The mid-season finale for season 2 of The Walking Dead had a lot riding on it. I’m not talking about character drama, either. This first half of the season needed to live up to audience’s expectations. We were given a grab-you-by-the-throat first season of TWD. With only six episodes to make an impact, the creators and writers drove the plot and us hard, fast, and dirty. The pacing became a huge part of the appeal. With more episodes to play with, the pacing has suffered greatly. And unfortunately, it is turning people away. Episode 7 had to snag viewers attention again before the break. Did it succeed?
They wasted no time jumping into the major issue at hand: the barn. Glenn’s loyalty is seriously tested in his budding relationship with Maggie. He is torn between keeping secrets he’s sworn to by someone he just met, but feels a deep connection with, or manning up and telling the group of people that have helped him survive this long. In the end, I think he chose correctly and I think Maggie understands he did what he had to. She’s beginning to realize Hershel’s way of coping with the changes in the world aren’t the only way to do things. It only took her nearly being turned into a walker at the pharmacy to figure it out, though. Sometimes it takes a close call that rattles your world to see clearly.
The debate between Rick and Hershel about the occupants of the barn brought up a very good question: In a situation like the zombie apocalypse, is it naive to assume that all humans should band together to protect each other? Rick clings on to the hope that despite their differences in opinion, his crew and Hershel’s family can still coexist, all in the name of being safe. But from what we’ve seen, Rick forcing the issue of banding together has caused more issues. Hershel pulls his family and supplies in closer to his chest. He flat-out refuses any help from the other survivors. There’s a line in the sand, or rather a trench that’s filled with the fires of hell. Hershel cannot bring himself to even approach the line and consider the two factions becoming one group. They question his faith, the way he’s done things since even before the walkers came into existence. For someone living on the edge, that is as dangerous as approaching a zombie unarmed. In Hershel’s world it is his way or go away. No one is allowed to question him.
In the face-off between Dale and Shane we see glimpses of the same ruthless attempt to cling to control from both of the men. Unfortunately Dale isn’t a fighter. He will protect. He will give sage advice and be there if you need someone to unload all of your issues on, but he isn’t a trigger man. He tries to stand up for what he believes is the right thing and is cowed by Shane’s overwhelming presence. Does he see logic in the way Shane is handling things? Probably not. Dale isn’t a fool, though. He knows the kind of man Shane is. He also knows he can rely on that cold inner core Shane possesses to get things done, even if it scares the heck out of him.
Someone I thought would always keep that cold core is Daryl. This season has turned my perception of the mighty squirrel hunter on ear. He’s deep. Emotional. Caring. And completely clueless on how to make any sort of relationship with others work. Each time he opens up, he instantly shuts down and reverts to the “old” Daryl. Carol is the only person to consistently see into his heart, but not even she is safe from the out lash of self-loathing Daryl dives in to. He constantly slips back into the mindset likely formed by his lack of a real family unit. Why love yourself when no one else seems to give a damn? Carol cares and makes it very clear he can’t push her away. Will this tentative step towards an actual connection with another person (one not a figment of his imagination) lead to something more?
[Caution: spoilers below. If you have not watched the episode yet, walk away.]
I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the final scene of the episode. Everything in the last six episodes came to a boiling point. Shane gave all of that anger, frustration, and lack of forward movement a voice. A very loud voice. I may not be on Team Shane, but he did what he thought he had to do to keep the family he wishes were his safe. Could he have gone about it better? Totally. It still had to be taken care of. How many more walkers would the barn have held? Did Hershel honestly think he could keep going for god knows how long simply shoving the undead away under a metaphorical rug? Eventually the rug gets so lumpy you trip and crack your head open. I think Hershel would have gone on until he himself became infected. He was so set in his idea that the zombies are still living that he couldn’t see the danger staring at him.
Even with Shane being the voice of the turmoil on the farm, it ended up being Rick who took care of the most difficult part of the entire season thus far. My own frustration came to a head when Sophia emerged from the barn. They’ve been searching so hard for so long and she’d been maybe a hundred yards away the whole time. When I sat to think about the episode, I had to wonder if Hershel realized that one of the walkers he’d captured was the little girl they were all looking for. Were his protests to leave the barn alone multifaceted? We know he thought he was keeping his “sick” family safe, but had he been hiding the truth of Sophia’s condition as well?
For as many questions as the mid-season finale (finally) answered, it posed a ton of others. Will Rick move his crew off the farm? Can Hershel look past his faith to see the world for how it really is? What will Maggie and Glenn do? I could go on and on with the questions rattling around my head. Which I probably will considering it is a very long wait until February when the second half of The Walking Dead season 2 kicks off.
Rating: NR (mild violence, sexual references, adult language)
If anyone ever tries to convince you that the ladies from the ZSC are kind and forgiving, laugh at them. They have torture down to an art form. Normally, watching zombie flicks isn’t too bad. I’ve actually enjoyed the majority of them… until today. I tried to like Last of the Living, I really did, but there were too many flaws to do the premise justice.
Three guys find themselves the only survivors in New Zealand after a zombie outbreak. Their main nemesis isn’t the undead trying the chew off their faces, but total and utter boredom, having no one else to interact with. Or so they thought… Until they blunder into a church and miraculously find a scientist working to find a cure.
The three friends are caricatures. Bad ones. You have the egotistical actor, the shy nerd, and the failed jock/musician. Ten minutes into the movie I wanted to gnaw through their vocal cords. This is a first for me; I’ve usually made it half way through before becoming ravenously hungry.
On the zombie action front, there wasn’t really any. The undead got a couple decent jump scares, but for the most part they were just slow, cheesy, and apparently not very hungry. They didn’t attack so much as stumble into the lead actors on accident. Lazy zombies starve, someone should tell them that.
One thing that did work was the fact that these characters are so self-centered that they don’t seem capable of adapting to the fact that the world as they know it has come to an end. They spend their time ogling women in exercise DVDs and worrying about getting a copy of the latest CD from their favorite band instead of worrying about the long-term ramifications of what is going on around them, the apocalypse. That character flaw was the most believable thing written into the script.
I’m going to give Last of the Living two and a half bashed in heads out of five. The premise had promise, but overall execution just didn’t work. Parts where they could have been moving the plot along were filled with bad jokes. If you want a movie to sit and watch for the sake of watching a b-movie, oh and zombie farts, this is a decent choice.
With the holidays coming up, Undead Is Not An Option would make a nice gift for the zombie lover’s in your family.
What would you do if you were stuck in a tree house, with a complete stranger who is somewhat annoying but a bona fide optimist, a chest full of rocks, and a horde of zombies waiting below? Louie, the optimist, is certain the government is working on a cure for the zombies or a rescue plan, but Arnie keeps mulling over the question, what could be worse than zombies? The Changing by Jim Bronyaur answers the question, but leaves you with this one: will you draw blood gnawing on your knuckle by the time you reach the end?
Please note because the characters are dealing with a zombie outbreak, this excerpt has some strong language.
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The Changing by Jim Bronyaur
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After the rocks…
Without order, chaos would ensue. It was human nature, maybe instinct, maybe that extra little bit of work creation put into us, but give a man an inch and he’ll probably try to take more. Toss in the idea of the world ending and now you’ve got a whole new bag of shit to deal with.
Arnie noticed the beginning of the chaos after the second rock Louie threw at a zombie. Calm with the first throw, he pretended to be a baseball pitcher. Arnie didn’t like nor understand baseball but with the growing group of zombies below them, he’d take a long, hot day at a ballpark anytime.
Louie’s second throw was filled with rage. He barely took aim and cursed so much and so fast, the words mixed together. By the time he threw the rock, his body sweated and shook. The rock pegged a zombie in the shoulder and the thing fell over but climbed right back up.
“Three,” Arnie said. “Hey, we should consider the rules again. Is it just three? Or should you get three for knocking him over and then one for hitting them…” He tried to break the tension but Louie acted as if he lost his mind.
“Fuck the game,” Louie said. He picked up another rock. With his knuckles white from the grip on the rock, he pulled his arm back but only wept. As his head bobbed, Arnie watched as Louie’s body teetered on the edge.
Arnie knew that if the man kept it up they’d be out of rocks soon. And if he lost his mind, then maybe a push was in order. Sure, it was a sick thought to have—pushing an innocent, living man into a horde of zombies, but these weren’t normal times.
Trying to take the high road, Arnie wrapped his arms around Louie and pulled him back. The rock fell to the floor with a clunk.
“Louie, please. You’re losing it.”
Louie dropped to his ass and kept crying. Arnie always wondered what was worse than watching a woman cry when you had nothing to offer to make it stop. He found it, and it wasn’t the end of the world waiting outside, it was Louie babbling like a baby.
The crying lasted ten minutes or so until Louie sucked up all his snot and put out a shaky hand towards Arnie, offering a forgiveness handshake. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I haven’t had a smoke in a while. Withdrawal. And those things… I just think about all the people I know out there. Are they dead? Are they walking again, but as zombies?”
“You’re the one who told me we’d be saved soon. We had to just hang out here…”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I need a cigarette. And a shot of whiskey.”
“And a woman,” Arnie added with a smile.
“Amen to that. But enough talk about what we can’t have. You know what? I feel like something’s going to happen today. Something’s… changing.”
Changing.
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To read more, and find out what is changing and whether Louie and Arnie survive, check out Undead Is Not An Option.
Our captain of the Special Forces, Michael Rooker, stands out in a crowd and on the screen because he puts his all into what he does… whether it be acting, or interacting with crew members and fans alike, or giving shout outs to the crew. And we’re not the only ones who have noticed what a great guy Michael is.
Here’s what Fast Company had to say about Michael:
Michael Rooker only needed a handful of scenes to turn Merle Dixon into a fanboy favorite. But it was his real-world commitment to bringing the character to life that gave the AMC series its watercooler buzz.
And thanks to Fast Company for recognizing the ZSC efforts in the #MoMerle campaign.
This week The Walking Dead seemed to be missing something. They covered a lot of ground as far as addressing each characters plot arc but there was a key something missing. Oh, I know. Action.
Don’t mistake, I do enjoy watching our survivors grow and evolve to adjust to the harsh reality of the zombie apocalypse. That being said, it is a zombie apocalypse. They are fighting every day to survive. We were spoiled by the fast pace of the first season. The writers couldn’t take an entire episode to tie up all of their loose plot strings before the mid-season finale. That’s what they did here, gave us what I refer to as a “catch up” episode to put the ducks in a row in prep for next week, which from the previews promises the action we missed this week and then some. I hope.
We finally get to see Carl back on his feet this week. Right away it is painfully obvious that being shot has affected how he views the world. Carl is beginning to mature faster than we, with our modern sensibilities, think he should. But there is nothing Lori and Rick can do to stop this natural progression. He is old enough to realize their dire situation and wants to help protect the people he loves. Carl probably sees the world with truer eyes than anyone else when he tells his mother about the missing chicken, “Maybe she got eaten. Everything’s food for something else.” That’s the reality they live in. Some of the survivors simply refuse to see it.
That friggen barn is going to give me fits. Hershel’s ideals surrounding the occupants of the barn seem utterly ridiculous when put in contrast to what we’ve seen our band of nomads go through in and around Atlanta. We know these creatures are dead. We know that the synapses, those electric keys to what makes a human a human, aren’t working. All of this was covered for Rick’s crew at the CDC. There is no cure. These people aren’t sick. They are dead. Again, you can see Hershel’s faith coming in to play. He can’t kill the people he knows and loves. The guilt of putting them down would shatter the last marble he’s got rattling around in his stubborn brain. So instead of doing what we deem humane, he keeps zombie pets. To him it is the right thing because the Bible tells him not to kill. But what does the Good Book teach us about survival? Self defense? Turn the other cheek with a zombie and you’ll get a hole in your face.
Turning a blind eye to other situations can land you in the same sort of hot water, only this time the scars are emotional. Lori tries everything she can to avoid telling Rick about her pregnancy. She talks herself in endless circles about the future and what it could hold for her family. Admittedly, what set her off was the near-death of her son, Carl. As a mother I hope to never, ever be in a similar situation. Watching Lori go through it was bad enough. But… are her fears grounded? She says, “Memories are what keep me going”, then goes on to predict her unborn child’s future of nothing but pain and an early death. Life is what you make of it. If they leave the farm, they have months to find a new home base and settle in before the baby comes. There are plenty of areas similar to Hershel’s farm, in close proximity to cities with supplies, which they could move into. One has to wonder if she is worrying about her baby or what will happen if Rick entertains the idea that the baby isn’t his. She’d lose her hero, her husband, and the only one she can actually trust to keep her and Carl safe.
Dragged into the middle of Lori’s crisis is poor Glenn. He is trying, he really is, but still has a long way to go to be the hero he wants to become. The first step? Learn how to lie better. I’d play poker against Glenn any day. That lack of being able to hide the ugly truth is, unfortunately, a key tool of a leader. Sometimes you need to keep things from others to keep them calm and manageable. Rick does this often to give his crew the sense of stability they need while recovering from injuries. What Glenn isn’t lacking, though, is nerve. When the one person he really sees as his to protect is in danger, he went all Rambo. I would like to remind everyone that severing the spine does not kill a walker. Headshots, guys. Glenn nearly forgot, but it did make for an interesting zombie effect. After his hero moment, Maggie finally acknowledges what is inside his heart. She also sees how, in his effort to become more, to rise in the pack structure, Glenn could get himself good and dead.
If you paid attention to this episode, you will notice that there is one character with his nose in everything. The writers have taken Dale’s position as the “wise old man” a tad too far. We already knew that not much escapes his attention. Dale isn’t out in the woods, cut off from the core of the action. No, he stays perched on top on the RV simply watching. But it really bugs me that they felt in order to tie up all of these story lines they needed to use Dale so blatantly. He’s there when Carl expresses his desire to grow up more. Dale is the one to confront Hershel about the barn’s occupants. Heck, he even tries to help Lori about her baby issues. And the topper, Dale goes nose to nose with Shane about his erratic behavior after Otis’s death. There are other, less obvious ways to wrap things up for the mid-season finale. We didn’t need Dale to narrate it for us. He’s far too good a character to use like that.
Next week is the last episode we’ll get in 2011. There are still a lot of questions to be answered. Is Sophia still alive? Will Lori abort the pregnancy after all? Is Shane finally at the end of his rope? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Ever wonder why every Brigade Commander has duct tape in their Go Bags? There is a perfectly good reason for it, and if you know the crazy boss lady known as our Commander-in-Chief, and have experienced her in person, then you’ll very likely understand our reasoning behind such drastic measures. By the way, this is the very reason we ration the coffee. While it helps her (and us) to function, too much of it makes the woman insane.
Note:if any of you gives her a 5-hour Energy at any con, you will get knocked out by the Amazon brigade, aka Yellow Brigade or Jinxie G and her crew! With a staff. Those hurt. Just sayin’.
Recently, Michael Rooker—leader of our Special Forces—experienced the crazy that is Juliette Terzieff in Cincinnati, OH. As is typical of any convention, Juliette ran around in circles screaming quite often. We’re thankful she didn’t have the crossbow with her. But let’s face it, folks, she doesn’t need to be in attendance at a convention to run around in circles screaming. Smart man that Michael is, he happened to have a roll of duct tape handy and this is what happened . . .
As you can see, Michael’s fatal mistake was that he didn’t duct tape her to a chair, so she was able to get away. It took us a good long while to track her down and tackle her, whereupon we force-fed her because food always calms her down. Garlic and cheese breadsticks, people! That’s all I’m saying.
Lesson learned: ALWAYS duct tape the boss lady to a chair! And make sure she eats!
To learn more about what Go Bag essentials you should have, check out your brigade Go Bag Essentials here. Find your brigade and locate the article on essentials. You’ll need to be logged in/registered as a member to access this area.
Alright, I’m getting ready to ship off to Boston to catch a plane to Atlanta, and then back to the desert where the temperature isn’t below freezing!
At the ZSC, we’re all about encouraging members to tap into their natural talents. For instance, if Juliette didn’t have the uncanny ability to talk her way out of any dangerous situation, we’d have never made it this far. (Trust me; she’s saved our skin. A. Lot.) That being said, we want to see how talented you all are, while simultaneously emptying out our swag closet. It’s a win-win for all of us.
What’s the catch? We want your zombie poetry. It can be in any style you wish, any length you wish, though we do ask that there be a minimum of 10 words and a maximum of 200 words. At the end of the contest period, your ZSC commanders will sit and read through all of the entries to pick the top three poems for first, second, and third place prizewinners.
You have from November 18, 2011 (11-18-2011) until December 2, 2011 (12-2-2011) to submit your poetry entries.
First place: Winner receives a special, signed edition of the ZSC anthology book, Undead is Not an Option.
Second and third place: Winners receive a ZSC key chain.
Rules and Regulations:
One entry per person
Entries must be sent to command [at] zombiesurvivalcrew [dot] com with the subject “Zombie Poetry Contest.” Any entries received via Twitter, Facebook, or website comments will be disqualified.
Entries must be pasted into the body of the email. Please do not send document files, PDFs, or website links, or the entry will be automatically disqualified.
Plagiarized content will be disqualified.
Contest entries must be received by December 2, 2011 at 11:59 PM PST
Profanity and vulgarity are prohibited. Use of such will result in disqualification.
Entrants must be registered members of zombiesurvivalcrew.com. (If you are not, registering is FREE and EASY. Sign up HERE.)
When submitting entries, you give the Zombie Survival Crew permission to post your poetry on zombiesurvivalcrew.com and its associated social media outlets.
Winners will be notified via the email address given with their entry.
Please verify under which name you would like to be published as in your entry.
We are really looking forward to once again being wowed by the talent hidden within the Zombie Survival Crew’s members. Happy writing!
Special thanks to ZSC Special Forces commander Billy Tackett for creating such amazing zombie art and for allowing us to use it!
The Walking Dead: Chupacabra (205) Reviewer: RC Murphy
This episode had a lot going for it. A. Lot. So much so that I had to sleep on an idea on how to tackle this review. Which, by the way, didn’t help one dang bit. My head is still spinning. The writers for TWD are mean, mean people. I’m just going to jump right in and hope this makes sense.
Carol broached the subject of an internal power ranking system for the original group of survivors. For Hershel’s family, it is obvious who is in charge. With the other group it gets fuzzy because there are so many males vying for that top spot. You have to look at them like a pack of wolves. As Carol sees it, and others as well, Rick and Lori are the Alpha mating pair. Where it gets murky is trying to rank the rest of the group. Who is the Omega member? That one person left to fend for them self until they prove their worth, takes the brunt of everyone’s aggression, but also is there to ease tension in their own way. Can you guys figure it out?
Glenn and Maggie get a lot of grief this episode as people begin to connect the dots and see something brewing between the two. Maggie is treated like a child, scolded for making the decision to get close to someone not approved by Hershel. He has such a tight grip on everyone who lives on that farm that the idea of one of his slipping free to interact with the newcomers tweaks his nose big time. She’s lonely and wants to reach out to feel alive again after god knows how long of simply existing. Glenn flat out admits to Dale his reason behind wanting Maggie. Any day could be his last. In a world where the dead don’t stay dead nothing is certain, least of all tomorrow. That being said, poor Glenn needs lessons in wooing a lady. Maybe Shane, the ladies man that he is, can teach him a few things. Or not. Shane can gather notches on his headboard, but none of them are meaningful relationships. I don’t think he’s capable of that.
Speaking of, Shane makes a very telling statement about the passage of time after the zombie outbreak:
“It’s like we’re old folks, the people in our story are all dead.”
They’ve been living on the run for less than a year, from what I can tell. In that time everyone they knew, except for the family and friends traveling with them, have probably been eaten, turned to walkers, or just died. A year for your life to flip completely upside down and turn “I know her” to “I knew her”. It’s really a hard concept to grasp. This also means that time is not measured in days, but resources. Rick’s guilt over leaving Sophia doesn’t cause Shane to lash out about time wasted, but people injured or killed during the hunt. Yes, people are resources, especially after you’ve established a camp and everyone has their separate duties to uphold.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the Dixon brothers. Honestly, when I heard Merle would be back I could not figure out how the heck the writers were going to make that one work. A lot of far-fetched things happen on the show, but the long-lost brother walking out of the shrubbery? Impossible.
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[Slight spoiler below. If you haven’t watched, turn away now.]
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That being said, how messed up does your family have to make you in order for your subconscious to kick up the image of your abusive, druggie brother to play cheerleader? I mean, it is very obvious that Merle never did anything to help Daryl, even when he was a child. Daryl has been left to fend for himself over and over again by his brother. So what the heck? Leaning on personal experience, I know how far one will go to prove to their sibling that they aren’t needed any more. Everything is moving on just fine without them there to muck up the gears. Even in the end of that scene, Daryl did not reach for Merle. He got himself out of the bad situation. Only to walk into another one that he has no control over. No Merle cheerleader to provoke him into action that time.
Normally I’m all about women fighting against gender roles and branching out to do “manly things”. Unfortunately, Andrea goes about it all wrong. She is very fragile emotionally, I get that. The last few weeks of her life have been spent planning how to opt out of existence so she can join her dead. Then Daryl pops some sense into her head, but she is still torn. If she can’t leave then she wants a bigger role; she wants to move up within the “pack”, so-to-speak. Her drive to be more nearly costs someone their life. Where is that line between challenging the “norm” and knowing when to fall back and follow orders? Andrea crossed it, no doubt about that. Will this incident throw her back into where she was or can she press on with her reforming backbone?
One last note… Who the heck is in the barn?! I want to hear your theories about the barn’s occupants. Next week we’ll see if any of us were correct.
It has to be said, Greg Nicotero and his crew really, really, really outdid themselves for this episode. If you haven’t watched yet, just be prepared for a scene worse than Rick taking an ax to a decomposing walker in season one’s “Guts” episode. Oh, and don’t even think about eating. I had to leave a bowl of ice cream to melt on my side table.
With the nod to outstanding and epic grossness out of the way, lets dig into the meat of the episode. (Did you just gag a little? So did I. Promise that’s the last intestinal pun in this review.)
Can we address the Shane problem? Last week’s review lit off a small debate in the ZSC command center about whether or not Shane acted within reason given the circumstances he was in. I was hoping this week he’d give us a clear direction his head is going, but it became impossible to tell if the guilt eating him alive stems from using a good man as zombie bait or because he feels that he failed Otis in some way by leaving him behind. Later in the episode he tells Andrea that in order to kill you basically have to turn off everything that makes you human and act on instinct. The need to survive is a strong instinct, I’ll give him that. But… wasn’t there another way? A humane way at least?
This episode brought our core group of survivors back together. Once they were all gathered two people stood out, T-Dog and Daryl. T-Dog had a bad patch in the last episode, meaning he lost his ever-loving mind while burning up with a fever. Some of what he told Dale made sense in a way and that is what haunts him. The idea that because the group may see him as weak, it could cost him his spot with them. How rough would things have to get for any of them to look at T-Dog and, essentially, vote him off the “island”? He could simply be paranoid with a bit of brain fry from the infection… or maybe he’s got every right to fear being left behind.
Then you’ve got Daryl who seems from the get-go to want nothing to do with anyone on the farm, whether they are original survivors or part of the new group living there. As soon as they parked he was off into the woods alone. All of that progress he made being a decent man around Andrea vanished. Only thing I can think of is he fears opening up, at least until the Cherokee Rose. Daryl gave Carol a deeper look into himself than he has with anyone. Again he knew exactly what she needed to hear and gave it to her in this wonderfully sad story about the flower. He knows that crying won’t bring him Merle back, but also understands that Carol needs the tears to voice her grief, worry, and the sliver of hope that Sophia will come back.
Seeing where everyone ended up this episode has me rethinking what I said about Glenn last week. I assumed that he would likely jump at the chance to ride at Rick’s side again when he resumes the hero role. Only… Glenn became his own hero this week. Sure there was a lot of awkward moments where he became really goofy and cute, however you’ve got to give the man a hand at lassoing a bloated zombie like that. We know he’s not exactly a smooth talker with the ladies, but Glenn is growing out of the sidekick role if he keeps this up. Go, Glenn, go!
I’ll wrap this up with a quick thought on something Hershel said to Rick. Faith seems to play a huge part in how Hershel approaches life. He sees God’s hand in everything around him. If a rainbow forms after a storm, God sent it. A car hits a man on his way to dinner with his wife; God decided it was his time to go “home”. But, you see, I cannot fathom how his faith holds up when faced with the animated corpse of someone he knew. Is Jesus cleverly disguised in the blood splatter and we just can’t see it because the need to survive has blinded us to faith? Or is Hershel clinging to the one thing he has left to give him hope for his family? That’s got to be it. Mankind will tell themselves anything to maintain hope, even if it means believing in a miracle cure that’ll never come, from God or mankind.
The mid-season finale for season 2 of The Walking Dead had a lot riding on it. I’m not talking about character drama, either. This first half of the season needed to live up to audience’s expectations. We were given a grab-you-by-the-throat first season of TWD. With only six episodes to make an impact, the creators and writers drove the plot and us hard, fast, and dirty. The pacing became a huge part of the appeal. With more episodes to play with, the pacing has suffered greatly. And unfortunately, it is turning people away. Episode 7 had to snag viewers attention again before the break. Did it succeed?
Even with Shane being the voice of the turmoil on the farm, it ended up being Rick who took care of the most difficult part of the entire season thus far. My own frustration came to a head when Sophia emerged from the barn. They’ve been searching so hard for so long and she’d been maybe a hundred yards away the whole time. When I sat to think about the episode, I had to wonder if Hershel realized that one of the walkers he’d captured was the little girl they were all looking for. Were his protests to leave the barn alone multifaceted? We know he thought he was keeping his “sick” family safe, but had he been hiding the truth of Sophia’s condition as well?
At the ZSC, we’re all about encouraging members to tap into their natural talents. For instance, if 
