The reason I like The Walking Dead, both the comic book series and the television show, is that it ties me up in knots. A good issue or episode will keep me sick from intensity, almost like I’m ready to throw up.
I don’t want to have to be in situations that would cause that feeling myself, but I love when a piece of finely crafted art can force those feelings from me, without even trying too hard. Perhaps I invest too much of myself into a story when I decide I like it. At the point where I decide I’m all in, I trust the ride it’s going to take me on and I’ll probably like the end result (like LOST). And unless it gets just completely godawful (the way Heroes did) I’ll stick it through to the end.
As far as The Walking Dead is concerned, I’ve never been given a reason to whine or complain. Every episode, no matter how long they’ve stayed in one place or stagnated as a group, it’s been for a reason. The writers on this show are much more clever than people give them credit for. This entire season has been an epic, stakes-raising game that led directly to this episode. That we’re getting another after this is just icing on the cake.
This episode begins with Dale’s funeral and takes us all the way to the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Carl killing Shane.
Perhaps more has happened in this episode than any other in the season, and it felt like someone lit a fuse and we just had to watch the fireworks. This episode is about very, very hard choices. That’s what the whole series is about. And I think we’ve seen Rick at his absolute lowest now. It’ll take a lot of doing to bring him lower.
But all the credit for the impact this episode had goes to Jon Bernthal. He is an amazing actor and I’ve loved to hate him over the last season. He’s caused problems, made terrible decisions, driven wedges into the group, and now he’s tried to kill their leader. His constant manipulation of situations to get them to play out exactly how he feels they should go finally bit him in the ass and the group will be better for it.
This episode was a carefully constructed piece of music, building to a crescendo that played out beautifully, but the musical notes were tensed emotions and the cymbals crashing were lives at stake. Plenty of things have come to light that need to be discussed with the group (Shane’s plot, they’re all infected, etc.) but that is just going to have to wait.
In classic Walking Dead fashion, the bullet that saved Rick’s life from zombie Shane is also the shot heard ’round the woods, calling a herd of walkers down on the farm.
Just because Shane is dead, it doesn’t mean things are going to get any easier. Will the season finale be the episode that puts the group back on the road and off of Hershel’s farm? Or will be left hanging until October?
We’ll just have to wait until next week to find out.
On a side note: I want to speak to some comments that were made on my review of last week’s episode. There are two things that are completely surprising to me about this show. The first is that there seems to be a contingent of conservative Walking Dead viewers who couldn’t empathize in the least with Dale’s calls for humanity, but actually revelled in his death because “liberals have somehow convinced people [that] standing by and not stopping those crimes is fine.” That comment was particularly scary to me and I think for obvious reasons.
The other thing that I still can’t wrap my head around is that there are people who only watch this show because there are zombies on it, and if there aren’t zombies, or not enough zombies, they couldn’t care less. This is a drama. This is essentially a soap opera. Zombies are the canvas this story of survival is being painted on. Embrace it. Care about the characters. That’s the point. Don’t get upset if there’s an episode that deals with the relationships of the characters. Because THAT’S what this show is about. Not zombies.
If you don’t like that, fine.
But don’t complain to me that there aren’t enough zombies, just go re-watch Zack Snyder’s mindless, soulless Dawn of the Dead remake one more time.
This show is much more mature than that and I’m grateful of that fact.