At last! Plot advancement! Miniscule though it may be, make no mistake, walkers and stumblers, the plot of Season 2 moved forward. Our group has been twiddling their thumbs at Hershel's ranch/farmhouse of doom for the past several episodes without anything moving along. Sure, Shane and Lori have shared intense glares, and Rick and Lori have shared intense (and out of place/character) conversations, but what's happened? Otis shot Carl, Shane killed Otis, and...? That's really it, besides more bad, awful, stupid decisions and great stuff from Daryl (he is this season's highlight, no doubts about it).
What I've realized is that at this point, Sophia is more of a Macguffin than a character. For those of you who don't know what a Macguffin is, it's a term associated with Alfred Hitchcock, and more recently, Indiana Jones. The Macguffin is the reason our characters do things—search, fight, move plot, develop as characters, etc., but it itself is not wholly important. That's Sophia, right? She's driving what little action there is, but do we, the audience (or even some of the characters) care about her? I don't, and either does my viewing party. That's a very bad thing. We're discussing a lost, formerly-abused 12-year-old. Someone's child, and potentially one of the few remaining children in this show. But the writers have done a terrible job of getting us to care. That can be said for every development, aside from moments with Daryl.
That boggles me, readers. Every time Daryl is on the screen, I'm paying attention. I'm invested. They've done a great job with Daryl since the start of the season. This week, we had to watch him battle his memory of Merle to survive after he took a nasty spill off Nervous Nelly, one of Hershel's horses. There were consequences to these moments—Daryl's life was at stake, which is not something we've seen yet this season for any of the characters. It was exciting to watch his struggle, but also had me worrying. Here's a character that's been given time to develop over each episode...If it can be done with Daryl, a likely racist-hillbilly-survivalist, why not with the other characters? Why do we get the same old with Lori, Rick, and Shane? Why revert Glenn to a middle schooler who has never interacted with women in his life? Why are all the women cooking, and why is Andrea such a dumbass? These are the questions that frustrate me while watching this show. Also, why are all the characters idiots? That's the big one, because there is no way I can justify the actions of these people this season. They very clearly aren't thinking, from the zombie-in-the-well incident from Cherokee Rose last week, to Glenn and Maggie not understanding the finer points of note-passing. I'm having difficulty relating to foolish decisions, and instead, am finding myself relating to characters like Daryl and Shane who understand the new world they're living in.
Shane was making great points while he and Rick were searching their grid. But there was no discussion about it. Rick acted offended and promptly complained to Lori about it. This, I think, was because everything Shane said made sense. While Shane's obsession with Lori and Carl may be his primary motivation, the man understands the world the walking dead are inhabiting. He especially drove this home when he brought up how much time a missing child had before the police search began looking for a body (72 hours), and that was in a world sans-zombies. Yeah, hard decisions need to be made. Because supplies are limited, food and ammo, too. While I'm glad we have a character saying these things, I'm less glad that Shane is being set up as crazy.
Speaking of crazy, Hershel. We've been getting undertones of control from Hershel since we met him, but they've really been turning it up the last two episodes. He does not appreciate Rick's group upsetting his status quo, which makes good sense. He's been running that ranch/farmhouse of doom his way and now little rebellions are popping up. Maggie's fooling about with some Asian, that 17-year-old is running off with Rick's group to search, and those confounded women are using his kitchen to cook dinner! Hershel has problems understanding how people interact with people, let alone when there aren't many people left in the world. Which makes his decision to house the dead in his barn all the more perplexing. Is he a "good" Christian, unwilling to re-kill them? Is he insane? I am looking forward to seeing this come to a head Sunday.
And how about that opening? I loved it. Every second of it. We saw what looked like the first meeting of Sophia, Carol, abusive husband and Shane, Lori, and Carl. We saw the world as it was ending. And that fascinates and intrigues me. They did right only giving us the brief glimpse of Atlanta being napalmed.
Zombie Kill of the Week: Daryl bashing the shoe-chomper in the face with the walking stick. Seriously, that first horizontal bash was sick.
Overall Verdict: 7 out of 10 Headshots. Slower than I'd like, the show is getting better. Everything with Daryl in this episode, from hallucinations with Merle to Carol thanking him, is good TV. We got to see two old group members, which was a nice way of reminding us the group used to be bigger. And the show was bookended with very good segments. For the first time in a few weeks, I'm looking forward to the next episode.
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