The Walking Dead, 10/30/11

This episode opens with a flashforward: Shane standing naked (I approve.) in a bathroom shaving his head. Well, since I doubt he’s worried about lice, I’m assuming something pretty intense happened to cause that.

Back to now. Shane and Otis are running through the high school, zombs hot on their trail. Underscoring the importance of staying physically fit in the zombie apocalypse, Shane is way ahead of Otis. Eventually, they are trapped atop some bleachers, then split up. In the RV, Daryl can’t sleep cuz Carol won’t stop crying and Andrea is noisily reloading a gun. He leaves to go look for Sophia some more; Andrea goes with him. (FAIL. You do not go traipsing through a pitch black zomb-filled forest at night.) At the farmhouse, Glenn and Theodore arrive. Lori and Rick argue. She’s wondering if Carl wouldn’t be better off dead than having to grow up amongst walking corpses. The answer is OF COURSE NOT, though I kind of understand why a parent would ask that.

Carl wakes. He starts to tell Lori about how beautiful the deer was, but has a seizure. Doc takes more blood from Rick, who by this point should be unconscious. In the forest, Andrea and Daryl come across a zomb hanging in a tree, the end result of an attempted suicide. She wants him to shoot it; he says that’d be a waste of an arrow. He asks if she’s suicidal; she says she’ll answer if he’ll put the zomb out of its misery. (*eye roll* Yes, let’s suddenly start caring about the poor, suffering zombs.) She says she doesn’t know; Daryl says what I was thinking, “Not much of an answer,” and kills the zomb. At the RV, Carol joins Dale on the roof; he decides to go for a walk and hands her his rifle, she says she doesn’t know how to use it.

ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME??!??!??? It’s the mother effing zombie apocalypse, AND you have a child to protect, but you don’t know how to use a gun? That’s the first order of business! Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Carol with so much as a baseball bat. *annoyed* There will be no Carols in my group of survivors.


At the farmhouse, Theodore is getting his arm stitched up and his told he got the antibiotics just in time. Ok, we can all officially stop worrying about Theodore. They are so not going to kill the last black man on earth. Glenn and Doc’s daughter have some interaction which could be labeled pre-flirting. *jealous* Almost-bloodless Rick, who is white as a sheet and has bags under his eyes, points out to Lori that when Carl woke, all the kid wanted to talk about was the pretty deer in the woods, not how terrible life is, which proves that he’s happy and not better off dead. Doc tells them they shouldn’t wait any longer; he needs to attempt the surgery or Carl’s going to die. They give him the ok. At that exact moment, Shane arrives with the medical supplies Doc needs — but without Otis. Poor guy didn’t make it. :(

Daryl and Andrea return to the RV. Dale gives her back her gun, asks if she forgives him. I was expecting another dumb rant, or perhaps a theatrical “I can’t!” but she says, “I’m trying.” Good.


Doc’s daughter is crying over Otis; Glenn chats with her to take her mind off. *jealous* Carl pulls through surgery ok. THANK GOD. Now get some rest and drink some fluids, Rick. Crying with relief at Carl’s side, Lori asks Shane to stay. He nods. Then he goes upstairs to take a shower. In the bathroom mirror, he notices a patch of hair missing … which, we learn, Otis ripped out during the struggle as Shane shot him and left him for zomb food so that Shane could escape. WHOA! Shane shaves his head to hide the bald spot. Episode ends.

And now, I’m going to shock you: Shane’s actions were understandable.
1. If Shane hadn’t done that, they both would have died, which means Carl would have died.
2. You could argue that Otis had to sacrifice his life in order to save the boy he almost killed.
3. Shane is in love with Lori. He couldn’t let her son die.
Having said all that, I don’t doubt for a second that Shane was just as motivated by his own will to live as much as his desire to save Carl. Mind you, I didn’t say “right,” just “understandable.” Plus, THIS IS ALL CAROL’S FAULT. If she knew how to shoot a damn gun, she could have killed the zombs chasing Sophia, and Carl never would have been shot.

The Walking Dead, 10/23/11

Past! We learn that on the day Rick got shot, he and Lori had had a big fight, but she still loved him.

Present! Rick is running through a field, a bleeding and unconscious Carl in his arms. :( Otis, the rather rotund fellow who shot Carl, is too slow; Rick leaves him and Shane, follows Otis’s yelled directions to a large farmhouse. A doctor, his two daughters, and a young man are there. Rick rushes up. “Was he bit?” Doc asks straightaway. Wise query. Surgery begins immediately. Shane and Otis arrive; Shane wipes Carl’s smeared blood off Rick’s face, calms him down. It’s kind of touching. I really hope Rick never finds out about Shane and Lori. (Although, even if he does, shouldn’t he cut them some slack? They thought he was dead.)



Out in the woods, Andrea assures Carol that Sophia’s probably ok — and Carol, in a moment of incredible insensitivity, says she hopes Sophia doesn’t end up like Amy (Andrea’s recently deceased sister). WTF? Carol hastily apologizes; Andrea initially bristles but handles it well. I, however, would have roundhouse kicked Carol in the face. Andrea tells Carol they’re all hoping and praying with her. Daryl says screw the praying. Sophia’s going to be fine, dammit. Lol. At the farmhouse, Rick is beating himself up about having let Carl accompany him and Shane to search for Sophia. (I hate to agree with him, but …) Shane tells him not to blame himself. Carl, poor little guy, wakes up screaming and struggling during surgery, then, thankfully passes back out again. The doctor digs out one bullet fragment … of six bullet fragments. :( When she’s found, I want somebody to roundhouse kick Sophia in the face.

Back on the highway, T-Dog is in bad shape. His arm wound is infected, leading to some pretty crazy musings. Oh, and we learn his real name: Theodore Douglas. Good. I’m not calling him T-Dog anymore. Sounds like he should have gold teeth and a platinum rap album. Dale suggests they search the cars for antibiotics; they find none. THEODORE says being the only black guy in the group makes his situation pretty precarious (heh) cuz of the “two good ol’ boy cowboy sheriffs and a redneck.” Level-headed Dale reminds him that the redneck saved his life and that the cowboys have been doing a damn good job keeping the group safe. Theodore suggests they hit the road and leave everybody. Dale, realizing something’s wrong, feels Theodore’s head. Dude’s burning up.

Rick’s weak after giving Carl a blood transfusion; despite that, he wants to go get Lori. Shane talks sense into him. Shane is trying really hard to make us all forgive him for the attempted rape. Doc needs to put Carl under to remove the bullet fragments and stop the internal bleeding; he’ll need medical supplies, which Otis says they can find at a high school five miles away, where a FEMA shelter was set up … though it was overrun with zombs last time he saw it. Rick’s too weak, so Shane says he’ll go; Otis, God love him, says he’ll go, too. One of Doc’s daughters asks Rick where to find Lori.


Out in the woods, ZOMB ATTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK! Ok, look. I know that in high-pressure situations, it’s very easy to lose one’s head, but still. Andrea gets a big fat FAIL. First, she stabs the zomb in the chest instead of the head; then she trips and falls. *sigh* Fortunately, at that moment, Doc’s daughter comes galloping up on a horse and clocks the zomb in the head with a baseball bat. Nicely done, daughter!!! (I also want to point out that for somebody pretending to be oh-so suicidal and ready to die, Andrea sure was fighting pretty damn hard to get away.) Daughter tells them Carl got shot, tells the others how to find the farmhouse; then she and Lori ride away. Daryl finishes the zomb off with an arrow to the head. And a “Shut up.” Lol.


At the farmhouse, Doc gives his take on the zombie apocalypse: “Mankind’s been fighting plagues from the start. We get our behinds kicked for a while; then we bounce back.” That’s refreshingly optimistic. I hope there’s a Doc type in my group of survivors, to balance out the doom-and-gloom I-fake-want-to-die Andrea type. Daughter and Lori ride up, Lori and Rick cry over Carl, Rick gives Carl a second transfusion. Rick is now so weak he needs help walking. Let us not forget that 1. Rick’s pretty damn skinny and 2. he just woke up not all that long ago from a pretty lengthy coma. I hope somebody else has Carl’s blood type, cuz one more transfusion and Rick’s going to pass the hell out. After calling Otis “the idiot who shot my son” — Hey, knock it off, Lori. It was a mistake. — Lori’s nonplussed to find out that Doc is a veterinarian. Rick reminds her, before almost passing the hell out, they don’t have the luxury of shopping for surgeons. Well put, Rick. Now please go lie down.

Out on the highway, the group decides to stay put one more night in case Sophia finds her way back. Except Glenn, whom Dale orders to take Theodore to the farmhouse to see if they have any antibiotics — but then Daryl’s all, why didn’t you just say so, and pulls out a Ziploc bag containing “my brother’s stash”: crystal meth, ecstasy, pain killers … and antibiotics, because “Merle got the clap on occasion.” LOL. Thank you, Merle's STD. This is the third time tonight Daryl has LOLed me, and the second time he's saved Theodore's life. Daryl is officially not racist.


At the high school, Otis and Shane find zombs all frigging over the place. Eff! They throw some flares to distract them, and then dart into the FEMA trailer.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!!!! Only one should have gone, then when ready signaled the other, who would then either a. throw more flares to re-distract the zombs or b. drive around in the truck honking the horn all noisy-like and lead the zombs away, allowing the one in the trailer to sneak out, then circle back around and pick him up. (Yes, I totally thought that scenario out. You are supposed to be learning from this show, not just watching it, people.) Not only do Otis and Shane both go, they also don’t have an escape plan. Other than: run. Needless to say, they are bumrushed by zombs. (Otis, I’m glad to see, moves way faster than he did earlier when running after Rick and Carl.) They (barely) manage to lock themselves in a storefront. With a horde of hungry zombs struggling to get in. The episode ends.

How in the HAIL are they going to get out of this?