Original Air Date: March 11, 2012
Five Things: [with SPOILERS]
1. Finally! – I wonder if TWD can almost “start over” after this episode’s big event (the killing of Shane). When this series first began in 2010, “we” all focused on how loyal it was to the comic book. I have almost stopped looking at the series that way because it is now SO different than the comics, but when you look at the weak parts of the series, they have all come from deviations from the comic story: the weird CDC episode last season with Dale and Andrea debating the morality of suicide, the Sophia Saga, the overwrought question of what to do with Randall and the fracture between Shane and Rick. In all of these cases, you can kinda see what the producers and writers of the show were up to, but all of those stories fell flat.
I understand how we got here. It’s almost as if the show’s creators said, “Hey! This Jon Bernthal guy is a compelling actor. Let’s NOT kill Shane at the end of Season 1 and then make Season 2 about the struggle between Shane and Rick. That’ll be sweet!” I’m sure the writers of the show liked that idea a lot better than just adapting Kirkman’s word balloons into lines of dialog too. But, the problem is that while the Rick/Shane rift was interesting, it just wasn’t interesting enough to be the primary focus of Season 2. So, I’m glad that Rick killed him. It’s over with. We knew it had to happen and that until it happened, the show was going to be spinning its wheels like a Hyundai stuck in the mud. Thank goodness they killed him rather than having Shane “leave the group” as he threatened to (What a waste of dialog THAT was in hindsight!) where we’d have to worry about him showing back up. And it finished up the Randall situation too…. Which was another mishandled and overly long plot thread. Hopefully, this ending to Season 2 (along with next week’s episode) is the show’s new creative team kinda ripping the band-aid off the Frank Darabont era.
2. Still weakest during the conversations – Even though I liked this episode for the end result, it still showed all the places where this series has traditionally sucked. I really didn’t want to see another take of Rick and Shane growling at each other about who is best for Lori and whether Rick’s leadership style is any good. Been there, done that. I know that the writers needed to make it clear (again) that Shane may have a few positive attributes as a leader in the apocalypse, but he’s just too damn nutty and violent to follow… But, they could’ve just shown the guys split up (Scooby-Doo style) and let Rick see via flashback/cut-scenes all the misery that Shane has caused and just shoot him in the back or something. The “final argument” was boring and the scene where Carl finished off Zombie Shane was tedious. I know it was supposed to show that Carl was conflicted about killing his Big Pal Shane, but the writers hadn’t shown us that Carl felt any great affection for Big Pal Shane. Thank goodness it’s over.
3. Well-produced episode – Even with all the negative things I’ve voiced, I still appreciated some of the craft in this episode. There were more than a few scenes where I had to comment in my notes about the pretty way the creators were framing a scene (Shane and Rick on that moonlit hilltop) and all the scenes where they made it clear that Shane was LOSING IT with all those quick-cuts and tight shots of his face. I also really liked the music used in this episode for the most part. Have we always had music? I never really noticed it before. The only time the music bugged me was during the sappy scene between Andrea and Glen as they tried to fix Dale’s RV.
4. Glenn is a moron – “My daddy says you can sleep in my bed,” said the hot chick and Glen says, “Naw man. I’m gonna just crash on the couch or something.” What a dumbass! Just as TWD shows signs of life by washing away some detritus with the end of the Shane and Randall plotlines, they do little things like making Glen pull away from Maggie. It really makes me wonder if the writers have a clue. Glen and Maggie are “the hope for a new future” on this show. If the writers are screwing around with that “hope,” they better have a point to it.
5. Looks like its SHTF time – Boy, it sure didn’t look good in that final scene, huh? All those zombies! Were Rick and Shane outside the fence at the time? I’m glad we finally got to see the fence, and the gang fortifying the house a little bit. I’m pretty happy if this herd of zombies is the plot device that chases our protagonists away from Herschel’s farm. These stories should be THAT difficult: introduce new situation, allow the characters to become comfortable, then disrupt the status quo with zombies who chase the protagonists to a new environment where they reach a new equilibrium. I wonder who the zombies are gonna eat? T-Dog? Hershel’s kids? Seeing how inept the writers are sometimes, I fully expect them to cause T-Dog to make some noble sacrifice to save the group. Except it’ll ring hollow with viewers because T-Dog has only had 5 lines of dialog all season.
Conclusion: Not a great episode on its own, but it closed a couple of plot-lines that were overripe. With all the back-room drama at TWD this season, I’m willing to hope that the new creative team can right the ship now that they have a fairly clean slate. Let’s pretend that the protagonists just arrived at Herschel’s farm yelling, “Help us! There are hundreds of zombies right behind us!”
Grade: B-
– Dean Stell
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