Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Walking Dead Episode 9: Triggerfinger

Is it me or is this the shortest 42 minute show that's EVER been televised? Seriously folks, 10 minutes into the episode the credits roll and I'm all "What?? Noooooo!!!" Someone shut off the time warp so I can enjoy a full episode. Or is that impossible because the show's just so darn GOOD???
    A lot happened last week. Rick got hard-core, Hershel got a dose of reality (he got a triple dose this week but more on that later..) and the theme of the second half of season 2 is emerging: we have much more to fear from the living still among us than we do from the dead.
Love that each episode so far is starting right where the last one left off. Rick, Glen and Hershel were still standing in shock looking at the 2 dead guys and letting the reality of what had just happened sink in. And then the dead guy's friends showed up. I was impressed with just how quickly Hershel got with the program. There were no sermons, no platitudes, and no judgements. It's about time H. And we even find out at the end of the episode that he has decided to let the group stay at the farm. So what happened in the bar may have been more of a watershed moment for him than what happened at the barn.
    The 3 guys have a stand-off with these newcomers and then a minor gun fight. They shoot one guy and Hershel gets to see Walkers in action for the first time when they start munching on the fallen. Cudos to him for not going catatonic like other members of his family that will go unmentioned. Then a young man gets abandoned when his leg is impaled on a metal fence. So our trio of heros try to amputate his leg while walkers close in on them from both sides. And I have No. Fingernails. Left by the time this scene is over.
  Finally in an utterly brutal move Rick just rips the leg clean and they take off. In the Zombie apocalypse, sometimes there just isn't time for civilized solutions friends, am I right?
     Then we cut to Lori. Good Ol' Lori. The most frustrating thing about this show is that any character may actually die at anytime (and they have!!) with the exception (for now) of Rick and Lori. Rick because it's HIS story and Lori because (for now but not for always God Pleeeeeease) Lori is way too pivotal to what's happening between Rick and Shane. So we're stuck with her. But as a walker peeled it's own face off trying to eat her through her car windshield I had fantasies of her going. She's just way too annoying. So she gets out and Shane has to get her and lie to bring her back and she freaks out on him yada, yada.
     We had a nice scene in the house where Carl finds out that he'll be a big brother. The TV show is delightfully setting it's own path so unlike in the comic Carl might even get to be a big brother for more than a week, you never know. Then we had a scene with Shane and Lori where we find out just how intensely off the deep end Shane has gotten. Poor poor Shane. There is really only one hard and fast rule for dating and shagging during the Zombie Apocalypse:
Shake yourself off and move on.
Because people come and go fast in the Z.A. right? So you can't go all "New Moon Bella" staring out a window for 3 months" every time you lose someone cuz you'll get EATEN! Shane.... Andrea is happy to shag you AND swoon over you every time you give gun advice. A bird in the hand bro.... just sayin'.
     Then we have Daryl. I'm so, so disappointed in my boy Daryl. Yes he tried to find Sophia and she ended up a Zombie, and Yes he's utterly disillusioned and hopeless, and Yes he feels like he no longer fits in with the only family he's ever had. D-man, I GET it, but you have to pull yourself together. Pick yourself up, shoot a few squirrels, add some ears to your collection, you'll feel a whole lot better and you can stop abusing Carol. He'll be back. I have total faith that Daryl Dixon will be redeemed. Then again, it IS the walking dead. I better follow my own rule of attachment just in case.
    So at the end we're left wondering what to do about fence-leg and what to do about Shane. I keep wondering if a plot line is going to veer us back to the main plot thread of the comic and at this point I really, really hope that it doesn't. I love that it's following it's own path and I love that I'm always guessing. I mean people who should be dead are still with us and people that should be alive are dead or Zombies so there's no telling what will happen next. I guess I'll just have to wait until next week's 10 minute episode....

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