the awesome in the episode’s final stretch. So far, there hasn’t been much to spoil, but if you’re reading this before seeing the episode (which, by the way, is just weird), be forewarned that the rest of this post will be spoiler-laden.
Upon returning to the Greene farm, Shane hands over all the medical equipment needed to keep Carl alive, and Herschel—the doctor/vet—gets to work. He explains that Otis didn’t survive the attack, and because we last saw the pair on the run from the zombies, we accept his explanation and get back to thinking about Carl’s recovery (earlier in the episode, Carl appeared to breakdance after briefly regaining consciousness, but Herschel explained he was having a seizure). The doc fixes Carl, everyone’s happy, and then we see Shane stumbling around the area looking a little…out of it. He wanders into Carl’s room, where Lori tells him to “stick around” (or something to that effect), and it seems to imply that Shane’s gonna take that advice: rather than taking off on his own, he’ll stick around a while longer for…Lori’s sake? I guess? I dunno, guys: were it me, I’d just give up already. I’d probably go after Andrea: she’s kinda badass, seems slightly less bitchy, and doesn’t have that “bag of antlers” look that Lori’s got.
But I digress. After Shane gets his marching orders from Lori, he heads into the steamy bathroom we witnessed at the beginning of the episode and notices a wound on his scalp. Staring at the scalp in the mirror kick-starts a flashback (little known fact: looking at wounds, scars, or facial trauma in a mirror will always cause a flashback—it’s science), and we learn what actually happened to Otis: Shane shot his ass and left him as bait for the approaching zombie horde. Whoa.
The scene—and the reveal—were great, but it was also a sad moment, because I think this is the beginning of the end for Shane. All along, fans of the series have commented upon how likable Shane is, how he’s the best thing on the show, and so on. The writers were smart to write him a little more multi-dimensionally than Kirkman did in the original comics (where he’s basically a roided-out anger-machine), but it had a curious side effect: it created the “Team Shane”/”Team Rick” divide. I’ve maintained for awhile now that the writers would have to swing the pendulum back the other way—in the direction the comics took Shane’s character—to get the audience back on “Team Rick”, and it appears that they’ve begun that process. One could argue that Shane’s “Roman hands and Russian fingers” pseudo-rape-scene during the season one finale was the true beginning of this process, but I’d argue that Shane was drunk, remorseful, and Lori probably had that coming (/sarcasm). I guess the point here is, if you weren’t already on “Team Rick” after Shane’s pseudo-rapiness, you should be now. Maybe if people still maintain that Shane’s the real hero of the show, The Walking Dead’s writers will have him eat a live baby or something. Let’s see if we can get #TeamShane trending on Twitter, if only to see that play out.
Overall, I wasn’t thrilled with tonight’s ep…but I also wasn’t left with a mediocre taste in my mouth, as I was with the season premiere. I’d call this one an “up the middle” success, and will hope that the “Next Week On” promos—which seemed to include something I’ll be referring to in the future as a “Well Zombie”—deliver all the viscera and somewhat-more-exciting shenanigans that they seem to promise. If I had a gun to my head and were being forced to grade tonight’s ep, I’d give it a solid “B”.
Stay tuned, Walking Dead junkies and zombie-enthusiasts. We’ll be back next week with another recap/review. While you’re waiting on that to arrive, be sure to keep your zombie-hungry eyes peeled for my report from Mondo Mystery Movie IX, which took place last night here in Austin: 700 of us got on chartered busses, were led—by police escort—to a nearly abandoned mall, and watched Dawn of The Dead with George Romero. It was, in a word, sofuckingawesomeyourheadwouldaasploded. That report—which will include photo, videos, and pictures of the Mondo prints distributed at the event—will be going live sooner rather than later.
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Shane isn’t going to die ANY time soon. you people come up with the most bizzare out of this world predictions. On Breaking Bad people kept saying jessie was going to die. Every episode after the next it was the same thing. “I don’t want jessie to die!” But guess what he never did. and neither will Shane. I know he died in the comics but hell EVERYONE dies in the comic. First of all the dude’s name is second in the opening credits. No writer is going to kill off someone like that right away. Second the guy is the only thing that keeps the show going. Without Shane all we have is Rick doing his emo thing and zombies. I’ll say Shane is now a more important character in this show than Rick is
Shane makes the show, are you serious?!? I’m sorry, but pair Rick and Daryl up. Perfect balance. Daryl’s the sheyat as it is and HE’S the most compelling character on that show, not Shane. I hope Shane buys it soon b/c no way would I want to wander off with him. Crap man, you get injured or sick and he’d hobble you to save himself.
I agree with Junierizzle, I so totally don’t think we were really meant to like Shane. Rick’s the protagonist of this story, but I also think Daryl has leader potential in him too.
yes i am serious. No Shane no show. he is the only one that brings something extra to the show. Yes there are ppl out there that like Shane including me.
Have I been watching the same show? People are really “Team Shane?”
First of all, yes the performance is good, but I don’t think we were ever meant to “like” Shane. Let’s see he’s a dick, he sleeps with his best friends Wife during a ZOMBIE APOCOLYPSE, (I still don’t like RIck’s wife either because of that) gets Rape-y with her, both of them now are lying to Rick’s face everyday, and now Kills Otis in cold blood, not because he wants to get the stuff back to the farm so they can save Carl but to basically save his own ass. And he might as well take the supplies while he is at it too.
If they wanted us to like him then they would have had Otis getting caught by the zombies with Shane trying to help, when it is clear he can’t, he then must let Otis go and get away. Instead he did what he did and then lied about it. You make it seem like its out of the blue that Shane is being “written” to be unlikeable when it’s been that way since episode 1. In fact the only time I have felt something for Shane was in tonight’s episode when he got back with the supplies and told them about Otis. He was sincere and genuine in that scene, but it turned out he was lying his ass off.
I do agree that Rick hasn’t really done much this season, except save that little girl, only to lose her. Cut him some slack his son was shot.
I liked tonight’s episode. It had a good balance of talk and zombies.
Am I the only one who has had it with Andrea? Just leave already or stop talking about it. When she said she didn’t know if she wanted to live I said, good grief.
The thing that bothered me is why didnt Shane shoot him in the head. I understand the whole I don’t need to be faster than the tiger chasing us, i just need to be faster than your drama holy shit aspect of it, but a bullet in the head leaves behind the same distraction and isn’t nearly as cruel, plus he wouldn’t have had to struggle with getting the back pack off of him as much.
And can you really blame him for sleeping with Lori, he tried to save Rick from the hospital but couldn’t, and he left the room blocked the best he could. He did his best. Wives move on from lost husbands and to the best of their knowledge Rick was gone. Ya maybe Shane could have risked his life to go back for him sometime later, but for what, a comatose patient who they doubt would ever wake up and couldn’t look after living in a makeshift tent. It was best to let him be dead to protect those who were still kicking. It doesn’t make Shane and Lori bad for hooking up for some form of comfort in a world gone to shit, and its not like they had a lot of options, people turn to friends in dire times.
And it was a dick move to kill Otis, but its all about slim chances. If they both tried to just keep running, the geeks would have got them at the same time. Why should 2 people die when one can get away. (Like I said before it was the bullet in the leg that made him a dick, not the trying to survive) plus had they both died, then Carl would have most likely died as well, and Otis’s death would have been in vain.
How bad can it be to kill a man who was going to die anyways if it meant that a child can live, especially when the man was willing to die to do right by the boy whose life he put at risk.
I reread this after I submitted it, and I truly apologize for the grammar.
Yeah, what’s up with not shooting him in the head? Maybe they could say keeping him alive draws more attention from the zombies, but all I took from it is they needed it for drama. WD does that a lot, unfortunately.
Have you ever heard of survival instincts? I’d bet you would do the same thing in your situation.
As far as “why not kill him goes?”, maybe the zombies don’t like the taste of other dead people?
I was just happy that some of the other characters had more than 2 lines this week.
Also, any week that has more than one zombie kill can’t be that bad.
This show seems to be getting caught in the LOST, drag out boring stories to kill time, trap. I really can’t believe they still have the lost kid after 3 episodes and the flashbacks they use are pointless especially since they are revealing it to the audience and not other characters. The show is extremely weak as far as story telling goes and close to being boring which is saying a lot for a ZOMBIE SHOW. If this was a zombie free show I would have stopped watching or at least reserved it for an on demand/dvr watch.
How anyone can still watch this show is beyond me. There characters have been so unlikable and uninteresting that I’m not sure whether the walking dead refers to the zombies or the entire cast of characters. None of the writing is good enough to make it as good a show as anything that’s on AMC (aside from The Killing, they’re on the same line of boring.) The zombie kills aren’t even creative or interesting. At least make this show all out insane if you’re going to be killing zombies week to week. I’m tuning out of this show as of now.
I could be wrong about this but I don’t think Shane shot Otis because he was slowing them down. He shot him because he wanted to appear to be the hero to Lori when he returned with all the medical supplies to save her son. In some messed up way, he thinks by putting his life on the line to “save” her son, she would finally leave Rick for him.
I always had the feeling Shane was slowly losing it and this episode just confirmed those suspicions.
Either way, it was pretty stupid to shot poor Otis in the leg. But I guess it’s more dramatic to do it that way.
Why all this hype on a yet another zombies movie ?
A) How did the season premiere not “blow your skirt up”? Was it that it was already over your head?
(B)Great recap of this episode. A little more of your thoughts on Shane’s actions might be interesting as opposed to half-baked predictions about where the show is heading.
And Tarek…your comment is literally the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. It’s dumb on so many levels, just congratulations.
You’re welcome Gervais ^^
Dunno, but I what I got was that Shane did indeed shoot Otis to slow down the zombies. But I got that the motivation was to help Carl. If he was really only out to save himself, he could just as easily left some or all of those medical supplies. From seeing him and Carl last season, I think he genuinely cares for the boy and had stepped in to be his dad with Rick presumed dead.
To me he’s full of remorse because he knows damned well that Otis just wanted to help Carl too. So now he’s got to lie to keep his secret, and I think he ducked in to see how Carl was not to say hi to Lori but to see Carl which is why he was in and out of there so fast.
But I’d agree with previous posts, I don’t feel the writing is nearly as compelling as last season. And now there’s all this religious stuff creeping into the story which is totally uninteresting. I’ll keep watching but I really hope the storyline picks up (like killing off that little girl so they can move on).
I love Rick – I don’t find the hero boring at all. And it’s nice to have a good guy to follow. I don’t like Shane’s character or what he did, but he’s important to the show. And – I love the show.
The reason Shane did not shoot Otis is that the zombie’s are a lot more likely to attack a living target than a dead one. He needed Otis moving around and making noise to distract the pack. Pretty ruthless BUT niether of them would have made it if he didn’t do it.
Kinda hope Sophie shows up all zombified.
I’m Team Daryl by the way. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens if Earl turns back up, ESPECIALLY if he turns up as The Gov =)
The Walking Dead is not as sharp as last season but that could be because we now have high expectations as opposed to when it was freshly aired. Still better that 90% of crap on TV.
Its mural (spelling?) not earl. And I am pretty sure that the zombies would have been well aware of the fat juicy piece of meat that fell in front of him was a in fact a fat juicy piece of meat regardless of weather or not it was a moving fat juicy piece of meat or a motionless fat juicy piece of meat. But if he was shot in the head, than how would he be able to comeback and cause further drama in future episodes.
Although that does raise the question of how come the zombies are for the most part intact. If the catch someone, they eat them like cuz they are are so hungry they could eat a horse, so the zombies shouldnt have anything left on them by the time they reanimate. You don’t see as many skeletons lying around as you should. They arent emo vampires who take one bite and then let their victim change, they eat everything.
So i am going to call it now, if they didn’t shoot Otis in the head because they want him to reanimate in future episodes, it will be a gaping plot hole if his body is mostly intact after so many zombies that caught him feasted on his fat juicy carcass.
I’m glad that Rick is a good guy and all and they we can root for him but is it too much to ask that the man grow a pair and lead instead of being a crybaby pain in the ass the last few episodes.
I’m also in the camp of people who can’t believe that they have spent 3 episodes on the missing girl. I think at this point, no one is expecting her to come back safe and sound.
I think things could have been a lot more interesting had they just let the kid die. Rick could have started to go down a bit of a darker path, all hope is lost, nothing to live for type which would set up for a wonderful confrontation with Shane. The only benefit to keeping him alive is that hopefully the wife has less to cry and be moany about.
A crybaby? His son is dying.
I didn’t mean the last two episodes, I mean going back to last season. Ever since they got to the CDC he’s been very woe is me mopey because his idea didn’t work.
I just hope that the walkers left enough meat on Otis’s bones to let him get up and shamble after Shane.
That was the best episode this seoasn! I can’t wait for it to start up again! I think I might have a little crush on crazy Shane. He is just the kind of guy you’d want in your group if you were in their position. When he went nuts at the end I almost fell out of my seat. I didn’t see the Sophia story line ending like that. It made you feel bad on so many levels. As much as I dislike Hershel I felt sorry for him that all of his hard work and choices came to end like that. As always, you guys ROCK!!
How can anyone like the Shane character? the guy has been a sleazeball since day one and this episode confirms the depths to which he will stoop, his only motivations are to win the affections of his best friends wife, Shane needs to go….zombie food !
I really like Daryl as the real bad-ass ,they need to build his character more. It should be the Rick (voice of reason)/ Daryl (brute force) dichotomy as a real team as someone else stated in other words.
Love how Shane, now carrying two backpacks full of equipment instead of one, had the energy to move a hell of a lot faster once Otis went down.
There is a new Walking dead texting app called Zlango this is a must have app https://market.android.com/details?id=com.zlango.zms&feature