Last night’s episode illustrates perhaps the single largest departure from the source material in this inaugural season of The Walking Dead and carries on with one of Robert Kirkman’s specialties: the long forgotten dangling thread.

Let me begin by saying that the craft of this show is second to none.  I’d watch a lot more TV if it were all crafted this carefully and with actual story arcs.  Perhaps that’s why I loved LOST so much, is that you couldn’t simply watch it in any order like a sitcom, it brought you from point A to point B in a very specific fashion.  The Walking Dead is exactly the same way and once they’ve moved forward, the characters can’t move back.  Each of their actions have consequences, every decision is difficult, and all of the characters are expendable.

I loved the drama in this episode more than most of the others.  Andrea dealing with her sister’s death and Carol dealing with that of her husband were probably two of the most honest and contrasting character moments I’ve ever seen on television.

Jim was another character that we had to watch make terrible decisions about their fate where there were no good options.  But the most interesting thing about this early stage in the long term survival in the group is to see who has come to terms with the new morality they’re dealing with and who is still living in the old world.  Jim has been bitten and there are two different reactions: Rick wants to get him healed, Daryl wants to kill him outright.

Rick being seen as a leader wins this argument and sends the group on a journey to the CDC, where there could be a cure.  If there’s a cure anywhere, it would be at the Centers for Disease Control, right?

Shane isn’t on board with this decision and it leads to perhaps my favorite moment in the show thus far.  If you haven’t seen the episode, you’ll know the one I mean.

If you have seen it:

It’s the moment where Shane is pointing his gun through the woods at Rick, ready to kill him and he looks over to see that Dale is watching him, horrified.  The look on Dale’s face is perfect.

The entire cast works perfectly.

The major departure this episode made from the source material was with their arrival at the CDC and the doors to the spaceship, as it were, opening up.

I’ve talked to some people who haven’t liked this departure much, but I think there’s a method to the madness.  Those of us that have been reading the comic understand that there is no end in sight.  Rick and the group aren’t going to magically find a cure or someone to help.  Their fight for survival is forever.  And to see them come to the one place in the United States that might have a cure and see it staffed by one guy whose most promising lead was burned up by a computer is going to signal to these people that the world is never going to be the same.

It’s a very, very smart move.

Which leads me to my predictions, past and present.

Last week I speculated that the season might end with the confrontation between Carl and Shane.  I’m not so sure anymore.  Shane is a threat, and he’ll need to be dealt with, but we’re still forgetting the long forgotten dangling thread from the beginning of the season: Merle.

Merle was left for dead by Rick and had to cut his own hand off to survive.  He made it away and his fate has been completely uncertain beyond his theft of the truck used by the crew sent to rescue him.  Rick left a note for Morgan about where they were heading, and what better way to let Merle know where they’re headed for him to exact his vengeance?

Having said all of that, the thing I love about Robert Kirkman’s writing is that he usually doesn’t give you what you expect, and when you do finally get something you expect, it’s so sick and twisted that it ties you up in knots.  These are what I like to call “Kirkman” moments.  Since I’ve been reading his books for years, I’m well accustomed to them, but some of you may not know.  A Kirkman moment is when you reach the end of an issue (or an episode in this case) and it leaves you with such a drastic feeling of “What the hell?” that you shake your fist to the sky and shout “Damn you, Kirkman!”

It happens a lot.

And I think it’ll be twice as bad because usually there’s not more than a couple of months between issues.  As of this point, we have 11 months after next weeks episode to wait for another episode.

Hopefully, AMC will have mercy on us and give us an entire season next year in the middle of the year, and another season at the beginning of 2012.