Inside Television with Alan Sepinwall

Review: 'The Walking Dead' - 'Save the Last One': Lori's choice

Shane and Otis try to escape high school alive, while Carl fights to live

By Alan Sepinwall Sunday, Oct 30, 2011 10:00 PM

Shane (Jon Bernthal) under fire on "The Walking Dead."

Credit: AMC

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A review of tonight's"The Walking Dead" (which AMC unsurprisingly just renewed for a third season) coming up just as soon as my venereal disease saves your life...

"Tell me why it would be better the other way. Please." -Lori

I've seen some complaints in the comments the last two weeks that season 2 is moving very slowly, that we've spent a lot of time just lingering around that traffic jam and looking for Sophia, and that the show and its characters seem to be heading nowhere fast.

But I would counter that this is the show. These are characters trapped in a nightmare world that apparently can't be fixed - and if it can, it will likely happen far, far away from our motley band of travelers. They're just powering through, breathing by reflex and putting one foot in front of the other because they've been doing it all their lives. They're trying to survive, even if - as Andrea has argued in the past, and as Lori very convincingly argues here - they may be at a point where survival is not only not worth the trouble, but perhaps less preferable to taking a bullet to the head and either moving on to the next life or ceasing to exist, depending on your spiritual beliefs.

Just look at what Shane does to Otis(*) to get away from the zombie herd and get the needed supplies back to Hershel's house. It's a calculated choice, but one born of animal survival instinct. For all that Shane feels guilty about what he's done, and for all that he tells Otis to go on without him, he ultimately wants to live more than anything else, and as a result sentences a good man to a fate worse than death. (He doesn't even shoot Otis in the head, which might have been more humane but also might have sicc'ed more of the zombies onto him, as they seem to enjoy preying on still living flesh.) Shane has become the thing that Lori feels Carl will grow up to be, assuming Carl even manages to stay alive long enough to grow up.

(*) In a twist I wish they hadn't tried to treat as a twist, as it was clear from the moment Shane came back alone - without us seeing what happened - that he had in some way sacrificed Otis to save himself.

There are some obvious problems the show has to work on, some of which may be easier to fix than others. There needs to be a clearer sense of the zombie rules: how you can and can't get infected, how fast or slow the walkers move, how they can and can't detect you, etc. And, frankly, the characters need more depth. The show seems to be setting itself out to be a slow-burning character study in the context of a zombie apocalypse - and with enough chase scenes and other scares to entice folks who just want brain-eating action - and the characters need to be more complex than they've been shown to be so far. (And, for that matter, deeper than most of them were at this point in the comic book series, when Rick was the only person Robert Kirkman had even attempted to paint in three dimensions.) We're getting there slowly but surely with some people - Daryl has become a vastly more interesting, entertaining character this year - but there's still much more to be done. The actors - Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey DeMunn and Laurie Holden in particular - are doing great with what they're given, but I feel like they can be given even more while still doing the things the show does well.

I think the structure of these three episodes has been just fine, and on the whole I would call this stronger than any three-episode stretch of season 1. But we still have a ways to travel before the people of "The Walking Dead" can live up to the tremendous sense of atmosphere and dread, the make-up work of Greg Nicotero and his team, etc.

Before we go to the comments, let me remind you once again about the no spoilers rules for this blog, and specifically how it relates to a show like this adapted from a popular source material:

1)No Spoilers.

2)This includes any discussion of the previews for the next episode.

3)This includes any discussion of storylines from the comic that haven't happened yet in the timeline of the TV show. (And, yes, the show has and will continue to deviate from the comic in some ways, but for the sake of those instances where they're going to be the same, I don't want people talking about something from issue 50 when we're watching episode 11.)

4)This includes anything you've seen or read elsewhere about anything that has not happened within the context of the episodes that have already aired.

Got that? Good. So what did everybody else think?

Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

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Next 208 Comments

Rose

I liked the episode , but I don't understand why the farmhouse has electrify and an endless supply of hot water.
October 30, 2011 at 10:11PM EST Reply to Comment
- JoeInVegas Or why there is not a perpetual army of zombies trying to get into the farmhouse
  October 30, 2011 at 10:16PM EST
- jake Can power plants keep functioning by themselves until their supply runs out?
  October 30, 2011 at 10:20PM EST
- DougMac they wouldnt keep running for very long
  October 30, 2011 at 10:29PM EST
- Hanley_John Or why Shane let the shower water run for 45 minutes without bathing.
  October 30, 2011 at 10:38PM EST
- houseofjenny Shane let the shower run that long to allow our eyes to linger on his torso.
  October 30, 2011 at 11:06PM EST
- They could just have a generator. Lots of farmhouses do.
  October 31, 2011 at 12:30AM EST
- JB Even backup generators couldn't run forever. Also: how many folks are left on Hershel's farm? It seems like when Otis first led Rick & Shane back there (to save Carl) there was Hershel, Otis' wife, Maggie, and a couple others.
  October 31, 2011 at 10:43AM EST
- Patrick Generators are a possibility. There are also other sources of electricity (solar) that could be house-specific or grid-specific (hydro-electric or wind power) that could keep power going long after the coal-powered plants went dark.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:18AM EST
- Liam It's not impossible that they'd still have electricity at this point, though I'd question the wisdom of running the lights at night. Remote or no, that farmhouse would be visible from quite a distance.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:51AM EST
- Hibtone I bet they have treadmill zombies powering a generator.
  October 31, 2011 at 1:48PM EST
- ddayvault And the little chubby one says "row"
  October 31, 2011 at 2:19PM EST
- TRAV And can someone fix the squeaky porch door??
  October 31, 2011 at 7:38PM EST
- bones and how are they making sandwiches? where are they getting bread from?
  November 1, 2011 at 7:32AM EST
- stb128 Generators can run just about forever when there is an endless supply of gas to scrounge.
  November 1, 2011 at 7:36AM EST
- Sterling @Bones, I thought the same thing about the bread, but if you lived in a remote area, you'd probably have a few loaves in the freezer.
  November 2, 2011 at 9:37AM EST
- Russ An average rule of thumb on home generators is they burn 1 gallon per hour of conventional use. So, the siphoned full tank of an average car would run a generator for 10 hours. A gasoline tanker would supply enough gas to run a generator for about 7 months.
  November 2, 2011 at 10:48AM EST
- JasonG Clearly the farmhouse isn't getting it's electricity from JCP&L.
  November 3, 2011 at 2:24PM EST
- Kevin Shaffer A Nuke power plant could operate un-manned for up to 2 years, depending on when it was refuelled last. Georgia has several of them.
  
  November 4, 2011 at 10:09AM EST
Austin

This episode was excruciatingly slow again. I understand these people are "just surviving" and thus the show can be slow, but we are viewers dedicating an hour of our life to this show each week and I need more of a reason to continue to do so. I find myself checking my phone and doing other things during this season's episodes I'm so bored. Also, I'll repeat my complaint from last week in that there is ZERO character development. If this whole season is going to be about Carl and that lost little girl, thats an issue considering we know nothing about him and I could care less about either of their fates.
October 30, 2011 at 10:15PM EST Reply to Comment
- Rick And yet, not only do you continue to watch, you read recaps and post comments...
  October 30, 2011 at 10:23PM EST
- Austin Because I still have faith in AMC (despite The Killing) and I enjoyed last season.
  October 30, 2011 at 10:25PM EST
- well said Couldn't agree more, Austin. Outside of Darryl, the characters are too one-note. Andrea's arc is particularly disappointing. I don't need to see her cleaning a gun anymore or admonishing the old guy with her pat what-gives-you-the-right speech. Also, as a random-yet-serious observation: how come no one in this group since lori and shane has sex anymore? Wouldn't that be your first instinct (a) if you've got nothing left to live for; and (b) you're trying to maintain a tenuous grip on your last shred of humanity?
  October 31, 2011 at 2:04AM EST
- JB Well Said: I think that's where they're going with the Darryl/Andrea storyline. Setting the scene for them to hook up.
  October 31, 2011 at 4:28PM EST
- Levi Benjamin Totally agree about them having more sex Well Said. How about drugs too? You're telling me Daryl wouldn't cook up some homemade meth pinkman style to get him through the most dreadful of days? Although, I do guess drug addicts would be the most likely do die out first. But seriously where is the truly compulsive (and more importantly for us viewers, entertaining) behavior from these doomed characters with nothing left? Even in survival mode they should at least be playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon or something to pass the time.
  October 31, 2011 at 5:46PM EST
- Muh Why do most characters on this show speak in long, boring speeches? Right now Shane and Daryl are the only characters who seem to really have much of a personality and are interesting.
  October 31, 2011 at 10:39PM EST
- Dont Ask Your complaint is more a comment on your attention sp
  an than a shortcoming of the series..
  November 1, 2011 at 6:20PM EST
Dave

These people spend way too much time whining and covering the same material over and over. Also, they need to spend some time doing some long range thinking: i.e. "Can we develope a tool to kill the walkers quickly and quietly-like a lance or something?" It seems like there would be a lot of "let's stop griping and focusing on surviving" material to mine.
October 30, 2011 at 10:15PM EST Reply to Comment
- I concur. I also don't get the feeling that anybody is in any real danger.
  October 30, 2011 at 10:19PM EST
- s They don't seem to be in any real danger, and their lives really aren't too hard at all. They're not living in a "nightmare," they're sitting around relaxing in a nice little farmhouse. Hundreds of millions of people in Africa deal every day with worse than these whiners have faced so far, and the entire nation of the Congo doesn't sit around all day debating whether to commit suicide or not. The acting on this show is uniformly mediocre, and the writing has really gone downhill from last season. Put them in some kind of real danger or hardship at least if they are going to whine so much.
  October 30, 2011 at 10:46PM EST
- LindyK Glenn is sitting out in the dark on the porch with his head in his hands. A friggin' walker could come right up. There are no fences, they act like nothing is going on out there because they are in a house. And how the hell did Andrea and Daryl find their way back in that pitch black woods?
  October 31, 2011 at 2:40AM EST
- Joseph There is a gate - the woman asked Glenn if he closed the gate behind him when he came in. Also, it has been established several times this season, including in this very episode, that Daryl is an excellent tracker and familiar with the woods.
  There is plenty about the show to criticize, but I will never understand why some viewers accept a zombie apocalypse but question the smaller things. If you can suspend your disbelief enough to accept a zombie apocalypse, why can you not come up with a reason on your own how Daryl found his way back to the camp? Even ignoring the fact that the show did indeed contain answers to your questions, would you really want a dialogue exchange to explain every single nuance of the show? If you think the show moves slowly now, imagine if they had the characters stop to explain every single detail of their current situation. Does anyone want a scene between Herschel and Rick where Herschel explains where his power and water comes from? Or where Daryl explains to Lori how he can find his way back to camp in the dark?
  October 31, 2011 at 11:45AM EST
- steps on Generally agree with Joseph, but I think the show should address some things, even if only briefly. For instance, I would think that the characters would be sufficiently perplexed by the farmhouse having power that they'd have asked Herschel about it and he could have mentioned something about a generator or a hydroelectric dam or something. It's unusual enough that it merits a short explanation.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:59AM EST
- GarySF I also generally agree with Joseph, but these things can be explained outside of boring dialog. One of the cardinal rules of screenwriting is to SHOW it, not TELL it, if at all possible. So for example, there could be a short scene where the lights in the farm house dim, and Herschel tells one of the survivors "Go check the generator," and in doing so that survivor hears a walker on the perimeter of the property or (insert frightening moment here). You've just explained away the source of their power, and maybe added a little suspense.
  October 31, 2011 at 10:21PM EST
- anon.Z.moose I think there's a balance to be struck between these two views. For instance, if there is a Zombie treadmill to power the farm (viz. HIBTONE & DDAYVAULT above) I definitely want a long explanation of that!
  
  -Anon.Z.Moose
  October 31, 2011 at 10:34PM EST
- Korlis I for one will never understand why people seem to take "suspension of disbelief" for "suspension of logic". Accepting the premise of a show/comic/movie is "zombie apocalypse" isn't a license for the creator of that story to just ignore how reality works, or how reality might work around that major change. There's a gate, so there are no zombies to worry about? What kind of gate is it? How high is the fence, and is it secure? It's not like we need to see the characters have a roundtable discussion of these kinds of things, but if there'd been an establishing shot of the perimeter of the farm people might not be asking these questions. And such a shot would play into the longer arc of the story: if the farm looks secure, then yes, perhaps it is a safe place. If the fence doesn't look so solid, it's probably a precursor for something bad happening to the farm.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:11PM EST
- Joseph Korlis, I am not asking for a suspension of logic. "What kind of a gate is it "? Really? There is a gate, and the zombies obviously don't bother them much. Can't you just picutre in your own mind what kind of gate it is? It's a gate big enough and sturdy enough to keep out any random wandering zombie. We are talking about one house, out in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by woods. Putting aside the fact the show has only been in this location for approx two episodes, can we not just accept the fact (for now at least) that this small group of people has managed to make a little, relatively safe life for themselves here? Plus, why would a zombie horde trek through the woods to reach this house none of them know exist? If a human can hide under a car and not be detected by a zombie walking three feet away, it's certainly reasonable to assume this house in the middle of nowhere has been mostly left alone. These are answers I think the show reasonably expects the viewer can come up with on their own. The show doesn't need to spell everything out, whether it's through a dialogue exchange or establishing shot.
  November 1, 2011 at 11:34AM EST
- Mark in Omaha It's not in the middle of nowhere, it's two miles from an Interstate and five miles from the high school/FEMA center, indicated by dialoge. So they magically have electricity, as did the church (remember the church bell), they also must have a milk cow and store bought bread, and a zombie proof farm fence, and a good supply of hot water. I can accept they have a well but the rest is just too much to accept at face value. There is a person responsible for items you see in a scene and that person is doing a crappy job. Someone made that sandwich and put it on a plate to set down next to Rick. They should have had a whole loaf of bread and cut it by hand with a knife so that it at least looked home made. Otis's wife could have picked up a coleman lantern instead of yanking off the shade of a floor lamp. It's maybe a two second shot but the little stuff matters. If they have a generator then let's hear a generator running in the background when they are out on the porch instead of the requisite chirping crickets. They showed the horse, they couldn't come up with a cow to put in the barnyard? Maybe the budget is so tight that they don't have any extra for small details, but those details are the difference between accepting that they are actually in a world overrun by the walking dead and not hanging out in a pretty cool Bed and Breakfast somewhere in rural Georgia.
  November 1, 2011 at 12:44PM EST
- Joseph Why do you need to SEE the cow? Why does it matter where the milk comes from? They have milk! Jesus I didn't even notice what the heck they were drinking - who cares? Also, do you want to see them raid a grocery store? Not everything has to be spelled out. I'm sure they are all going to the bathroom too, but I don't need to see every character digging a hole, taking a dump in it, and covering it up to make the assumption that's what they're doing. And a "zombie proof fence" can just be a fence! They are decomposing and aimlessly shambling. If they come upon a fence in the middle of the woods, and don't know that people live there, why would they even attempt to climb it? This is really just getting ridiculous now. People just love to nitpick.
  If you are focusing on these minutae then I would guess that the show is just not working for you overall.
  November 1, 2011 at 2:27PM EST
- Korlis Mark - Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I'm talking about.
  
  Joseph - Okay, being upfront, the show ISN'T working for me. I don't hate it, and I feel it has a massive amount of potential (not least because it's surely the first zombie-based TV series, so it's breaking new ground as it goes along). I think you're being disingenous though. We're not saying "spell everything out". Both my examples and those of Mark above are things that should be happening in the background, little details that make a world believable. Instead of conversations happening in isolation, completely separate from a world that is supposed to be suffering a zombie apocalypse, how about IN THE BACKGROUND they answer some questions - have this fence in the background of a shot, have the generator in the background of a shot. No, we don't need to see them raid a grocery store (even though we have, you know, spent time with characters who are foraging for other supplies, so I don't see why we COULDN'T see them raid a grocery store if it was made interesting somehow), or go to the bathroom, or whatever - but there are ways of suggesting that this is a real world with things happening in the background, beyond just the occasional setpiece of "here is a blocked highway" or "here is a church with some zombies who have just been hanging out in their Sunday best for some reason". The show only seems to bother with 'world-building' when it has a particular scene it wants to show off, not the day to day stuff that would enhance the atmosphere and overall effect of the whole.
  November 1, 2011 at 7:48PM EST
- Hislocal I'm torn here.....on the one hand, I agree that it would be easy to just show these little things in the background, but on the other hand....can you imagine continuing to watch a show where every episode is made up of "where did you get that gun?/where did you get the gas for this generator?/where can I find a coleman lantern?/is your fence 5 ft. high or 6 ft. high?"......we're trying to focus on the bigger themes, like the conversation about whether Carl is better off dead. Spending time on the "practical" stuff would be really boring.
  November 7, 2011 at 9:38AM EST
- bbq_hax0r I have to agree with Korlis/Mark. They try to create this bleak world where supplies are limited, scavenging is a must and they are desperately clinging to survival. All they would need to do is have a 5 second conversation, about the power where they mention they have solar panels. It's just difficult to believe that the world is gone to hell and here is the untouched Oasis considering what was presented to us by the show earlier. Zombies are attracted by sound? Yet the church bells didn't bring any? And what about the walkers not eating any of their own, yet they munched on that dude in the tree? What? Its just so annoying that the show offers so much promise only to undermine/contradict themselves constantly while refusing to give me a reason to care about *most* of the characters.
  
  "I for one will never understand why people seem to take "suspension of disbelief" for 'suspension of logic'" - Agreed.
  November 9, 2011 at 10:26PM EST
- bbq_hax0r I don't need to see them talk about every nuance, but the fact this house is untouched by the horde and has power, food, and seemingly fine shelter where so many "hordes" have been seen kind of annoys me. I don't need to know where you found some minor thing, but the fact there is this unspoiled (and powered!) Oasis near so much chaos needs to be explained.
  November 9, 2011 at 10:29PM EST
Shane form Walking Dead

That ending def beat the ending when Carl got shot. Was not suspecting it, and I'm the one that did it...likin' the bald look though.
October 30, 2011 at 10:17PM EST Reply to Comment
- peter scootson the real Shane could spell *from
  October 30, 2011 at 10:46PM EST
- kronicfatigue Once they yada yada'ed the best part of the escape, it was obvious that a heel turn was coming.
  October 30, 2011 at 11:18PM EST
- GarySF Don't be so sure about that, Peter.
  October 30, 2011 at 11:47PM EST
- Sareeta I did not suspect Shane sacrificed Otis until we had his flashback while in the bathroom; when I saw the mark on his head, my first thought was that Shane got scratched by a zombie. Then when we got the flashback I assumed Shane just killed Otis. I was horrified to learn he just shot Otis in the leg. What an awful way to die---being eaten alive by zombies. Makes me not care one bit about Shane's broken/sprained leg.
  October 31, 2011 at 7:15AM EST
alynch

I'd prefer that in the future they keep the ponderous philosophical discussions down to one or two per episode. It was getting really repetitious this episode. By the time Glen and the girl started talking, I was rolling my eyes saying "Oh, here comes another one."
October 30, 2011 at 10:19PM EST Reply to Comment
- orio totally agree
  October 30, 2011 at 11:48PM EST
- LindyK Yeah, we get it - Rick is in existential angst. Let's move forward.
  October 31, 2011 at 2:41AM EST
- JB Agreed with Glenn and Maggie, especially since they had not one but TWO discussions in last nights ep. However, the Rick and Lori one made sense to me, especially when he pressed her "what changed??". She was all hell bent on living when they fled the CDC, but here it is 3 days later and she's contemplating if everyone were better off dead.
  October 31, 2011 at 4:48PM EST
- Moo Agreed, this show is TEDIOUS with the monologuing.
  October 31, 2011 at 10:41PM EST
- qrter The Rick/Lori one made sense to you? That's the one that actually pointed out its own ridiculousness - one minute she's brimming with the lifeforce, the next she wants out. Her answer to "what changed" basically was "well, I thought about it a bit".
  November 1, 2011 at 10:56PM EST
War Chief Shake Zula

I gotta say, that was a really dark side of Shane they showed there at the end. I actually half-figured that perhaps Otis sacrificed himself and any human emotion Shane felt about that was centered on being unable to save him. (although I did figure out when Shane pulled his hair back and the bruise on his scalp became visible that he probably did something messed up to escape)

I think thus far they've done good work w/ the characters, certainly in terms of how they react to the apocalypse itself. I would like to see them delve deeper, though.
October 30, 2011 at 10:26PM EST Reply to Comment
- flip I figured Shane had cowardly left Otis behind to save himself, so it was a dark twist to learn that he had (essentially) killed Otis to save himself. It'll be interesting to see how they let this play out, if any of the others will ever find out or if only the audience will know that side of shane. I can't see him confessing this somewhere down the road.
  October 30, 2011 at 11:23PM EST
- LindyK That was one of the best endings of an episode I have ever seen. I just never saw it coming at all. And Shane's eyes. Bravo.
  October 31, 2011 at 2:44AM EST
- RU Serious Are you serious, 'bravo' to that guy's performance in the last ten minutes of that show? From the minute he got back, it was awful. Maybe it was direction, too, but come on, twitching and blinking and breathing doesn't automatically equal intense and impactful. I thought it was an overall poor choice, that performance. I think it's much more poignant if it's underplayed, rather than "wow, look at this character's transofmration!"
  
  And WTF, he made a huge mess and wasted a ton of hot water. What a douche in general.
  October 31, 2011 at 9:03AM EST
- Ralph Sloane For my money, nothing beats the ending of Breaking Bad's "One Minute". But this was pretty good too. Not so much for the plot twist but for the kind of dark place it took Shane too.
  October 31, 2011 at 9:43AM EST
- Ralph Sloane ...took Shane to*
  October 31, 2011 at 9:44AM EST
- Sru Agree with Lindyk., best ending to a Walking Dead (or dare is I say "Breaking Dead"?) episode yet.
  
  Completely disagree with Alan that it was obvious Shane had sacrificed Otis. I assumed Otis had sacrificed himself in some heroic way that had an impact on Shane. Best episode of the season, let hope it keeps going.
  October 31, 2011 at 10:34AM EST
- Crumdawg97 Put me down as another disagreeing with Alan about it being obvious what Shane did. Figured we'd see in the flashback that he had to make a difficult choice, but not a dark and twisted one.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:01PM EST
- PotatoSolution From the moment Shane stepped out of the truck alone, all twitchy and sweaty, it was painfully obvious that he had killed Otis. I had the exact same thought as Alan, that the moment would have been a lot more dramatic and emotional had it played out as it happened, rather than trying to shoehorn it into a lame twist/flashback ending.
  November 1, 2011 at 11:05AM EST
- qrter Come on.. every second I saw the two walking around the school I was expecting Shane to sacrifice Otis.
  November 1, 2011 at 10:58PM EST
- Hislocal Once I realized that Otis didn't make it back, my mind jumped a mile ahead.........I started thinking that we'd see the flashback, both Shane and Otis make it away from the school just fine, and then Shane straight up murders Otis for shooting Carl. The reasoning ("you accidentally shot my friend's kid, and are now trying really hard to help save him") wouldn't be that great, but the twist would have been amazing.
  November 7, 2011 at 9:43AM EST
Matt Bright

I can accept a zombie apocalypse but I just can get over the boy being name "Carl".
October 30, 2011 at 10:34PM EST Reply to Comment
- KPM Hilarious. My wife and I discuss this every episode. For some reason, it just doesn't seem right.
  October 31, 2011 at 9:41AM EST
- kronicfatigue I'm so bad w/ names generally, but Carl is messing me up more than normal. Young boys are not named Carl. They pop out as 60 year old men.
  October 31, 2011 at 12:28PM EST
- PotatoSolution As long as you think "Carl = kid", both hard "c" sounds, it works.
  
  But until my dying day, I will never be able to remember which one is Rick and which one is Shane.
  November 1, 2011 at 11:07AM EST
- MarryMeDarryl oh my lord, the carl thing was bothereing me too, almost as much as the simpering little actor playing him.
  November 13, 2011 at 4:24AM EST
Susan

So Shane finally embraces his inner Heisenberg.
October 30, 2011 at 10:43PM EST Reply to Comment
- Yes. This. ^
  October 31, 2011 at 12:32AM EST
Jerron

I was getting a bit tired of Andrea still holding the grudge against Dale. She has had plenty of other chances to off herself if she wanted to. And the way their numbers are going down, she may not have much longer to hold the grudge.

Seemed like the characters were able to do more with less in the first season. Maybe it was because their were so many of them they were able to interact and show their personalities more. But not it seemed like their are pretty stagnant. Personality wise.

Alan is right, we do need some zombie canon at this point. Also, like a commentator said last week, but it bears repeating, but shouldn't the numbers of zombies be going down now? They have exhausted the food source and it seems like they should have starved to death by now.

I, too am at a lost about the farmland still having power and hot water. Not a strong barrier, fence protection, and the endless food supply source. Maybe it's Brigadoon. And they won't ever be able to find it again.

Seeing Shane do that to Otis, makes we re-think the hospital scene when he went to fetch Rick. It was from his point of view and therefore is suspect. I'm thinking he probably drove to the hospital, saw the sh** storm and kept going. LOL.
October 30, 2011 at 10:51PM EST Reply to Comment
- jake If you're going to enjoy the show you'll just have to accept some stuff concerning zombies. Cracked.com put out a top 7 reasons the zombie apocalypse would fail very quickly. If you think like that the show will be no fun.
  
  As far as the lack of zombies on farmland goes Herschel admitted they have been very lucky. There is an awful lot of space out there for zombies to wander.
  
  I'm glad the show got back to the idea that there are people out there who will do very dark things to survive. I think we only go darker from here.
  October 30, 2011 at 11:00PM EST
- houseofjenny DO the zombies starve to [death] eventually? So far, we've seen them getting weaker--think of the legless zombie crawling slowly through the grass in Season One--but they seem to have a will to 'survive' as well.
  October 30, 2011 at 11:13PM EST
- Jerron I still enjoy the show, I would just like some of the little loose ends to be tied up.
  
  @Jenny, again you are right about the legless zombie, But it seems like basic science that they would have to have an energy source. Might just be me. Again goes back to the loose ends.
  October 30, 2011 at 11:23PM EST
- Remy They likely have a generator that runs on gas, thus there is electricity. Some people have generators for use in climates with a lot of ice storms, snow, tropical storms etc. The problem is, how and where do you find gas and how much of it is left in the world?
  October 31, 2011 at 12:30AM EST
- joel Zombie don't starve to death. You're confusing 28 Days Later with zombies, and that film franchise has nothing to do with zombies. Zombies don't go away, ever, until the brains are destroyed. It may not make logical sense, but that is cannon.
  October 31, 2011 at 12:52AM EST
- Col Bat Guano So after the zombies devour down to the bone, how do you manage to get up and shuffle around? There wasn't going to much left of Otis to become another walker.
  October 31, 2011 at 3:11AM EST
- ECG @Col Bat Guano: I've wondered about this, too. Especially since zombies don't attack each other. So at some point during the feeding frenzy, the victim must turn into a zombie and all the other zombies somehow realize this and stop eating, and then the new zombie gets up and joins them... Which must happen pretty quickly, since all those zombies you see are in various stages of decay, but they don't, for the most part, look like they were completely eaten alive. The other option is that they all got infected by a bite but were able to get away and survived until they turned into zombies themselves, which can't possibly have happened to all of them.
  
  The whole thing starts to fall apart if you think about it too carefully. Although the 28 Days Later version makes more sense, since the "zombies" can starve to death and be killed any way that a normal person can be killed.
  October 31, 2011 at 12:31PM EST
- ahoya The rules laid out by Max Brooks in the Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z seem the most interesting to me. The core thing is: zombies are dead. So they don't die from hunger; in fact they can't even process what they eat, the urge to eat is a compulsion. The virus that causes zombism somehow slows but does not stop the decaying process. And there is zero "thinking" and they move slowly and with poor coordination.
  
  I thought The Walking Dead was hewing closely to these rules, but the thinking zombie in the RV and the running zombies at the high school have me nervous.
  October 31, 2011 at 1:49PM EST
- Muh Zombies starving to death??? These are Romero type zombies, which will go until they completely decay. Get thee to Netflix and learn some shit, son!
  October 31, 2011 at 10:43PM EST
- qrter These aren't Romero zombies - they move much too fast.
  November 1, 2011 at 11:02PM EST
GarySF

This show exasperates me. The writers are, in many ways, stagnating, spending three episodes looking for a girl and with the RV not moving, the gang all splitting up, etc. Then, they pull off great scenes and great dialogue like Rick's speech to Laura about why it's better that Carl live. Wish they could extrapolate their skills in the small dialogue moments to the ongoing course of the plot.
October 30, 2011 at 11:11PM EST Reply to Comment
GarySF

Jon Berenthal isn't a very good actor. He tried to play "coming unhinged" at the end, but he looked like he was mentally slow as he was walking around. Reminded me of a bad satire of "Gomer Pyle" in Full Metal Jacket.
October 30, 2011 at 11:16PM EST Reply to Comment
- flip everytime I see/hear Shane I imagine that "Days of our Lives" star Joey Tribbiani finally made good and landed a primetime series.
  October 30, 2011 at 11:30PM EST
- veronicadis completely agree. I find him completely unbelievable and distracting. And a country boy? Errr...I think not.
  October 30, 2011 at 11:50PM EST
- Sareeta Eh, that lingering shot of him staring at his reflection scared me. I can't figure out if he did what he did for survival as Alan seems to think, or if he's a psychopath. After all this is the same man who pointed his gun at Rick in season 1.
  October 31, 2011 at 7:18AM EST
- Courtney The acting is pretty mediocre all around with Lori/Sarah Wayne Callies being the worst.
  November 1, 2011 at 2:51PM EST
GarySF

As they flashbacked to Shane shooting Otis, I thought of the old joke about the two guys hunting who spot a grizzly bear. One guy pauses to put on his running shoes, and when the other guy questions whether they'll be able to outrun a bear, the first guy says "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you." Guess poor Otis didn't have any chance of outrunning even a limping Shane.
October 30, 2011 at 11:20PM EST Reply to Comment
- DonBoy Swear to God, at the end I decided that the alternate episode title was "Faster than the Bear", although it would have given the game away.
  October 31, 2011 at 12:19AM EST
GarySF

The camera angle and actions of Shane at the mirror were so cliche -- the head down, hands on the sides of the mirror, the chain hanging from his neck, so we could soak in his torso. That goes back to Rocky, or maybe even further.
October 30, 2011 at 11:32PM EST Reply to Comment
- Michaela At least he didn't punch the mirror. Which I was 50% expecting.
  October 31, 2011 at 1:57AM EST
- Sareeta But I happen to like his torso....
  October 31, 2011 at 7:19AM EST
Amy

It was decent, especially that abs-shot of Shane :D Personally, I don't put a lot of emotion into hating any show other than Glee and, well, Ryan Murphy's other monstrosity - American Horror Story. Also, if this show goes does go downhill as you say it already is, it won't be b/c of Frank Darabont after next week's episode..
October 30, 2011 at 11:36PM EST Reply to Comment
- James Ryan Murphy's "monstrosity" manages to be far more entertaining than this show.
  October 31, 2011 at 1:23AM EST
- John No
  October 31, 2011 at 2:18AM EST
Paradox

For me, this episode was not good save for the twist with Shane at the end. It turns his character into a pretty good anti-hero. The rest became a chore to sit through. And dialogue is not a strength of the show, yet they make us sit through so much of it. It tries to be thoughtful and profound, but it's just ham-fisted and not thought-provoking or interesting at all.
Also, even if the characters are in a nightmare and "going nowhere fast," it still makes for tedious television.
I thought Daryl is actually becoming a character I really like, with a good performance by Norman Reedus. However, the actress playing Lori seems more like she belongs in a soap opera. And I really don't like the Andrea character. I don't know why she gets to be on some moral high ground and hold a grudge against Dale for wanting to kill herself. Seems like there should be some degree of shame or something there on her part.
October 30, 2011 at 11:57PM EST Reply to Comment
- VisionOn I didn't buy Shane's character shift at all. After spending the entire episode making sure they both got out he literally changed his mind in a one minute.
  
  A minute previously he was lying on the floor telling Otis to go on without him to make sure the supplies got back. Then suddenly it's every man for himself.
  
  It wouldn't have been so bad if they were in imminent danger but come on, they could have just hopped the rest of the way and still managed to stay ahead ...
  October 31, 2011 at 1:30AM EST
- JimAbbott'sRightHandMan Visionon, I'm not sure this actually is a character shift for Shane. I suppose we're supposed to think so, what with the drastic haircut and the sulking in the mirror (we're supposed to think he's transforming, I assume). But when I think about it, I don't know.
  
  Remember Shane leaving Rick in the hospital to die? Remember Shane, when he went hunting with Rick soon after Rick showed up at the camp, having a brief moment where he trained his sights on him and seemed to be thinking about shooting him and having a "hunting accident"?
  
  Shane's had some dark moments when it comes time to keep himself alive (at the expense of others) or protect what he has going. To me, it makes sense for the character. I don't think he's shifted or anything.
  October 31, 2011 at 2:23AM EST
- VisionOn Shane left him in the hospital because he didn't have much choice. What was he going to do besides barricade a coma patient in a room? Ride him out of the door with the IV trailing behind? The hunting incident at least had precedent and a building resentment. In this episode Shane changed his mind in literally a minute. He was lying on the floor ready to give up and sacrifice himself to make sure the supplies got back and then suddenly he's in a kneecapping mood to escape get ahead in their low-speed chase.
  October 31, 2011 at 2:48AM EST
- KarenX Maybe I'm the world's most literal person, but wasn't the haircut less Sign of Psychological Transformation and more Better Cut My Hair before Someone Asks Why a Whole Tuft Is Missing?
  October 31, 2011 at 3:26AM EST
- Sareeta I agree with KARENX. At the start of the episode I thought the head shaving was supposed to symbol a character change; at the end I realized it was literally to hide evidence of his hair getting yanked. Though I guess he could've just blamed it on a zombie, right?
  October 31, 2011 at 7:21AM EST
- zerbert Without a doubt shaving his head was done to hide what he did but at the same time things like that do tend to have an intended double meaning in tv, movies, and books so I do think that it also equally signified other things.
  October 31, 2011 at 10:33AM EST
- Lifer Knifer I don't know Zerbert. This is how you think it'd go down if someone saw hiw patch of missing hair?
  
  "Uh Shane, you've got a missing patch of hair on your hea....OH MY GOD YOU CAPPED OTIS TO SAVE YOURSELF!"
  October 31, 2011 at 3:35PM EST
- rcade It's unlikely that the missing patch of hair on Shane's head would lead people to think he sacrificed Otis. But I can understand why Shane would be paranoid about that possibility, given his state of mind after what he did.
  October 31, 2011 at 3:52PM EST
- Korlis Maybe Shane had read the Zombie Survival Guide, which recommends shaving one's head so a zombie can't get a hold of it like Otis did. More seriously (or at least more likely) I also thought the head-shaving was meant to be a character change, perhaps Shane accepting the hard choices he was going to have to make - but his flailing around the bathroom desperately searching for some clippers (lucky they had some!) does make it look more like, yes, he was afraid someone would take his minor scalp injury and be convinced he'd betrayed Otis.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:03PM EST
- JimAbbott'sRightHandMan Visionon, I understand he left Rick in the hospital because he didn't have much choice. He left him for what he was pretty certain meant death in order to make sure he got out alive himself. Just like he did what he had to do here, where zombies were chasing him and the other fella (and the other fella wasn't hobbled from jumping out a window like Shane) and he had to leave the other guy to die so he could get out alive.
  
  This might be a tad more cruel than leaving a coma patient to die, actually turning and shooting a guy to put him down and make him bait to distract the zombies. But it's arguably far less cruel than the time he considered shooting Rick on a hunting trip (since Rick's his friend and hadn't done anything wrong, and this other guy kind of halfway has it coming for shooting the kid). I just don't think this is a shift from Shane's earlier behavior. He's spent a lot of time doing what he thinks he needs to do to take care of his own needs. And at least considering doing even worse things.
  
  He left his friend to die in a hospital so he could escape alive. He pondered shooting him to kill him anyway to keep him from cutting in on the good thing he had going with Lori. He tried to rape Lori when he was drunk and wanted some loving. I think the Otis incident is just another on that list. I just don't see the "shift" in Shane's character or behavior. Seems about right for what we already know about him.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:34PM EST
- Truck I was convinced that the head shaving was a nod to the Zombie Survival Guide. I thought it was going to have meaning in the intro, but right when incapacitated Otis grabbed his head I realized he just did it so he never gets stopped dead in his tracks like that again.
  November 1, 2011 at 12:35AM EST
rockknj

These are the stupidest people I can think of. There are thousands of cars lying around and the farm has one old pickup. Shane and Otis should each have driven in so that two escape cars are there. Daryl and Laurie go out searching, find a camp site, kill the zombie but don't look through the stuff apparently untouched for supplies or weapons. I know that I and my fellow survivors would have stripped clean everything we came across and created war vehicles by now. Maybe the zombie virus has an airborne component that makes everyone stupid.
October 31, 2011 at 12:12AM EST Reply to Comment
- Billy Bob oh man... i can't say it better!!!!
  The show is boring, slow, goes no where and the people in the show are so stupid i can't understand how can someone write such a poor show.
  
  Tons of cars are all around them but they want ONLY the crappy RV, they kill the zombie on the tree but don't think to just cut the rope and take the arrow back, they don't search the tent... like wtf?!
  
  They go to a school where they know there are TONS of zombies and they take like what? 15 bullets? they got tones of weapons! where the fuck are all the machine guns?!
  
  this show is a lame joke, B movie style production with to much hype...
  October 31, 2011 at 1:00AM EST
- John Not only do they take so few rounds, but they decide to use those rounds by firing over their shoulders into a mass of zombies, because ya know, those 9 zombies they may kill are the difference between life and death.
  October 31, 2011 at 2:21AM EST
- Maybe this is why Darabont was forced out?
  October 31, 2011 at 3:24AM EST
- Joseph This bothered me also. They seemed woefully unprepared to enter a building surrounded by a horde of zombies, which they knew was going to be a distinct possibility. Although, to be fair, the plan was cobbled together at the last minute and time was of the essence, they didn't really have time to plan much.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:54AM EST
Chris

So my current solution to this show is to dvr it and then fast forward through any scene where the wife starts whining.

Works wonders, try it yourself!
October 31, 2011 at 12:26AM EST Reply to Comment
Dezbot

I liked it. I knew something hinky happened with Shane came back alone, but I didn't think it would be *that* hinky. I do wish they'd find Sophia already, though. That's getting old.
October 31, 2011 at 12:42AM EST Reply to Comment
- Fuzzbrain /agreed. If they go one more week without finding Sophia I'm going to ax my television in the face!!
  October 31, 2011 at 10:55AM EST
- Jim Hear, hear. Every scene at the RV was a complete waste of time. More Darryl, less Dale. And as others have said, "did you close the gate?" is not a good enough defense against flesh-eating zombies, not after we saw the herd moving down the highway and the mass attack at the camp last season. Nobody even seems to be on watch at the farm.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:21AM EST
- Elevation The Dale character is worthless. I hope he turns out to be a drug addict or a sex offender or something beyond the kindly old fella archetype. He is white bread.
  October 31, 2011 at 3:42PM EST
- JB Maybe Sofia will end up like Walt on Lost, and never be found....
  October 31, 2011 at 4:35PM EST
- GarySF Dale does seem to have a smarmy/disturbing side trying to peak through, like he's used to saying "come here little girl, would you like some candy?"
  October 31, 2011 at 10:27PM EST
Viewerama

See Matt Stoller Seitz on Salon.com regarding the excruciatingly bad dialogue and the disastrous effect it's having on the show.

The spiritual angles are wearing thin and going nowhere, providing nothing but background noise. So much more can be said with actions than with the B-movie dialogue...it's getting to be unbearable. Adds nothing to the characters and nothing to the show. Disappointed in this season after a strong Ep 1.
October 31, 2011 at 2:24AM EST Reply to Comment
- Raff Viewerama brought up the spiritual angle. I agree that they're wearing thin, but because they're poorly written, not because they're inherently annoying. Isn't the loss of hope -- in all of its guises, including spiritual -- what this show is (or should be) all about? How do you keep on going, when there seems to be nothing left to go on for? (That's why Lori and Rick's conversation was so good: it showed there's plenty of reason to keep on living -- or at least that Rick thinks so.)
  
  My biggest beef was that instead of having a hackneyed conversation about faith, I hoped to see the two single and attractive characters, you know, have a conversation about more earthy matters. Because wouldn't it be as natural to seek comfort in the arms of someone else as it would be to question how a loving god could allow all of that to happen?
  October 31, 2011 at 10:06AM EST
- Dave I I dunno . . . If the dead were rising, virtually everybody around me were dropping like flies, my son (or the main group leader's son) just got shot, civilization had gone to pot, and things had gotten worse than anybody ever really expected with all signs pointing to no cure, I think falling back on God or your spirituality (or rejecting it) makes logical sense. Maybe it is wearing thin for some, maybe it's just the delivery, but in concept I think it fits in pretty soundly.
  
  -Cheers
  October 31, 2011 at 10:09AM EST
- JimAbbott'sRightHandMan The dialogue is bad. I remembered loving the pilot because it had a lot of quiet, creepy moments. And the best part of the season 2, for me, was when the herd came and it got quiet and creepy.
  
  But with so many characters (now that Rick is no longer alone) and since they usually operate on the buddy system so nobody ever goes anywhere without at least 1 person to always give them somebody to talk to, the quiet and creepy scenes are too few and far between.
  
  I was talking to a friend the other day and he was telling me about some comic book that was kind of a big deal in the comic book world because they put out an issue that was completely wordless, and it was somehow amazing even though you'd think doing a whole issue of a comic without words would be kind of a strained gimmick. As soon as he told me about it, my mind wandered to other formats trying that approach, and I found myself thinking I'd kill for an episode of The Walking Dead where nobody talks.
  November 1, 2011 at 12:23AM EST
LindyK

I absolutely had no idea when Shane came back alone that he had sacrificed Otis. Neither did my co-viewer. I knew something happened, maybe Otis sacrificed himself, maybe Shane really had no idea what exactly happened (as in I looked back and what... Otis wasn't there). I assumed Shane felt guilty because he had fled and left Otis. So we were gob-smacked when the reveal came - and I got the sense that the Talking Dead folks thought the same.

I agree re: rules about the Walkers. They're slow, they're fast, they can smell living beings, no they can't always, they can't think, but the one in the trailer looking for Andrea sure seemed to have active brain cells. Robert Kirkland brushed that question away on Talking Dead, but it detracts from the quality when the rules are so fast and loose.
October 31, 2011 at 2:37AM EST Reply to Comment
- VIEWERAMA If the opening tease of Shane shaving his head didn't spark that connection and clue you in instantly when Shane came back alone...you really haven't watched much TV.
  October 31, 2011 at 2:55AM EST
- Mark in Omaha I didn't see it coming either. The first scene only showed Shane in a bathroom with electricity and wasting hot water. I assumed it was another flashback scene until the reveal at the end.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:08AM EST
- anon.Z.moose My initial thought in the opening was maybe it was a flashback where Shane looks to see if he was scratched and it turns out he's immune or a carrier. There were several possible things to conclude before the reveal, but from the dark TV drama point of view the show aspires to the "Shane makes a rash decision and offs Otis to save himself" seems ineluctable in hindsight. As someone mentions above I wonder if they'll have the stones to have them decamp never knowing the fate of the little girl. That would be different . . .
  -anon.Z.moose
  October 31, 2011 at 10:55PM EST
- JimAbbott'sRightHandMan I don't really understand the problems people have with the "zombie rules."
  
  They can't run, but they can shamble along at a good clip sometimes (if they're motivated by seeing food, and if they're still in relatively good physical condition, and if they're in a good location like a stretch of an open clearing with level ground and nothing to trip over).
  
  If they see a person, they have some means to tell if they're food or not. Like if they're talking or displaying too much dexterity to be zombies (running or wielding objects, generally making themselves appear in some obvious way to be living humans instead of undead ones). And if they're close enough to the person they see, they can smell whether they're dead or not to rule them out (or in) as food, depending on whether they have the dead stench. But they don't have superhuman smelling to be able to sniff out living people who are hidden from them or people who are off in the distance. We don't have any reason to think they smell living people at all. It's more about the absence of the stench that they should have if they're already zombies.
  
  To me, the only inconsistencies are the fact that people have been killing zombies right in their faces a lot lately, when the Season 1 episode where they covered themselves in guts had a line about how they weren't supposed to let zombie blood touch their skin and were especially supposed to not let it in their eyes. But this isn't an official "zombie rule" since the suggestion about not letting it touch skin/eyes came from a character who didn't know the science behind the zombies anyway. It's just weird that lots of characters happen to be making zombie kills that seem to have blood spattering around on their faces a lot even though the group at one time seemed to think they weren't supposed to do that.
  November 1, 2011 at 12:40AM EST
ponce

The budget cuts are really showing.

It's like watching poorly edited student film now.
October 31, 2011 at 3:15AM EST Reply to Comment
Jubi

Lori's big speech about why letting Carl die might be a good thing fell completely flat for me simply because the zombie apocalypse can't go on forever, and these people should have thought of that by now.

The zombies are not animated by magic, and they seem to be decomposing pretty quickly, so their brains should eventually rot to the point where they are no longer capable of controlling their movements.

So yes, in the short term, life sucks, but a few months from now, most of the zombies should be decomposed into oblivion. I'm completely baffled that these people can spend so much time navel-gazing and whining, and yet, even with the information they gained at the CDC, no one has considered that the zombie apocalypse is a temporary hell? Once it's all over, the world might actually be a *better* place for their children in a lot of ways. Yes, these people will live with the horrible memories for the rest of their lives, but the next generation might not have it so bad...
October 31, 2011 at 3:32AM EST Reply to Comment
- Well, that's not the ways zombies work. As one of the previous comment-makers remarked, zombies just keep going and never "die," even if it defies scientific explanation. The comic series this is based on has run an in-series time line of probably about 2 years now, and there aren't less zombies around and they haven't decomposed into oblivion. You might argue that doesn't make biological sense without an energy source as their food source wears thin; but zombies aren't a biological reality to begin with.
  October 31, 2011 at 4:35AM EST
Ken from Chicago

Yes, I would like more depth to the characters.
--Lincoln, Lori and Shane are pretty well-shaded (and judging by Felicia Day's comments on TALKING DEAD about Shane's bathroom scene, Shane is well-sculpted ).
--Dale, Glenn and Daryl are okay. They are not as much in-depth, but what we've seen are they are proactive and have a decent sense of humor--and that goes a long way with audiences, including me.
--Sophia and Carl, well, they're kids, so they've done as well as kids can be. Sure, Sophia running off is bad, but she's a kid. Sure, Carl getting within kicking / goring distance of a potentially skittish deer who's has been living surrounded by zombies wasn't the brightest move, still, he's a kid--tho why Lincoln let him is beyond stupid.
--The sore points are Carol, T-Dog and to a lesser extent, Andrea. More than the kids, these are stereotypical horror characters who scream, panic, cry , trip, drop keys down air shafts, etc. It's tolerable when characters are first dealing with a crisis, but they've been exposed to zombies for months now--in addition to whatever time Lincoln was in a coma. It seems like the show comes to a nails-on-chalkboard screeching whenever they're onscreen. They are way under-served by the writing--because I think the actors are more than capable of doing better if the scripts were better.

Also would be nice is longer-term thinking (e.g., getting a more modern RV, or two, getting some off-road trucks and bikes, stocking up generators, water and food). It seems like the group seem to wander around from day to day. If it's because they don't want to think long-term, then show that, not just ignore it.

Finally, they need to do something about the pacing. It's 3 eps in to this season and maybe as many days have past with them doing not a lot more than waiting and waiting and repeating the same things. Maybe it's having grown up with a pop culture where we want our leads to be pro-active and doing stuff, and if not, they need to be saying something interesting, and barring that, well, we need some really nice visuals (e.g., BREAKING BAD is known for its ... deliberate ... pacing, but the scene where Skyler goes to Four Corners to let chance decide her future, only she changes her mind, nice, she was doing something--plus we had the really cool visual of her out in the Southwestern landscape, which is like a great supporting character of BB).

I get the show may want to be more existential character study than merely an action zombie story (similar to LOST being more about the characters than the byzintine plots and baffling mysteries). They could do that, I think if they made it more of a road trip story, some montages of driving the open and abandoned car roads, the occassional outrunning or ramming zombies while scavenging for food, and the inevitable encounters in small towns--kinda like the Road Warrior movies back before Mel Gibson was more popular than zombies to Hollywood. But starting out the season with essentially a 4-parter of them mostly waiting? That's really killed a lot of the show's momentum.

-- Ken from Chicago

P.S. Oh, and a touch more gallows humor would make it a how lot more enjoyable. Humor highlights the horror and tragedy by providing a clear contrast.
October 31, 2011 at 5:04AM EST Reply to Comment
srpad

I enjoyed this episode. The fact that the entire thing took place over a couple of hours at night gave it a lot or atmosphere. I also thought the "surprise" was not surprising. I am also hoping Shane doesn't become a crutch who gets to do all the bad things survivors may do.

Finally, was it me or were the zombies at the school faster than any others we have seen?
October 31, 2011 at 7:21AM EST Reply to Comment
- Ken from Chicago I think Kirkman said on last week's TALKING DEAD the zombie speed varies depending age, when they last fed, and condition of the person turned. I imagine at high school, you have a lot of teens in peak of health who were infected.
  October 31, 2011 at 10:55AM EST
Sareeta

Another great episode. I laughed out loud at the suicide note/poem left by the camper. I'm curious why Daryl said "waste of an arrow," when he could have yanked it out like he's done before.

I'm very impressed with the younger actor playing Carl. The scene where he goes into a seizure was heart breaking. It may be a little unrealistic that he talked about the deer when he woke up, but I like that Rick used that as his reason for saving Carl. I'm sad to say I almost agree with Lorie. However, they had their chance back at the CDC.

Speaking of Lorie and Andrea, I don't get all the hate. I find them realistic characters who I can easily relate to. If they were smiling all the time or whatever then people would complain about that, too.

I was wondering when Hershell was going to have a look at hane's broken leg. Seeing someone limp around on a broken leg makes me queasy. However, knowing what Shane did to poor Otis makes me hope Shane's leg festers. He couldn't have killed Otis? Do zombies have to feed on the living?
October 31, 2011 at 7:29AM EST Reply to Comment
- Sareeta *Shane's
  October 31, 2011 at 7:30AM EST
Other Scott

Maybe I’m completely on my own here, but I don’t think Shane sacrificed Otis out of an animal instinct to survive. I think it was a cold-blooded murder in an attempt to save Carl. I’m not sure whether this makes it better or worse. Here’s why.

1) They weren’t going to make it. They were both limping and the zombies were simply moving faster than they were. If nothing was done, Carl wasn’t going to get the respirator in time.
2) Shane had already tried to get Otis to go on without him, and Otis wouldn’t do it. This is easy to kind of skim over because it’s such a common cliché, but it probably clicked something in Shane’s mind that if Otis wasn’t going to go on without him, he was going to go on without Otis.
3) He went through a lot of effort to wrestle the bags out of Otis hands. If it was simply self-preservation that motivated him, he wouldn’t have bothered and then come back and say they had failed to get the respirator.

In Shane’s mind, it was either Otis or Carl, and as someone who had been Carl’s surrogate father for a while, it is Carl every time. Was there a better way to ensure the bags got there? Probably. Shane just could have dropped his bag and run into the pack of zombies and yell at Otis to go, (basically, not give Otis a choice in the matter). The survival instinct had something to do with it. But if it were a situation with no dying boy to get a respirator to, I’m not convinced Shane still kills Otis.

October 31, 2011 at 8:33AM EST Reply to Comment
- VisionOn 2) completely ignores the fact that Otis was willing to sacrifice himself if the situation required it. He already did by acting as bait in the school.
  
  Shane was no faster or more capable than Otis to escape (fell over, needed Otis to help him walk).
  They were only in a school so not that far from truck (it's not as if it was at the other end of a city).
  They wasted all their ammo shooting zombies who were a long way behind - in fact the entire mob was a long way behind and they could have easily outpaced them just hopping the short distance to the truck.
  
  There was no reason for the scene to happen. Especially since even if Otis managed to somehow become a burden to one-legged, trip-happy, zombie-blind Shane he would have fallen behind naturally and Shane could have just left him instead of wasting a bullet and having to beat him with a flashlight.
  
  If this show gets any less subtle with character writing then it may as well have subtitles at each scene saying things like "This house contains zombies", "Lori is about to complain to Rick", "Shane is a troubled man, look at him brood."
  October 31, 2011 at 7:45PM EST
- Korlis Visionon: Totally agree with all your points - especially about wasting their ammunition on the mob of zombies chasing them, I'm not sure what exactly that was meant to achieve beyond giving Shane a deadline where he had to pick between needlessly shooting Otis or needlessly shooting another zombie.
  
  He took so long wrestling that backpack from Otis, I was increasingly confused as to why exactly they weren't going to get away - the zombies barely even closed the distance!
  October 31, 2011 at 11:15PM EST
- Crumdawg97 Agree with Other Scott.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:20PM EST
RU Serious

It's the best episode of theyear, but that's not saying it's great television. The actors are uniformaly mediocre at best, some terrible. The dialogue is oftentimes cloying and contrived. Still it's engaging enough, I suppose, unlike Boardwalk Empire, which has officially expired.

It's mentioned in these comments earlier, but the show continues to ignore a couple of key things that really don't ring true. First of all, I can't imagine that not ONE character has told another "Are we really going to argue / dicuss / complain about SITUATION X / INTERACTION Y? Get the F over it, this is a zombie appocialypse, I don't think your feelings are of paramount importance." They think things like "One of these cars probably has penicillin in it!" (??????), "These tiny Japanese imports are certain to be replete with spare parts for a mid-80's American RV!" but not "Shouldn't most of these cars have their keys in them? How many must be in perfectly usable condition? Shouldn't we spend some time siphoning whatever gas every single one of them has left, if not?" And no one is having sex. There's no way the angry blond and the redneck guy (When they develop into characters, I'll use their names, but for now they're just a collection of characteristics) go out into the woods (WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE? Answer is so the show can have one or more of them speechify about their situation / feelings) and DO NOT HAVE SEX. The first thing my wife and I both thought was "Well finally, someone is going to have sex just to feel human connection." NOPE. Not like I needed them to for my own pleasure as a viewer (What is this, Spartacus?), but because THAT'S WHAT HUMAN BEINGS DO.

Problem with this show? Once you start tugging at the many fraying threads, the whole thing has a tendency to come apart.
October 31, 2011 at 9:19AM EST Reply to Comment
- TJ I don't think the acting is mediocre--I think it's pretty good. But I do think the accents are awful. And when they're that bad, it really doesn't matter how good the performances are.
  
  It's like if someone from Boston tried to watch Quiz Show. For those of us not really used to that accent, it isn't distracting. But for people who know what the thing really sounds like, that's all you can hear for 2 hours.
  October 31, 2011 at 10:01AM EST
- keith I agree with this. Zombie stories work because they put people in extreme situations where they can express their humanity. If that humanity is being wrongly or stupidly expressed, the zombies are pointless. I used to rant about Battlestar Galactica in the same way: it worked when it showed people being human under pressure, not when wittering about philosophy. It's 2011 and writers don't know the basics about what works.
  October 31, 2011 at 11:49AM EST
TJ

I completely agree about the zombie rules. In season 1 Rick and [guy whose name I can never remember] had to put on clean suits to cover themselves with zombie guts ("Don't get it on your skin") but now T-Dog can have zombie blood drip into his open wound (presumably) and be ok? Not to mention the cavalier way everyone lets zombie blood splash onto them (right at their eyes and mouth!) when they go for the close kill. I will continue to hold out hope that, if T-Dog isn't infected, we at least get an episode eventually where, say, an Army doc runs his blood and finds out he did get a small amount of zombie-fection, and came through somehow--possibly due to getting a supersmall dose.

However, I completely disagree about the structure of the Shane-Otis reveal. That devastating decision had to come at the very end of the episode. I was perfectly fine watching Shane deal with his guilt--knowing that his story about Otis had to be a lie, but wondering exactly what really happened till the end. I didn't think the show was trying to fool or trick anyone. I think it wanted you to think that Shane did something deceitful. I think the twist, if any, was intended to be exactly what he did, and when, and why. Because the surprise for me is that he didn't wait till he had no other option. This wasn't a last ditch effort to survive; it was a proactive solution while he still had options. I hope this is the kind of moral dilemma that this show finds more ways to explore.
October 31, 2011 at 9:59AM EST Reply to Comment
- Neopythia Regarding the zombie blood, rules of infection etc. This isn't 28 Days later or any other zombie fiction. This universe has its own rules and I'm sure we will find out what those rules are as the characters do. I think everyone would enjoy the show a lot more if they stopped trying to apply "zombie canon", whatever that is, to The Walking Dead.
  October 31, 2011 at 10:32AM EST
- TJ I'm not trying to apply any other zombie canon to this show. But the first season (with (1) Glenn and Rick spending half an episode keeping zombie guts off their skin and faces and (2) the CDC doc showing how the infection works like... an infection and (3) the infection creating a fever that kills you and (4) the doggie doc's comparison to AIDS) they certainly set zombie-ness up to be something biological, not magical. So I think it's fair to apply these rules to the show and wonder why a bite or scratch would cause infection and getting zombie blood in your blood would not.
  October 31, 2011 at 1:33PM EST
- JB We aren't sure that "zombie blood" dripped into T-Dog's wound, are we? I don't think that's a given, and T-Dog is playing is pretty ambiguous. We're not sure (yet) if he's kinda "zoned out" from the infection from the wound, or if he's starting the zombie fever.
  October 31, 2011 at 4:42PM EST
- rockknj No one knew anything about the zombie virus in season 1, so being careful to avoid the blood seems smart. Now, they have been to the CDC and saw how the blood spatter didn't immediately infect them. They are learning the rules as they go and so are we.
  October 31, 2011 at 5:48PM EST
Printin' Mike

Overall, a really good episode – unlike some, I don’t mind the pacing at all. In fact, a slow pace is far more believable and in keeping with the underlying storyline than a fast pace wherein the survivors are constantly running at full speed. Running where? Why? The walkers (note that they’re the Walking Dead, not the Running Dead) are slow, dead, and mentally retarded (the central flaw in the whole genre, actually, but that’s another story. I mean, really. No matter how stupid some of the “surviving” characters are, at some point someone, somewhere has got to wise up and realize how freakin’ simple it is to defeat mentally challenged dead people who can’t run faster than a hobbled Joe Theismann. Sure, there are a lot of ‘em, but they’re dead and they’re stupid, and they’re not breeding, so there is a limited supply).

Speaking of stupid characters (and actors): Shane. OK – I didn’t mind the evil intonations developing in this character. But, the evil would have been a bit more believable with a better actor. Frankly, I think the writers would do better by focusing upon the true central motivating characteristic of Shane: selfish, childish stupidity. He may not be a Walker yet, but he shares a lot in common with them – primitive desire, blank stares and not much thinking.

I am frustrated too by the lack of weaponry and ammunition for the survivors. The Earth itself is in good shape – plenty of food and water for all. So, you would think that the survivors would be spending a bit more time collecting weapons, and systematically wiping out hordes of Walkers that they encounter. When did the “plague” start? Relatively recently, right? It’s not as if we’re decades into the outbreak, and there’s little ammunition or weapons left.

October 31, 2011 at 10:09AM EST Reply to Comment
- JimAbbott'sRightHandMan Yeah, you know, I'm disappointed the characters always seem so distracted by their minute-to-minute crises, so they never seem able to dig into long-term plans. I guess we're not supposed to complain about them taking a timeout from reality in order to go off on their flights of fancy (trekking to the CDC, or taking a detour to find a lost kid, and next it'll be whatever military fort their hopes are hinging on). But it's annoying that none of them ever seem interested in taking a longer view of how they can get by on their own without always basing their plans around cures and military. Maybe they're going out of their way to make the characters so stupid because this is all a part of the idea that they're not supposed to be savvy about this because they live in a reality where they've never seen zombie movies or whatever. But it's annoying that they're so disinterested in possible solutions to make this new world more manageable.
  
  I wish the characters spent more time digging into the meat of zombie-specific scenarios and theories and plans. I can watch a dozen different shows to see medicals crises and distraught parents worrying about their kid who is undergoing surgery. I can get that anywhere else. I want to see more stuff that I can only see on a show about a zombie apocalypse. I want to see them scavenging for supplies and formulating plans, debating about going to the coast and finding a boat so they can seek out an island or something. Or planning to go north, where the winter exposure will be harsh on the zombies (and, in a place like Minnesota, they could probably just stroll around systematically all winter, killing frozen zombies with an axe, assuming the freezing process doesn't do enough damage to their brains to kill them all by itself... and find themselves insulated by miles and miles of zombie-free land by the time spring comes).
  
  Maybe we just need to let this plan to go to the military fort turn out just as stupid as plans to go to Atlanta and the CDC. Maybe if their hopes are dashed another time, they'll finally accept that help isn't on the way and start figuring out they have to help themselves.
  November 1, 2011 at 2:59AM EST
RU Serious

How long has the zompoc been going on? Here's the thing: Rick gets shot and goes into a come, wakes up some time later with fresh-ish flowers on his night stand. That means the other cop visits him pre-sompoc, because why would you do that kind of errand with zombies running around. Unfortunately, that leaves about two weeks, conservatively, for those flowers to not have dried out entirely. The question, then, is was his wife banging this other cop BEFORE he got shot? Or did she wait a total of MAYBE three weeks to give up on her husband, grieve him, and start banging his friend?

It has to be a relatively short amount of time, right? BEcuse the farmhouse apparently still has enough fuel to waste on some unnecessary lights in the farmhouse (why don't zmobies see lights?). You'd think if it were six months or a year into the deal, they'd be a little more conscientious about turning off lights and using hot water. The other guy using their bathroom as a sauna should be a major problem.

I get the impression that it's been a few months, but I could be wrong.

And no one's considered exactly what kind of shape this kid is going to be in in the unlikely (in real life) event he survived. He's not going to be in any shape to flee from anything. And no one is apparently concerned about the fragsw knicking an intestinal wall, either. I just hate the whole kids angle. I wish the show would let Carl die and then have Sophia come back as a walker, bite her mom, then both take an arrow to the head from Daryl. Then we could kind of re-set.

October 31, 2011 at 10:34AM EST Reply to Comment
- Dave I 1) Rick & Zompoc Timeline: I believe in the book (and I believe here) Rick was out for about a month. I'm not sure how long it's been since Lori thought Rick was dead.
  
  2) Shane & Lori: It seems apparent Shane had the hots for Lori for some time, starting before Rick got shot a/o "died" in the hospital. In Lori's defense, she was told Rick was dead and everything would be compressed with the end of the world as we know it scenario. Maybe there was some mutual connection that blossomed into, well, whatever. I doubt she started it because she was over her husband dying. There could (and probably WOULD) be a lot going into it, like survival instinct, growing close by fighting for your lives (possibly Shane saving her a/o Carl), and things that under less pressure would very likely not happen.
  
  3) Lights & Water: I would suspect they have a generator, possibly a well. Although, Shane was being a douche with the water, but he shot Otis and left him to be eaten alive. So his douchery as a character is pretty well established after last night's episode. Plus, this seems very early in the ordeal, so things like fuel for presumed generator or water might not be realized being AS scarce as they will be (but yeah, I'd imagine they'd be conserving most everything).
  
  4) Zombies Seeing Light: I'd imagine zombies do. I thought they had fences far enough that presumably keep the zombies out without the walking dead seeing easy prey just inside a cage. I also suspect they have been lucky where some big herd didn't come and end up more than they could keep out or poke off the fence (or whatever they do when "walkers" come around). Maybe they see light, but there's a fence they haven't gotten through yet and the lights eventually go out so they move on when they see something else, or maybe they go and kill off zombies at the fence I'm presuming they have and from there just manage any fence-dwellers if/when they have to.
  
  5) The Kids: I think EVERYBODY is considering what shape Carl will be in. Carl will just stay at the farm until he gets better. He's young, resilient, and on TV. He'll be fine. Plus, in all seriousness, I think they are doing everything they can. If the frags knicked something inside (intestinal wall, artery, whatever), that they could not fix? In that case, Carl dies, the end. Granted, that did not happen, yet at least, and people get shot without dying all the time (and get shot and die all the time too). But what can they do? Keep filling him with transfusions and hope for the best until/unless they get the meds & respirator and then do the surgery and still hope for the best. I don't get how Carl or Sophia have really diminished the show. It would be strange if nobody had kids. It adds some tension and reason for them to venture in the woods to find Sophia. Other than that, it's not like they dwell on the kids exclusively. I also like Carl's character in the books, so maybe he surprises you. Or maybe he dies soon. I think either way, whatever impact it has on Rick and Lori (and Shane) would be worth watching.
  
  -Cheers
  October 31, 2011 at 12:33PM EST
- Dave II The CDC ran out of fuel for its generators, and I have to believe it would be a little bit better supplied than some middle of nowhere farmhouse.
  October 31, 2011 at 3:16PM EST
- Dave I The CDC probably also has a higher need (more stuff to run) so would burn through resources faster. I agree with what you are getting at, but have no real way of calculating how much reserve either would have and how long they could milk it, or in the case of the farm to get gas from abandoned cars or wherever on which to run the generator. It is still pretty early on in the series, so they are still fairly well equipped on the farm, relatively speaking to the dire circumstances, a/o could run out at any point. Especially what with Shane and his extra l-o-n-g showers and all.
  
  -Cheers
  October 31, 2011 at 4:59PM EST
- Dave II Yeah, there's that. I didn't really bring up the CDC to suggest that the farmhouse couldn't possibly still have power. I obviously can't calculate how long their unspecified fuel reserves will last, but it feels to me like they've been in this mess for a while and should at least be trying harder to conserve. But I think you pretty much got what I was saying.
  October 31, 2011 at 6:39PM EST

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Review: 'The Walking Dead' - 'Save the Last One': Lori's choice

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'The Walking Dead' - 'Save the Last One': Lori's choice

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'The Walking Dead' - 'Save the Last One': Lori's choice

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Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Rose I liked the episode , but I don't understand why the farmhouse has electrify and an endless supply of hot water.

JoeInVegas Or why there is not a perpetual army of zombies trying to get into the farmhouse

jake Can power plants keep functioning by themselves until their supply runs out?

DougMac they wouldnt keep running for very long

Hanley_John Or why Shane let the shower water run for 45 minutes without bathing.

houseofjenny Shane let the shower run that long to allow our eyes to linger on his torso.

They could just have a generator. Lots of farmhouses do.

JB Even backup generators couldn't run forever. Also: how many folks are left on Hershel's farm? It seems like when Otis first led Rick & Shane back there (to save Carl) there was Hershel, Otis' wife, Maggie, and a couple others.

Patrick Generators are a possibility. There are also other sources of electricity (solar) that could be house-specific or grid-specific (hydro-electric or wind power) that could keep power going long after the coal-powered plants went dark.

Liam It's not impossible that they'd still have electricity at this point, though I'd question the wisdom of running the lights at night. Remote or no, that farmhouse would be visible from quite a distance.

Hibtone I bet they have treadmill zombies powering a generator.

ddayvault And the little chubby one says "row"

TRAV And can someone fix the squeaky porch door??

bones and how are they making sandwiches? where are they getting bread from?

stb128 Generators can run just about forever when there is an endless supply of gas to scrounge.

Sterling @Bones, I thought the same thing about the bread, but if you lived in a remote area, you'd probably have a few loaves in the freezer.

Russ An average rule of thumb on home generators is they burn 1 gallon per hour of conventional use. So, the siphoned full tank of an average car would run a generator for 10 hours. A gasoline tanker would supply enough gas to run a generator for about 7 months.

JasonG Clearly the farmhouse isn't getting it's electricity from JCP&L.

Kevin Shaffer A Nuke power plant could operate un-manned for up to 2 years, depending on when it was refuelled last. Georgia has several of them.

Rick And yet, not only do you continue to watch, you read recaps and post comments...

Austin Because I still have faith in AMC (despite The Killing) and I enjoyed last season.

JB Well Said: I think that's where they're going with the Darryl/Andrea storyline. Setting the scene for them to hook up.

Muh Why do most characters on this show speak in long, boring speeches? Right now Shane and Daryl are the only characters who seem to really have much of a personality and are interesting.

Dont Ask Your complaint is more a comment on your attention span than a shortcoming of the series..

I concur. I also don't get the feeling that anybody is in any real danger.

LindyK Glenn is sitting out in the dark on the porch with his head in his hands. A friggin' walker could come right up. There are no fences, they act like nothing is going on out there because they are in a house. And how the hell did Andrea and Daryl find their way back in that pitch black woods?

anon.Z.moose I think there's a balance to be struck between these two views. For instance, if there is a Zombie treadmill to power the farm (viz. HIBTONE & DDAYVAULT above) I definitely want a long explanation of that!-Anon.Z.Moose

Shane form Walking Dead That ending def beat the ending when Carl got shot. Was not suspecting it, and I'm the one that did it...likin' the bald look though.

peter scootson the real Shane could spell *from

kronicfatigue Once they yada yada'ed the best part of the escape, it was obvious that a heel turn was coming.

GarySF Don't be so sure about that, Peter.

alynch I'd prefer that in the future they keep the ponderous philosophical discussions down to one or two per episode. It was getting really repetitious this episode. By the time Glen and the girl started talking, I was rolling my eyes saying "Oh, here comes another one."

orio totally agree

LindyK Yeah, we get it - Rick is in existential angst. Let's move forward.

Moo Agreed, this show is TEDIOUS with the monologuing.

qrter The Rick/Lori one made sense to you? That's the one that actually pointed out its own ridiculousness - one minute she's brimming with the lifeforce, the next she wants out. Her answer to "what changed" basically was "well, I thought about it a bit".

LindyK That was one of the best endings of an episode I have ever seen. I just never saw it coming at all. And Shane's eyes. Bravo.

Ralph Sloane For my money, nothing beats the ending of Breaking Bad's "One Minute". But this was pretty good too. Not so much for the plot twist but for the kind of dark place it took Shane too.

Ralph Sloane ...took Shane to*

Crumdawg97 Put me down as another disagreeing with Alan about it being obvious what Shane did. Figured we'd see in the flashback that he had to make a difficult choice, but not a dark and twisted one.

qrter Come on.. every second I saw the two walking around the school I was expecting Shane to sacrifice Otis.

Matt Bright I can accept a zombie apocalypse but I just can get over the boy being name "Carl".

KPM Hilarious. My wife and I discuss this every episode. For some reason, it just doesn't seem right.

kronicfatigue I'm so bad w/ names generally, but Carl is messing me up more than normal. Young boys are not named Carl. They pop out as 60 year old men.

PotatoSolution As long as you think "Carl = kid", both hard "c" sounds, it works.But until my dying day, I will never be able to remember which one is Rick and which one is Shane.

MarryMeDarryl oh my lord, the carl thing was bothereing me too, almost as much as the simpering little actor playing him.

Susan So Shane finally embraces his inner Heisenberg.

Yes. This. ^

houseofjenny DO the zombies starve to [death] eventually? So far, we've seen them getting weaker--think of the legless zombie crawling slowly through the grass in Season One--but they seem to have a will to 'survive' as well.

Jerron I still enjoy the show, I would just like some of the little loose ends to be tied up. @Jenny, again you are right about the legless zombie, But it seems like basic science that they would have to have an energy source. Might just be me. Again goes back to the loose ends.

Remy They likely have a generator that runs on gas, thus there is electricity. Some people have generators for use in climates with a lot of ice storms, snow, tropical storms etc. The problem is, how and where do you find gas and how much of it is left in the world?

joel Zombie don't starve to death. You're confusing 28 Days Later with zombies, and that film franchise has nothing to do with zombies. Zombies don't go away, ever, until the brains are destroyed. It may not make logical sense, but that is cannon.

Col Bat Guano So after the zombies devour down to the bone, how do you manage to get up and shuffle around? There wasn't going to much left of Otis to become another walker.

Muh Zombies starving to death??? These are Romero type zombies, which will go until they completely decay. Get thee to Netflix and learn some shit, son!

qrter These aren't Romero zombies - they move much too fast.

GarySF Jon Berenthal isn't a very good actor. He tried to play "coming unhinged" at the end, but he looked like he was mentally slow as he was walking around. Reminded me of a bad satire of "Gomer Pyle" in Full Metal Jacket.

flip everytime I see/hear Shane I imagine that "Days of our Lives" star Joey Tribbiani finally made good and landed a primetime series.

veronicadis completely agree. I find him completely unbelievable and distracting. And a country boy? Errr...I think not.

Sareeta Eh, that lingering shot of him staring at his reflection scared me. I can't figure out if he did what he did for survival as Alan seems to think, or if he's a psychopath. After all this is the same man who pointed his gun at Rick in season 1.

Courtney The acting is pretty mediocre all around with Lori/Sarah Wayne Callies being the worst.

DonBoy Swear to God, at the end I decided that the alternate episode title was "Faster than the Bear", although it would have given the game away.

GarySF The camera angle and actions of Shane at the mirror were so cliche -- the head down, hands on the sides of the mirror, the chain hanging from his neck, so we could soak in his torso. That goes back to Rocky, or maybe even further.

Michaela At least he didn't punch the mirror. Which I was 50% expecting.

Sareeta But I happen to like his torso....

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The Walking Dead is updated

Rose

I liked the episode , but I don't understand why the farmhouse has electrify and an endless supply of hot water.

Dont Ask Your complaint is more a comment on your attention sp
an than a shortcoming of the series..

anon.Z.moose I think there's a balance to be struck between these two views. For instance, if there is a Zombie treadmill to power the farm (viz. HIBTONE & DDAYVAULT above) I definitely want a long explanation of that!

-Anon.Z.Moose

Shane form Walking Dead

That ending def beat the ending when Carl got shot. Was not suspecting it, and I'm the one that did it...likin' the bald look though.

alynch

I'd prefer that in the future they keep the ponderous philosophical discussions down to one or two per episode. It was getting really repetitious this episode. By the time Glen and the girl started talking, I was rolling my eyes saying "Oh, here comes another one."

Matt Bright

I can accept a zombie apocalypse but I just can get over the boy being name "Carl".

PotatoSolution As long as you think "Carl = kid", both hard "c" sounds, it works.

But until my dying day, I will never be able to remember which one is Rick and which one is Shane.

Susan

So Shane finally embraces his inner Heisenberg.

Jerron I still enjoy the show, I would just like some of the little loose ends to be tied up.

@Jenny, again you are right about the legless zombie, But it seems like basic science that they would have to have an energy source. Might just be me. Again goes back to the loose ends.

GarySF

Jon Berenthal isn't a very good actor. He tried to play "coming unhinged" at the end, but he looked like he was mentally slow as he was walking around. Reminded me of a bad satire of "Gomer Pyle" in Full Metal Jacket.

GarySF

The camera angle and actions of Shane at the mirror were so cliche -- the head down, hands on the sides of the mirror, the chain hanging from his neck, so we could soak in his torso. That goes back to Rocky, or maybe even further.

Lifer Knifer I don't know Zerbert. This is how you think it'd go down if someone saw hiw patch of missing hair?

"Uh Shane, you've got a missing patch of hair on your hea....OH MY GOD YOU CAPPED OTIS TO SAVE YOURSELF!"

Chris

So my current solution to this show is to dvr it and then fast forward through any scene where the wife starts whining.

Works wonders, try it yourself!

Dezbot

I liked it. I knew something hinky happened with Shane came back alone, but I didn't think it would be that hinky. I do wish they'd find Sophia already, though. That's getting old.