Re: Walking Dead, Mid-Season Finale

Wow. Just wow. A few observations:

1. Rick's really a dumbass for going along with Herschel about capturing zombies and bringing them back to the farm.

2. Herschel knew Sophia was a walker, since she was in the barn. Letting Daryl and others continue to search for her in that circumstance is heinous.

3. Watch Rick the next time you see him with the Colt Python. I don't think Fred Lincoln has much experience with guns, he holds it in a way that looks dramatic...and stupid. He's actually holding it so that the gun is above his line of sight, angled downward. I think he's trying to look like Clint Eastwood facing down the black bank robber at the beginning of Dirty Harry, but he doesn't have the gun savvy to do it.

4. Shane is the only one truly serious about survival, but he's a psycho.

5. The black guy at this point is getting next to zero screen time, and hasn't even been given anything to do other than get himself injured early in the season. I'm surprised that the usual race hustlers (Jesse Jackson, NAACP, Spike Lee, et. al.) aren't raising hell about his lack of screen time. Hell, he's a token black guy in an all-white cast.

6. I wasn't really surprised by Sophia being in the barn as a walker. She looked pretty good, though, hadn't obviously been chewed on. That may be foreshadowing, in the comics they eventually learn that being bitten isn't required for the dead to come back as walkers.

That's all I can think of for the moment. I may add more later.

Update. In animal pack terms, Shane is trying to assert himself as the alpha male; he successfully dominated Dale, nearly got into a fight with Daryl, and ended the show flouting Rick's leadership. He even made overtures to Lori, boasting of his ability to defend/protect her in comparison to Rick.

Even Glen is asserting himself in pack terms these days.

The group is divided into those who realize that the paradigm has changed since the zombie apocalypse, and those who don't realize it. Most of them aren't facing it.