The Walking Dead – What’s for dinner?

Before I get into this week’s episode of The Walking Dead, I need to point out something I completely missed last week:

I had a repeat of “Cherokee Rose” softly playing in the background. I wasn’t following it — just using it as a little local color to fill my senses — when I looked up after Shane plopped his gun on the hood of the truck. It was that part of the show when discussion kicked in about what to do if Sophia was found bitten. “Do what you have to do,” Rick answered matter of factly. The question was posed what her mother Carol should be told in that event. “The truth,” replied Andrea.

And then … there it was: A shot of Maggie looking at her father. Herchel threw her a descenting but barely noticeable shake of his head. Did anyone else see that? The hackles raised on the back of my neck. It was the most telling of gestures and I had my suspicions the information they shared between them would come to bear soon.

Onward.

We got the pleasure of the return of Merle this week … though not in the way I thought. And he was as irascible as ever, wasn’t he? The conversations he had with brother Daryl were golden. I actually guffawed at his “buncha pansie-asses, niggers and Democrats” rant he spewed about the group because it was typical Merle. On a more serious note, however, we did glean some information about both boy’s past. Apparently, Merle watched out for baby brother quite a bit. “All the years I’ve tried to make a man of you …” he quipped at one point during one of his “conversations” with Daryl. There’s a love there between the two, a special red-neck kinship of blood.

Shane certainly is all up Rick’s ass about the ongoing search for Sophia, isn’t he? And the kicker there is he’s got a point. It is making the group weak and sloppy. People are making mistakes. But at the same time it was some self-reflection Shane was torturing himself with while talking to Rick. Shane’s demons do not rest often.

And we saw a few sides of Herchel we haven’t seen, too. We witnessed a more frantic patriarch than ever before. And there’s good reason: The end of the episode.

Having read the books after I saw the first season of the show, I’ve been waiting for “the reveal” about the barn and its denizens. And it was rather creepy. It was partially what that knowing look was about Herchel threw at Maggie from last episode. And it’s what will open a whole new can of worms come next week.

Notes (The “Mostly About Daryl” Edition):

• Daryl was awfully busy this episode. In no particular order, he got thrown from a horse, he was physically beat up falling down a rocky ravine (not once, but twice!), he munched some fresh squirrel, he got pierced by one of his own crossbow arrows, he experienced a couple hallucinatory conversations with his brother Merle, he was gnawed on by a walker, he offed two walkers, he was winged in the noggin by an almost-straight-shootin’ Andrea and he received a tender kiss from Carol. And! He managed to throw in some pretty nifty zingers as well. *Whew* I’m exhausted!
• Speaking of zingers, did anyone but me throw their own at the television during the exchange with Daryl and Carol when he was in bed recovering from his ails? “How do you feel?” Carol asked him. “About as good as I look.” “I brought you some dinner. You must be starving,” she commented to which I replied in a Daryl drawl: “Naw … I had some fresh squirrel earlier today, thanks.”
• The guy harbors grudges with a razor-sharp mind, too. He knows exactly home many times Rick has pointed a gun at him. In the case of coming back to the farm rode hard and put up wet, that count would be three.
• And lastly, love what he said when he got winged and went down from Andrea’s shot to his temple directly after asking Rick if he was going to shoot him: “I was kidding … !!!”
• Glenn was certainly progressing at becoming a connoisseur of shoe leather throughout the episode. From trying to make moves on Maggie to revealing his extra-curricular activities to Dale to inviting the elephant into the room with his line about the guitar. (Herchel’s response was razor sharp.) Glenn’s got a talent.

Quotes:

“You ever fire one?” — Rick to Jimmy while discussing another Sophia search party outing
“Well, if I’m going out I want one.” — Jimmy
“People in hell want Slurpees.” — Daryl

“Hey … kick off them damn high heels and climb, son …” – Merle to Daryl as his brother is trying to climbing to freedom

Clacked by Michael Noble
on Nov 14, 2011 @ 11:37 EST5EDT