The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 11: Judge Jury, Executioner

"They're gonna kill me, right?

Spoilers. You have been warned.

This is one of the best types of episodes of The Walking Dead: all about a big ethical dilemma now that civilisation has ended. Randall is a threat, as Daryl discovers by, er, torturing him. He has thirty well-armed rapist mates. So should the group kill him for the sake of their own safety?

Dale's view is a principled "no". Everyone else's view consists of multiple variations and degrees of "yes" because the group must be protected from the threat. My own view is, perhaps, more nuanced; in any civilised society, Dale would be right. But civilisation has literally ended; humanity is literally now living in small, palaeolithic-type bands, struggling to survive and struggling, beyond that, to pass on any inkling of modern tech, knowledge and philosophy. The aim is therefore not to behave according to a state of civilisation that no longer exists but to survive, and do what you can to contribute to the hopeful rebuilding of a civilisation where such acts are not done. For now, though, the group probably need to kill him, as quickly and humanely as possible. And feel awful about it, because to feel ok about it would be inhuman.

This is also a huge character episode, of course. Dale dies, courtesy of a lone and foreshadowed zombie, thinking the worst of everyone. There's a touching scene where Herschel shows Glen that he accepts him as his daughter's partner. Daryl hints gruffly to Dale that he doesn't much approve of Shane's psycho tendencies. The female characters are all a bit disappointingly passive in this testosterone-fuelled episode. Carl's behaviour is getting to be a bit of a worry. And the subtle joshing between Rick and Shane for the position of alpha male is getting close to a climax. Shane admits to Andrea that he wants to be boss, and Rick has lost face by not going through with shooting Randall.

A definite uptick in quality, then, although next episode could do with a bit more oestrogen.

The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 9: Triggerfinger

"Rick? I keep you safe!"

These last episodes are a contrast between Rick and Shane as rival alpha males; Shane as the volatile and guilt-ridden disturbed individual who would do well as an analogue for Trump, and Rick as the decent man burdened by a conscience, honest enough to try and reason with a bunch of hostile gunmen having killed their friends in self-defence, sympathetic to Herschel and willing to save the life of an injured man whose friends had tried to kill him. It's a straight choice between them in a world where other humans can be as deadly as zombies. So far Dale is definitely for Rick but Andrea, horrifyingly, is under Shane's spell. Lori is coming to see through him very easily by now, but he wants her and is convinced the baby is his. I have a good idea where the season is going.

Meanwhile Glenn continues to be horribly immature about Maggie declaring her love for him, and Herschel is beginning to return to his old self, although he's certainly no friend of Shane's.

This is an episode of foreboding-laden set-up for Shane doing something bad; it's clear that he's the big bad of the season. This is the best episode in a while.

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 7: Pretty Much Dead Already

"Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!"

This is the half-season finale. Knowing this tells us it's going to be heavy and dramatic. And it is; from the moment at the start where Glenn cracks and tells the whole gang that there's a "barn full of walkers" it's inevitable that the two groups are going to be sundered apart and it isn't going to be nice.  But the final moments are not predictable at all.

Things are downbeat. Rick has to beg Herschel to let them all stay; childbirth on the run without medical supplies would be a death sentence. But with Shane around and the inevitable upcoming conflict it's all hopeless. And even Carol is losing hope in finding Sophia, much to Daryl's discuss. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.

Yes, Maggie argues with her dad to let them all stay and yes, she sort of reconciles with Glenn, but these are slim pickings in a gloriously doom-laden episode. Shane is increasingly unhinged and,hearing about the baby, is sure that it is his. That's bound to cause friction later. There are signs of John st how far gone he is as he hands out guns in open defiance of the principled Herschell's wishes, and there's an atmosphere of deep foreboding until Shane starts to shoot and kill all the zombies in the arm. The most horrible thing is saved till last, though- one of them is Sophia, and Carol has to watch as Rick shoots down the thing that she has become...

This half-season has gone on far too long. But this episode, at least, is magnificent.

The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 6: Secrets

"There's walkers in the barn and Lori's pregnant!"

This is an episode of revelations and, again, a very well written treatment of the characters but... isn't this season going awfully slowly?

We now know why Herschel wants Rick and co to leave so quickly- he's keeping his zombie family members in the barn from a heartrendingly stubborn belief that they're just sick people who can one day be cured- an attitude that has been much hinted at; he's a good man, but not the kind of good man this new world needs. Especially as Glenn is pants at keeping secrets.

There's an underlying theme here, established visually at the start, of carnivorousness and the food chain, an ominous metaphor. This apparent stability at the farm now seems all the more illusory with all these secrets. It's hard to adjust to this new world, as we see with Lori and Rick arguing over whether Carl should learn to shoot- and whether Lori should keep the baby. It's unquestionably Rick's; her angst, it seems, is far more existential. What sort of life could the baby have? Yet humanity must endure.

Maggie is furious at Glenn and therefore, this being TV drama with all its attendant tropes, ends up aggressively kissing him as the prelude to some no doubt angry sex. Shane, fresh from kissing his shooting pupil Andrea, is accused by Dale of not telling the truth about Otis; showing a truly dark side. I doubt either of them will survive the season.

It's a heartwarming ending, though, with Lori and Rick coming to terms over the baby- and he knows, of course he does, about her and Shane, and understands. Rick is a good man.

All this is plenty of evidence of good writing, I suppose. I just wish something would happen.

The Walking Dead- Season 2, Episode 5: Chupacabra

"Don't be too hard on yourself. We've all wanted to shoot Daryl."

Again we begin with a flashback, this time of Lori, Shane and Carl making their way away from the many others fleeing and observing as Atlanta gets napalmed. It makes you appreciate the sheer horror of events while Rick was asleep and how they were just trying to do what was best. It's a contrast to the present day where a darker, balder, nastier Shane wants to give up the search for Sophia.

Where is Sophia? This sub-plot is being dragged out so long that she can't simply be dead. Daryl is certainly dedicated to finding her, leading to his accident and his getting unfortunately shot by Andrea. Worst of all, he has a hallucination of his deeply unpleasant brother that feels, at first, as though Merle is genuinely back. Foreshadowing?

There's a fascinating conversation between Dale and Glenn which illustrates, again, how women's rights have gone backwards, subtly and otherwise, since civilisation ended. Maggie is a grown woman, but Dale is terrified that Glenn may have offended their host Herschel by sleeping with his daughter Maggie. She is, in a sense, property; that's the implication.

We end with an awkward dinner showcasing tension between the two groups, and Glenn discovering that Herschell is keeping a bunch of zombies in a hidden place. It's quite a cliffhanger, and quite a well-crafted plot line as ever, but this season is beginning to feel a little too slow-paced.

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 4: Vatos

"Admit it, you only came back to Atlanta for the hat."

These are still early days for this fledgling show, and each episode is unveiling more and more about this post-apocalyptic show and what it can do. This one plays a trick that can only be done once early: there's another group of humans nearby (it'll be interesting to find out how common this is) and, while at first they seem threatening, they are only being that way out of charity towards their elderly patients. They know that, in the long run, they are all doomed, but as they await their inevitable fate they do the right thing. It's all very noble.

We begin with a bit of bonding between sisters Andrea and Amy, which ought to give us a pretty strong hint that not both of them will survive the episode. Another subtext here is, of course, traditional gender roles as touched on last episode; fishing is traditionally men's work, and the sisters are causing a bit of friction with the more reactionary of the menfolk.

Meanwhile, Jim is going a bit peculiar and digging a load of graves in a vaguely supernatural
Premonition of the zombie attack on the camp that is coming at the end of the episode. This is shocking when it comes, and the death of Amy on the eve of her birthday is utterly heartbreaking. Her death, in a nice touch, is properly dwelt upon and given meaning, not least by a lingering camera, but the gang ends the episode homeless, fleeing in a motorhome...

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.