Series creator Robert Kirkman made his debut this evening as a writer of teleplays with tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead and I must say I was quite pleased with the result.

After having left Merle, a racist redneck, handcuffed to a pipe on the top of a building and left to die, Rick, Glenn and T-Dogg (really?) feel compelled to go back to rescue Merle with his hot-headed, but ultimately badass, younger brother, Daryl.  The ending of episode 3 brought the group to the rooftop where it turns out Merle has amputated his own hand in order to survive.

This episode has the group following his blood trail, but they’re jumped by a group of Latin gang members.

There are those I was watching the episode with that checked out right at that moment.  The episode jumped the shark for a lot of people at that point (if reactions via Twitter are to be believed), but I was into the story, hook, line, and sinker.

The gang members kidnap Glenn (who is probably my favorite on the show, making his likely death all the more bittersweet) and a standoff ensues.

The thing I love about this show is that it ties me up in knots while I’m watching it.  It’s stressful.  I get way too involved in who is going to live and who is going to die.  I truly feel like I have a stake in the survival of the characters.  When things turn out better than expected, I’m relieved.  When things go to hell, I really feel like I’m ready to vomit.

When all hell broke loose on this episode, all I could say over and over again was, “Aw, shit.”

Now that we’re on the back end of season one, heading toward the finale, I feel like we’re getting to know the characters better and better, and they’re giving us plenty of reasons to enjoy the show.  The highlights are obviously Glenn and Dale, two of my favorite characters from the comics.  The parts have been cast perfectly and they are being played to perfection by Steven Yuen and Jeffery DeMunn.  And they get fleshed out just a little bit at a time as each episode goes by.

Kirkman and Darabont have been providing plenty of departures from the source material so far, not enough to be off-putting and just enough to keep the audience on the edge of their seat.  Merle is one of those things, to be sure.

Sure, there was a big climax here, a zombie attack and things are changing for the group, but Merle is on the loose still.  Rick and his group don’t just have the walkers to worry about, Merle is out there and full of piss and vinegar, ready to kill.

And that cliffhanger is probably one of the best this show has offered us so far, that nauseating sense of uncertainty.

In summation, though some might think it faltered, I think this was a great episode and is going to leave us a lot of interesting opportunities for the last two episodes of the season.

Now that we’re done, I want to take a moment and make some predictions about this season, and this is spoiler territory for those who have not yet read the comic book, so stay away if you haven’t:

My guess is that this season is going to end with Carl killing Shane.

It makes a lot of sense.  It happens early on in the comics. People seem to hate the idea of the love-triangle that’s being played into and there’s much more interesting stuff to come on that front with this relationship.  And Shane is becoming more and more a loose cannon and a dick-headed lawman with each episode.

And wouldn’t that be a perfect book end and a lost shot of the season?

Episode One opened with Rick killing a little girl zombie.  Wouldn’t it make perfect sense to reverse the imagery and have a little boy killing a healthy adult for the bookend?

Who knows.  It’s a theory.  We’ll see.

What do you guys think?