THEY'RE ALL COMING BACK
'Red Widow' Gets The Axe
'The Walking Dead' Season 2, Episode 7 Recap
by Mike Ryan, posted Nov 27th 2011 10:05PM
['The Walking Dead' - 'Pretty Much Dead Already']Hey, zombies are human, too! Well, I guess not, as Shane so eloquently demonstrates with a couple of well placed rounds through the heart. Honestly, why does the voice of reason on this show have to be such an asshole? Yes, Shane has become the voice of reason. And not just because he was 100 percent right about the walkers in the barn being dangerous – I mean, look at the risk Rick and Hershel took while trying to "guide" those two walkers into the barn. But, without Shane, we'd still be watching a show about a group looking for a lost girl in the woods. It took seven episodes to find her. They did find her. At least that's over.
Yes, that was a great ending. I've enjoyed a couple other episodes, but the ending to tonight's half-season finale, if you will, was the first time that I felt any real amount of emotion. If this is a taste of what a post-Darabont 'The Walking Dead' will be like, sign me up. In other words: Things happened!
There was a strange sense of urgency in this episode that I hadn't seen so far this season. The first example was when Glenn explained to the group that there were walkers in the barn: There was absolutely no beating around the bush. "The barn is full of walkers" -- boom! Done! Now off to the fallout. The second example is the relationship between Maggie and Glenn: Maggie is pretty furious at Glenn for the entire episode, but one cliché about how he'd rather she be alive and mad than dead and happy -- boom! Done! OK, sure, this time around, that was a pretty, um, quick change of heart. But who cares? There was a lot going on in this episode and wasting more time on a lovers' spat helps nobody.
Carl shouted, "bullshit!," at Shane. Good for Carl.
Sophia. I have grown to hate Sophia over the last seven episodes because, now, over 54 percent of all episodes ever created of 'The Walking Dead' are about her – even though she's had about three minutes of screen time this season. Granted, that was a great payoff. Was it worth it? Was it worth sacrificing over half of the season for that payoff? I don't think so. I think they could have spent two full episodes searching for her and still have the same emotional resonance of what we experienced at the end of this episode. More, actually.
What if Sophia had disappeared during the fourth episode and not the first? What if the first three episodes of the season were used to build the relationship between Sophia and Carl – really create the sense that there's definitely some puppy love brewing between the two. By the time Carl shouted, "bullshit," at Shane, we would have really understood why. But, instead, we were left with an irrational mother – who has every reason in the world to be irrational – with the rest of the group and the audience giving a collective shrug. But, if we had really gotten to know Sophia over the first part of this season, I really think that the scene of Rick putting a bullet through her head would have delivered an even more emotional sock to the chest.
So! We're off until February. Where do we go from here? Do we just assume that Hershel will evict Rick's group? Is there a chance that Hershel, after watching Rick kill Sophia, will come to the conclusion that, yes, these things are not human any longer. In other words: Rick put his money where his mouth is. His group had just slaughtered what Hershel regarded as friends and family, so there was certainly not even a choice in the matter of Sophia. And what does the group think of Shane? Dale's certainly not a fan. Daryl isn't either, but they seemed to make some amends when Shane was handing out guns. Regardless! Even though the Sophia storyline ended on a high note, narrative wise, the Sophia storyline is officially, thankfully, over. Let's just hope that the post Darabont era of 'The Walking Dead' knows where it's going – or that it at least goes somewhere.
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