After the huge success of the mid-season premiere for “The Walking Dead”, the show continues to garner high ratings. The mid-season premiere was the most watched show in the history of cable television with 11 million viewers combined; from both time slots. The next episode, number 9 of season 2, didn’t yield as many viewers, but still nothing to laugh at with 8.5 million viewers combined. Again, this doesn’t even begin to count the ones that found online alternatives to watching the show.

Already “The Walking Dead” has been signed for a third season. With things moving as slowly as they are, I’m sure the cast will be almost off the farm by then. Gah!

The episode begins with a little flashback of Lori learning her lesson for being an idiot. Ignoring the conventional wisdom of the buddy system, she left last episode to find Rick who’s in town finding Hershel; who in turn is finding solace at the bottom of a bottle. Lori decides that the best way to navigate her way to town is to drive fast while looking down at a road map. Was she that confident in a world where there are no other drivers around? She’s surprised by a slow walking zombie in the middle of the road. Instead of driving through it, she brakes and swerves, totalling the car.

To outline how stupid she really was and to send a message to the rest of the world, I was hoping that they’d show her driving again, but this time looking down to text message.

So the scene begins with what appears to be night time and a zombie scratching at the car windshield, trying to get at an unconscious Lori. Coming too, Lori gives a little scream realizing how much danger she’s in. The scream resonated in me and made me go, “Good. I hope you die.”

The television adaptation has so far been a source of irritation for me. It depicts the cast from comics which I complete enjoy, but have churned out something that I can’t stand but won’t look away either. Is it good writing or am I just that faithful to the source material? The characters portrayed on television want to do so much to live, yet they’re not willing to think anything through.

Robert Kirkman, creator and writer of The Walking Dead comic, and executive producer for the AMC show went on to comment on the episode. This was in an interview with Entertainment Weekly who lead off with, “No one could say that this episode was not action-packed.”

Kirkman replied saying, “That’s true. I mean, look, there’s all that tension in the bar with those people outside and we barely even see them. It was a really cool move on [the part of showrunner] Glen Mazzera working with David Leslie Johnson on this script. They’re this strange outside threat and I think it makes them more scary because everything is played inside and it’s all done off the looks of Scott Wilson and Steven Yeun and Andrew Lincoln. I think the performances in that scene are tremendous.”

The performance of the scene may have been tremendous, but that’s only thanks to the actors doing their best to go along with the faulty writing.

We then go back to Rick, Glenn and Hershel. Having killed two interlopers who had clearly escalated their threat potential. Rick in a sweeping badass movie kill both of them where they stood. That was smart thinking that was completely on instinct. Somewhere a writer must have said, “We can’t have that! Quick! Make him an idiot again!”

With the new threats around them, Hershel somehow mans up and maybe realizes the people he’s taken in are complete idiots. Why are they idiots?

When more outsiders who come looking for their recently shot friends walk towards the bar, Glenn’s first reaction is to push his back against the door as it opens. He had all the time in the world to get in front of it. Was he trying to simulate a locked door? Doesn’t matter because they now know that someone is in there. I think Rick gives Glenn the face of, “You just got in my way. They were going to walk in and I would have had the element of surprise and clearly killed them.” Yes, this is what I’ve interpreted and read into. Bite me.

They all had guns, element of surprise and could have avoided any of them getting in any real danger.

“Yo, someone in there? If someone’s in there, we want no trouble. We’re just looking for our friends.”

Rick who’s just shot Glenn the, “You screwed this up for us look.” Lapses back into his moral and narrative ways; the annoying way he speaks into the radio; first beginning with, “They drew on us.” Then goes on to explain how he’s killed their friends and that they should be reasonable; unlike their dead friends; and go their separate ways. I’m sure Rick would have understood if it was the other way around, right? “You killed Shane? Awwww. Bye.”

The episode, entitled ‘Triggerfinger’ then turns into a gun fight. Let’s speed this up. Outsiders die or abandon their friend who’s impaled himself on a fence. Rick and the gang save him and bring him back to the farm. The show then slows down and turns into something else entirely. I believe it can be boiled down to Office Politics. Why didn’t they shoot this portion of the show like a fake documentary the way they do with The Office.

Shane doesn’t like Rick making all these decisions that he believes are wrong. If he was in charge, he’d do things differently and better. Less taxes and all that rot. Andrea and some others back Shane. Meanwhile Shane secretly confesses his stalker like love for Lori and how she belongs to him.

The show now is setting up into camps. Team Rick and Team Shane. Screw that noise. If they’re so interested in fighting for the zombie matrix of leadership, then I’m voting Team Zombie. Where the Hades is the horde?

Share this: Twitter

Tumblr

Facebook

Reddit

Pinterest



Like this: Like Loading...