The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 13: Beside the Dying Fire

"This isn't a democracy any more..."

So that’s the explosive finale all done and dusted; after so many episodes with Herschell’s farm as a sanctuary it’s all over, just like that, and just because an unstoppable herd of zombies happens to pass by. So now I’ve finished Season 2 I can go back and finish other series where I’m midway through a season before blogging any other non-current telly- namely Buffy, Angel, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and Game of Thrones.

What an episode, though, truly drawing a line under the season just gone while also pointing forward- who was that hooded figure with the two pet zombies who saved Andrea from certain death by zombie in the woods? What is that massive complex of buildings just behind everybody at the end?

But this is zombie action from the get go and it’s clear that this is it: Rick doesn’t even have time to answer Carl’s awkward question about how Shane died before zombies try to overrun them. There are confused scenes as people fight, panic, don’t know who’s alive and dead, and finally flee. All the minor characters, predictably, die. Herschel tried to go down defending his farm before Rick saves him and there are a number of superb set pieces in the best zombie action we’ve seen all season; can we have more of this in future please?

Glen finally mans up and tells Maggie that he loves her, predictably in a moment of brief respite from the peril. Everyone manages to rendezvous successfully, with Darryl being as competent, gruff and casually racist as ever. But what do they do now? This is made worse by Lori’s reaction to Rick’s confession that he kills Shane. This later leads to an extraordinary outburst from Rick to the whole group, openly telling everyone what he did, how he feels and exactly what they can go and do if they disagree. It’s an acting tour de force from Andrew Lincoln.

The season ends on a high. But I’ve mixed feelings about The Walking Dead. It’s well-written, shotcand acted, but by its nature it’s a format with limited scope, and I’m not sure I’ve enjoyed it all that much, as you can see by the slow pace of how I’ve watched this season. Will I return to blog future seasons? Let’s see.

The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 12: Better Angels

"This was you, not me!"

SPOILERS

It's the penultimate episode, and we begin with Dale's funeral oration. Dale was the group's heart, and is a true loss. He had a complex relationship with many- Glenn, certainly Andrea, and of course Carl, racked with guilt over his part in Dale's death, but he was in many ways the antithesis of Shane who, of course, shows his true colours and dies this episode. Yay!

Everyone is moving inside the house; at last the two groups are one. Lori has one last heart-to-heart with Shane, revealing that the baby she is carrying could be his; she just doesn't know. In hindsight this conversation could have hinted to me that Shane would die now, and not in the finale, but I remained oblivious.

We have a father and son talk between Rick and Carl that is simultaneously heartwarming and incredibly bleak: what kind of childhood can Carl expect, waiting until his parents probably die, and himself probably unlikely to survive to adulthood? It's symbolic when Rick hands him back the gun; he must put away childish things and be a man.

And so we come to Shane's devious yet probably opportunistic plot to kill Rick, and the final standoff where Shane pulls the gun on Rick and calls him a weak husband and father. And yet it's Rick who finally has the guts to kill, stabbing Shane with a knife. Not coldly, though; it upsets him to have to kill, but he does what he must.

The final scenes feel exactly right; Carl has secretly seen what happened, and pulls a gun, saving Rick from zombie Shane. This is a superb episode in which we wave goodbye to a superb villain, brilliantly portrayed by Jon Bernthal. Roll on the finale...

The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 8: Nebraska

"Get him off my land!"

It's the morning after the night before, and the shocking events, as the second season recommended in sober mood- although not necessarily with literal sobriety in the case of Herschel. Carol mourns poor Sophia, with Daryl also pretty damn upset. Shane continues to be a dangerously arrogant twat whose presence Herschel cannot tolerate, yet Herschel is desperately needed so that Lori's pregnancy can not be a death sentence. Fortunately Rick connects a little with Herschel in a bar; the formerly teetotal farmer has fallen off the wagon with the realisation that zombies are, in fact, not curable people but monsters, and that there is seemingly no hope.

Interestingly (foreshadowingly, perhaps, if that's an adjective), the main threat here is not from Zombies at all but from two random blokes in a bar and, of course, from Shane. Civilisation has broken down, a terrifying thing in itself.

On a more pleasant note Maggie declares her love for Glenn, but the young man seems not to be mature enough to deal with this. I expect that, after the birth of Lori's baby, she'll choose to leave with the gang. But Fort Benning is gone; where can they possibly go to?

We're clearly leading up to a massive showdown with Shane, who surely cannot survive the season. I fear, though, for Dale. I also wonder, well-written though the characters are, how we can possibly fill another four episodes before this happens.

The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 4: Cherokee Rose

"I'll have sex with you!"

There's an uplifting beginning to this more contemplative and less intense episode as Carl wakes, and he's ok. God-bothering patrician type Herschel conducts a moving Christian funeral for Otis which includes the inevitable awkward moment for Shane. But, underneath it all, Sophia is still missing, and it's been so long. We, being seasoned viewers of television, are quite aware that so much narrative time being spent on the search for her is unlikely to end in an anticlimax, but the characters don't. So it's fitting that the title of the episode refers to a moving gesture of hope from Daryl to Melissa.

Rick manages to negotiate with Herschel for his tribe to stay there for a while, and there's a spot of bother with a zombie in a well. Lori seems to be pregnant, and Maggie and Glenn take advantage of a rare bit of privacy to have a bit of a shag, taking what joy they can from their bleak and likely short existences. Still, both of these things recognise that life goes on.

Still, whose baby is it? Another brilliant episode, and this is shaping up to be another excellent season.

The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 3: Save the Last One

"Call that payback for laughing about my itchy ass..."

Sophia is still missing and it's all getting rather concerning. Still, it would be an anti-climax after all this for her simply to have suffered death by zombie. Meanwhile we end the episode by seeing a very dark side to Shane, via flashback, as he shoots the brave and resourceful Otis, after many close scrapes and what seems like a genuine friendship, as soon as he becomes a liability. Shane is getting darker and darker and will surely get his comeuppance before the season is over.

Meanwhile, Dale and T-Bone join the rest at Herschel's farm as Lori and Rick debate whether, given Carl's dire situation, this is a world for children to live in any more. Is it cruel to propagate the species now that there can no longer be such a thing as a true childhood?

In the event Carl survives, but the argument still resonates. Elsewhere Glenn and Maggie seem to connect, and we see a hanged zombie with half-eaten legs, the result of a stupidly done suicide. It's the image of the episode but it is Carl's survival and Shane's perfidy that linger. Another superb episode.

The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 2: Bloodletting

"Am I the only one zen around here?"

This episode deals with the awful aftermath of a traumatic event, as Rick, Shane and their new acquaintances- mainly Maggie, Herschel (fortunately and conveniently a medic) and guilt-ridden shooter Otis- struggle chaotically to save Carl's life while, elsewhere, the rest of the gang continue their increasingly desperate search for Sophia; suffer the little children indeed. Only Daryl is calm and quietly optimistic, and he should know.

It's brace to introduce new cast members under such conditions, perhaps, but this helps to flesh out Herschel as a calming and authoritative presence at a time when Rick is unable to be those things.

There's a nice contrast at the start, with a flashback of Carl having to be told about Rick's shooting being contrasted with the reverse. It's clear that the lad may not live although, you know, this is a television drama and we all know the tropes.

Meanwhile, T-Bone is injured from last episode, and we're reminded that he could die without antibiotics, a diminishing resource as the trappings of civilisation continue to slip away. Carl can only be saved if a perilous journey is undertaken to take medical supplies from under the noses of loads of zombies; this falls to Shane and a conscience-stricken Otis.

Maggie manages to find the tribe and have everyone (aside from Sophia, of course, and both Dale and T-Bone at the motorhome) arrive at the house, meaning that keeping track of the characters becomes a fair bit easier for the writer. We get a nice chat between Herschel and Rick- Herschel is confident that the zombie outbreak is just a big disease and will eventually come to an end- and an interesting revelation: he's a vet, not a doctor!

We end this typically superb episode with Shane and Otis seemingly under siege...

The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 1: What Lies Ahead

"This gross bastard had himself a woodchuck for lunch"

We start the season with the tribe in a desperate situation, as we hear via Rick's walkie talkie message to Morgan (I'm sure we'll see him again, but for now this is a handy excuse for a bit of exposition). They have ahead of them an exodus of a hundred miles across potential zombie territory with absolutely no way of maintaining their vehicles other than what they can do themselves. Many, including Rick, are teetering on the edge of losing faith.

There's a great set piece for the episode of everyone hiding behind beer eath various vehicles from a passing herd of zombies, with some very close calls. And, as part of this, twelve year old Sophia gets lost in the woods shortly after Rick has saved her but had to leave to deal with the zombie. It says a lot for this show that we all feel the agonised hope and despair of the tribe as they search for her without any success, but Daryl Dixon turns out to be quietly amazing, with his tracking skills and his temperament.

We also hear of Andrea's resentment towards Dale for presuming to thwart her attempted suicide under such a hopeless background- perhaps she has a point. The gang end up in. Church where, cruelly, Sophia's mother Carol reveals in her prayer that she feels she's being punished for wishing her abuser husband dead. But the final moments are of beauty, in the form of a deer, and shock, as Carl is shot...

This is gripping and bloody good telly.

The Walking Dead- Season 1, Episode 6: TS-19

"This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event."

This is a fascinatingly different and daringly philosophical finale, first allowing the characters a much-deserved break with safety, wine, hot showers and area scientific revelations- zombies are not the same individual as the person they replaced- but we are brought down to Earth hard; this sanctuary, like all science, technology and culture, is seemingly moribund, and this sanctuary has only a few days before, inevitably, the power runs out- and the place blows up.

It's a nice examination of the philosophy behind the show in a one-episode microcosm. Another point that arises is, of course, whether or not there's any point in continuing to live if the future is so bleak and unpleasant.  Is there any hope? Rick and Andrea are on opposite sides here, and there's a powerful scene where Dale essentially mansplains Andrea out of suicide.

We also get a flashback of the "event" from Shane's POV, and a scene where he tries to rape Lori, an act which immediately and permanently loses him the sympathy of the viewer and probably makes his death next season inevitable; that's an actual prediction. We also get theheartbreaking revelation that the French came close to a cure before- what else?- the power ran out.

This is a powerful and extraordinary episode, where the CDC building's falling apart is a rather apt metaphor. But we end with a superb and deeply appropriate Bob Dylan track...

The Walking Dead- Season 1, Episode 5: Wildfire

"I bet there isn't even a single son of a bitch out there listening, is there?"

This episode consists of a desperate exodus over dozens of miles, to an uncertain promised land (the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta) with a great deal of faith required: it's not difficult to see a religious subtext here. It's also an episode defined by moving scenes of the wounded and infected Jim  volunteering to be left behind to face certain death out of sheer selflessness. As is becoming habitual for this show, these scenes are dwelt upon, with lots of lingering for the camera, but the script is nicely restrained in letting us decide for ourselves how we ought to feel about it. That's a sign of quality.

It's a superb episode for character development generally as these individuals continue to be fleshed out more and more. Andrea's vigil by Amy's corpse, and her insistence on personally shooting the zombie as it wakes in her sister's body, is handled no less superbly than is Jim's death. Death brings out character in a way few things do. It's an episode about the human side of undeath.

We end with our friends, surrounded and seemingly doomed, being allowed into the CDC by a mysterious scientists whose desperate broadcasts we have been made privy to throughout. It seems the finale will explore new ground, but if this is anything to go by then it will probably be excellent.

The Walking Dead- Season 1, Episode 3: Tell It to the Frogs

"I miss my vibrator!"

After a couple of episodes of set-up we settle down and get to know our now-larger cast a little better while we explore the human dimension of how the little post-apocalyptic tribe is functioning- the reassertion of traditional gender roles, in spite of resistance, is depressingly realistic, as is the domestic abuse and the reaction of the abused party to Shane giving the prick the beating he deserves ("I'm sorry, Ed!"). We also see Merle realising the full horror of his situation and starting to escape, but his full fate is uncertain.

Rick slowly integrates himself into the community, helped considerably by the fact that his wife and son are already part of it. There is awkwardness; Shane and Lori have to discreetly end their relationship, while both Rick and T-Bone have a confession to make to Merle's hunter brother Daryl, leading to Rick doing the honourable thing and offering to join Daryl, T-Bone and Glenn on a rescue mission. It's a good narrative way for him to earn the trust of the whole tribe.

We end, as might be expected, with Merle's fate still unknown, but it's becoming increasingly clear, now that the writing has time to breathe, just how good the characterisation of this show is. I think I'm going to enjoy it.

The Walking Dead- Season 1, Episode 2: Guts

"You're the new sheriff come riding in to clean up the town?"

Rick isn't alone any more as we're introduced to our new supporting cast; we have Rick's saviour, the young and plucky Glenn; the cynical Andrea; the quiet and wary T-Bone; the loud racist redneck Merle Dixon, and what I presume to be a couple of redshirts . All of them are trapped in a department store in central Atlanta under siege from zombies. This is a trope if ever there was one, and a chance for Rick to prove himself to his new gang. Again, though, tropes have their uses; they cut down on an awful lot of exposition.

Meanwhile, back at camp, Lori and Carl are alive- and the assumed widow Lori is now sleeping with Shane. That's a bit awkward. At the mall, though, as needed for the narrative, Rick saves everyone by thinking outside the box. A good thing, too, as it was him who put them in danger, but it's all a good bonding experience. But Merle's racist thuggishness means he's cuffed to the top of the building as the zombies attack. He's doomed, surely?

What else? Rick sees a helicopter, which I'm sure will be relevant later. But we're still in the realm of set-up, albeit damn good set-up.