The Walking Dead: “Sick”

As of twenty four hours ago I was all but sure that I wouldn’t be able to watch The Walking Dead until Monday when it became available on other platforms because, as a Dish customer, AMC has been blocked out since before Breaking Bad started airing its’ fifth season. But then when all hope appeared to be lost, it turned back on like Hershel getting revived after he had been all but left for dead.

Speaking of which; by my count Lori has now made out with 34 different men since the zombie apocalypse has hit. After getting upset at Carl for being the first Grimes family member besides Rick to something useful when he retrieved medical supplies from the infirmary, Lori was able to channel her jealous rage and concentrate it at saving our now beloved old man Hershel. I’m really glad that they were able to save Hershel in this way because that was a thing about zombie movies that had always bugged me in the past when one of the characters would get bit on the ends of one of their limbs. I’m glad Rick had the common sense to chop off the diseased leg before it had a chance to spread to the rest of his body.

Sorry, I got a little ahead of myself there. Let’s get back to the point of when that leg got the ax. After Rick performs surgery our gang is greeted by five inmates that had been trapped in the prison’s cafeteria for ten months, completely cut off from the outside world. The newcomers are curious to say the least. First about who are these nut jobs that came bursting through their door and cut off this old dude’s leg? Secondly, they have been completely out of touch to what has been going on in the world since the outbreak. Clearly Rick and the gang can’t begin to express in words what the world has become. How civility and understanding no longer exist as they once knew it. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Rick doesn’t have the patience or time to deal with attitudes that aren’t along his lines.

And that is why I’m so very proud of the show for the scene where Rick faces off with “new Shane.” In my head I’m already thinking “oh great, Tomas is another bull-headed foe that Rick is going to have to keep at bay for the whole season.” But then they did something so great, something this show has been so hesitant to do in the past. They realized they had a problem and they took care of it. The show runners realized that this kind of character arc didn’t work in the past when we were forced to watch Shane and Rick for an hour 12 times last season. And just like the show runners, Rick too realized this is nonsense so he stared him down, and then he put him down. The zombies are what drew everyone into this show, but scenes like a pissed-off, machete wielding Rick Grimes taking out trouble makers is why we want stick around and watch this story out. Well done The Walking Dead. Well done.

In continuing the new theme of the show having all of its characters do useful things, we see Carol go hunting for some human cadavers to experiment on for when the time comes that Lori needs her C-sections to deliver baby Shane Rick. And when she starts to cut open one her many potential test subjects, we get the view of a something or someone watching her from behind some trees. I won’t speculate too much on this, but based on what I’ve heard from casting news I have strong hunch of what that may be.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.