Got a good response from last week’s editorial about The Walking Dead Season 2’s slow progress through the first four episodes, so I figured I’d touch on another irritating aspect to the show that came to a head this week. When the show’s good, it’s good but when it’s bad, it’s so, so bad. Spoilers incoming, so if you’re not caught up on the series, watch out.

The Walking Dead almost goes out of its way to make the female characters unlikeable. Nearly every woman on the show has massive flaws and no redeeming characteristics. It peaked this episode (“Chupacabra”) when Andrea shot Daryl because she thought he was a zombie. The tension only lasted for a commercial break because the show immediately revealed she only grazed him. So there’s no drama from the situation and all the scene accomplished was upsetting fans because the irritating, whiny and irrational Andrea character nearly killed Daryl, the fan-favorite. They’ll go forward with some plot about Andrea’s inner struggles between wanting to shoot guns and not wanting to hurt anyone again and ultimately, she’ll redeem herself by using a gun to save people. The problem is that arc is so predictable and not particularly interesting anyway, so the only thing to take away is the fact that they nearly made an already-irritating character a bigger villain than the zombies and she’s supposed to be one of the good guys. In the comics, Andrea’s one of the better characters but the show’s burying her so deep it’s gonna be hard to redeem her.

There’s also Lori, who wasted no time cheating on her comatose husband with his police partner Shane and now expects it to be water under the bridge. There’s absolutely nothing likeable about this character. Even ignoring that major flaw, she’s also portrayed as nagging and demanding of every other character yet she gets upset at the very notion others could even think of expecting anything out of her. Becoming a trophy wife to Rick would actually be a step up for Lori.

Almost all the problems not created by zombies are caused by female characters. Shane flat out says that Sophia is holding the group back. Andrea was so eager to use the gun because she doesn’t want to wash clothes like the other women, implying that all the other women are useless.

Even the minor characters don’t luck into progressive portrayals. Carol’s spent the entire season crying and being emotional then in this episode, she says she’s going to become useful and does it by getting back into the kitchen. You don’t have to be a capital F feminist to see the misogyny. Maggie, the one major female that hasn’t caused problems for the group, has only been used to deliver exposition and become an object for Glen to have casual sex with.

Females in nerdy shows don’t always get positive portrayals but this is ridiculous. This show hasn’t exactly earned the benefit of the doubt but hopefully they’re working toward a situation like Breaking Bad has with Skyler, Walter White’s wife. A lot of nerd message boards hate her and she’s a nag that doesn’t sympathize with Walter on a lot of situations the viewers do. However, she’s a more complex character because you realize from her perspective, Walter’s behavior actually does deserve even more scorn than she gives him. She could act in a more constructive manner but she’s almost always right in the end.

To touch on a couple other issues from this week’s The Walking Dead, this episode featured some of the bigger logic gaps the season. I’m fine with suspending disbelief, but it’s hard to buy that Rick’s group wouldn’t have noticed the stench and sound of zombies in the barn when they’re camping in tents nearby. The cavalier attitude Andrea had when shooting Daryl was also a bit much considering a whole group was already standing in front of him and they’ve labored the point of quietly killing zombies without guns to avoid attracting more for all of both seasons. To hammer one final nail in that plot point, last week’s episode had a scene where they gave up all their guns to stay on Hershel’s farm. Either that scene or Andrea shooting Daryl (or preferably both) shouldn’t have happened at all. I don’t want to nitpick about how realistic things are but when the show’s presented as being “smart” zombie fiction focusing on strong characters, it’s a big problem when you’ve got the same plot holes and clueless idiot characters like a Friday the 13th sequel.

Also, as far as this season’s elephant in the room (the story’s glacially slow pace), this week was no different. Rick spends another episode thinking about maybe having to make hard choices. Hershel spent another episode bluntly warning that the group isn’t going welcome to stay for long. In another show, you’d expect Rick’s group to be forced out in the next episode or two but this show is like the guy that lingers at the end of a party and can’t take the hint he should call it a night until several hours later. So basically, expect them to bang that drum for 8 more episodes until the season ends. Even the plot with Daryl struggling to climb the hill just felt like a distraction. This show’s progress feels like when you’re watching a spy show like Burn Notice and they have a scene where one character has to pull off a super secret mission while his partner distracts the enemy by bringing up any possible thing he can think of to stall for time. This season was originally planned as 6 episodes then extended to 13 and it really shows. You could cut the 5 episodes we’ve seen down to an hour without losing anything.

It’s a shame the show has these flaws but there’s still nothing like it on TV and I’m a nerd and we’ll still sit through absolutely anything we complain about, so I’ll keep watching. I just hope whatever big stuff they’re building toward is worth it.