The Walking Dead returns after a several month break with episode eight, titled “Nebraska.” It started off well, slumped down into boring land, and then took a sharp right back into interesting town for the end, bookending the episode with goodness to make viewers want to come back for more and forget about all the filler crap in the middle. Let’s see what Dale has to say.
Action Chick, I ever tell you I can play the Sousaphone? It’s been a while, but if we find one lying around I bet I could squirt out a few notes. Y’think we’ll find a sousaphone lying around here?
Thanks, Dale. Now for what happened:
Beware Spoilers From Here on Out
Here’s What Happened:
Sophia (Madison Lintz) has finally been found and yep, she’s a zombie. Rick (Andrew Lincoln) blows her brains out as everyone stops to process what’s happening. All right, maybe this half of season 2 is gonna be all about kicking ass! Wait, no, we’re back to the talking. Hershel (Scott Wilson) demands that the group leaves his property at once. Shane (Jon Bernthal) goes a little crazy with power and rants to Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) about how he’s a hero because he saved Carl (Chandler Riggs) and how great it was that he opened the barn door and found Sophia.
The group then holds a service for their lost loved ones before loading the rest of the walker corpses to be burned. Everyone argues over whether or not opening the barn was the right thing to do while Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Glenn (Steven Yeun) discuss him having to leave soon.
Herschel disappears and Rick just has to go after him partly because he feels responsible, partly because he’s a busybody, and partly because he needs Hershel’s help to deliver Lori’s baby. So he and Glenn are off to town while Carol (Melissa Suzanne McBride) walks around aimlessly depressed about Sophia. Shane shows a little bit of compassion by telling her he didn’t know Sophia was in the barn and that he was just trying to protect everyone.
Dale tells Lori that he thinks Shane sacrificed Otis to save himself, revealing the one big secret he knew and reducing his immediate usefulness to almost nil. Hey, Dale, every time you open your mouth, you’re chipping away at your chances of survival, buddy.
One of Herschel’s group, the “barely has a name and isn’t an important character” girl, goes into shock after the barn incident, so Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) decides Hershel would know what to do. She asks Daryl to go after Rick who went after Hershel and bring them all back. Daryl (Norman Reedus), who actually has some sense, yells at Lori that he isn’t their gopher boy anymore and she should go get them herself. She calls him selfish, and he says he took a bullet and an arrow looking for Sophia and that he has done his part. Go, Daryl!
However, Lori being the dumb dumb that she is, takes off in a car by herself to go get Rick – which raises the question: Why does anyone have to “go get Rick?” He said he’d come back when he found Hershel. It’s not like they’re going to go out for lunch and go shopping all day, so just be patient, woman! While driving, she hits a zombie and flips her car over several times before coming to a stop.
Nice driving, Lori. Way to make us women drivers look good.
Rick and Glenn find Hershel in a bar and they talk about what a fool he was/still is. They just about come to the conclusion that there is no hope for any of them when two unknown people walk in. The group’s population was getting rather thin, so they just had to introduce some new characters…not.
The two new guys tell them there is no way out of the mess and all the “safe places” are overrun by zombies. They ask to stay at the farm and Rick says no, and that there’s no room. Hmm… sounds like Rick’s being a little bit of a hypocrite. Regardless, tensions rise as the two newcomers don’t care for being turned away. Now, if it had been Shane instead of Rick having this conversation, those two guys would have bullet holes—OMG! He did shoot them!!!! Rick! He kills the two sleazy guys rather than be forced to share the farm with them. And poor Glenn is stuck with another secret!
Likes:
- The return of Dale face 3.0.
- Andrea earning her keep by impaling a zombie through the head with a scythe.
- Daryl yelling at Lori to go get Rick herself because he was done being their errand boy.
- Lori crashing the car because it took her out of the rest of the episode.
- Rick growing some balls and shooting two guys!
Dislikes:
- The Walking Dead never fails to fail in the action department. The whole episode is spent talking about what happened last episode. Yes, we know what happened last episode, we saw it all last episode.
- Lori tends to be annoying and a little dim-witted, but this episode took the cake with her whole ‘driving after Rick even though he was coming back’ routine.
- Dale being a gossip.
- What’s-her-face being melodramatic and going into shock. No-one cares if you’re in shock, lady! You’ve barely been in the show!
This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!
If you missed this episode, you can watch it online for free at AMC:
http://www.amctv.com/the-walking-dead/videos/episode-208-the-walking-dead
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As soon as they cut to a shot of Lori in the car with a map sitting next to her I said out loud, “She’s gonna look at the map and crash”. I mean … really as much as Lori has been a pain in the ass, to really use **SUCH** an overtly cliche disaster mechanism made me groan. If it wasn’t for the Raylan Givens quick draw head shot / double kill by Rick at the end of the episode I would have been sorely disappointed in the episode (return of the show) as a whole.
Lori going to “save” Rick and Glenn was ludicrous. Glenn had been to town before. Lori couldn’t even find the place without a map. And to make matters worse, she left her son behind after all the crying she’d been doing about what a rough life he was in for in this cruel new world. The whole thing made no sense. It was like the writers were told to put Lori in a car crash and this was the best they could come up with. The shooting in the bar at the end did redeem the episode. That’s whatthe show needs, a little more shooting. Time for a bigger ammo budget.
All i could think by the end of the episode was… we are never getting off this farm are we….
Lori annoys the heck out of me – she’s all, “Dale, take Carl to the house,” and “Carol, watch Carl,” and “Glen, go get me my pee test and/or Plan B” and “Daryl, go get Rick.” Of course, the one time she tries to do something on her own, she screws up, so maybe she is better off having the rest of the group to boss around….
Glad Rick shot those guys. Maybe now he’ll snap out of his existential angst and start thinking of survival.
I have a sneaking fondness for Shane. He’s crazy, true, but come the zombie apocalypse, I want him and Daryl on my team….
Rick is a bad ass. In fact, I think the writers want you to see Rick blow those guys the hell away and go “Damn, Rick is a bad ass!” because to this point, Rick has mostly been preoccupied with quests like saving first his on and then Sophia, and has mostly ceded leadership of the group to Shane by virtue of Shane’s willingness to take it. I think moments like the end of the first half of season 2, and the end of last night’s episode, help the viewers see Rick as the guy whose capable of making the hard decisions, but still being a better dude than Shane.
And yeah I’m with Stacey above. Lori is mostly annoying and selfish, and could really us a dose of “Hey it ain’t all about you” from somebody else in the group.
Anyway even though I follow you on FB I’ve somehow missed your Walking Dead updates; keep up the good work so I can keep coming here and commenting…I need an outlet after each episode!
Nice review of this weeks episode. That car crash was redonkulous. I am thinking they want her to miscarry so they can get off the farm and move the plot along a bit.
Nice to see Rick being a bad-ass, nice touch having one of the mysterious strangers be a bit recognizable, he was in True Blood as I recall? Sort of made you think they might stick around a bit and then kblam! Kblam!
Say have your read the Kirkman graphic novels the series is based on?