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.