Rage. It is a caustic thing. And there is nothing like the low-simmering boil of an all-consuming rage. It is blinding. It is a noxious cancer that coils deeply within searching unendingly for release, for a way to seep out and possibly infect others, or to explode forth and cover everyone it touches in hellfire. Once down this powder keg of a road one knows the fallout will be great, and possibly, if victims and bystanders are lucky it will be mete out with justice. Yet, in a world overrun with zombies you’d better hope the guy with the rage is on your side.
If Rick and Shane are truly two sides of the same coin, than the duality of that rage is probably ratcheted up tenfold. The beginning of this latest episode starts with a funeral and a new found dedication to safeguarding the members of the Grimes group and Hershel’s family from the bigger threat, the zombies, or so it seems.
We open with Shane, Andrea, Darryl, and T-Dawg (What? A T-Dawg sighting?) motoring in an old pickup weapons in hand. In conjunction, back on the farm, the group is burying poor, intestine popped Dale from last week’s vicious zombie kill. In an actual boon for the show we actually don’t seem to spend too much time lamenting the death of Soap-Box Dale. The group accepts his death pretty readily, and moves through the Dale emotion swiftly. Sure, Andrea and Glenn share a moment in the RV, Dale’s beloved RV, and that’s probably the best way to off a tribute to him instead of walking around that dang farm wringing their hands and moaning about the “meaning” of his death, or the proof or not of a higher power, or whether or not they’re all damned. The answer to the last few questions is probably yes, yes, and yes. So why rehash? Fantastic, the non-Darabout involved second half of the season has a distinct “Been There Done That” approach and we’re happier for it.
While we watch the funeral of fallen Dale, the scouting group’s mission is to now attempt to better secure the farm. We don’t know how large Hershel’s farm is but we assume it has more than quite a few miles on it. The group of “Walker Hunters” or “Walker Janitors” comes upon a zombie group feeding on a cow, and as if they were taking out the trash, Snap, Crackle, Pop there goes the heads and brains of each zombie ending with an old school beat down wherein each exercises their rage by stomping on one such unlucky brain-eater. (Zombie Kills: 7)
Since it’s now too dangerous for the Grimes group to be hanging out wearing chests full of dinner meat for the Walkers, Hershel agrees to let them all move into the house like actual people and not these hired hands forced to sleep in the barn with fifty odd cattle. “Thanks, Hershel, we feel so special! Good of you to share some of that nice wood and mortar with the people who protect your Zombie Luncheonette and Soda Shop!” What we find however is that Rick is attempting to take the reins of the group back from unstable Shane. He’s caused just too much unrest and now needs to be put in a place of least harm, so Rick unilaterally demotes him to a shift supervisor, putting Darryl in charge of away missions and Andrea in place to oversee the run of the farm if Rick is off site, and yeah, Shane is salty about the demotion, and about decisions made solely by Rick and being told to “Swallow it, Hoss.” And for her part, Andrea isn’t going along so easily with the “shoving in the corner of Shane.” She agrees begrudgingly to her new position but not without the perfect sentiment in telling Rick that maybe he shouldn’t keep leaving the farm if it’s so important that it’s safeguarded. Hey, yeah, how about that, Rick? How many times have you left everyone to fend for themselves while you were out on some fool’s errand?
Hershel agrees with Rick’s decision to keep Shane at bay, but Carl, that sneaky jackrabbit, whose footsteps apparently don’t make a sound, still sees a use in Shane’s no-nonsense attitude. He comes forth and tells him about all his misguided, unsupervised travails including the gun he took from Darryl, and the Walker he taunted who then showed up to attack Dale – all in a man-to-man moment you feel he doesn’t feel he can have with his father, and one which you get the impression Shane revels in. Shane tells him that Dale’s death was not his fault and tells him to keep the gun. Carl wants no part of gun-slinging since it went so well the first time.
This is an interesting series of moments for Shane, where you always see the emotion and vulnerability come through in the fine acting by Jon Bernthal, it is in these moments where he is the most human, and you see the longing, the desire for the family he can never have, the one he did protect and sacrifice for. This is what Lori finally tells him. In what seems like a total 180 from the woman who put in Rick’s head how dangerous he was, now she wants to express how lucky she is to have two men that want nothing more than to keep her safe while admitting that she doesn’t know who the father of her baby is, and how that must be hard for Shane to swallow. Urgh. The fact that she suddenly had this epiphany and has basically treated Shane like an asshole the entire time up to this makes us sputter our annoyance with Lori yet again. An asshole he may be, but one put in the awkward position of going overnight from being a lover to an odd man out and reviled adversary.
In an effort to test the waters with Rick whose relationship has moved from tense to taut, Shane tells him about Carl’s escapade with the Walker indicating that Rick is needed more by his family and less as a Captain of the “Setting Randall Free and Barking Orders at the Farm” job, since this was Shane’s territory. Rick holds firm to reducing Shane’s role, especially since he knows Shane has no desire to set Randall free. Simmer, simmer.
Something Shane said must have made an impact (mostly because he was right) and Rick finds Carl and they talk frankly about the situation. He doesn’t apologize for the world being as it is, but says that it just is, and people will die. He’ll die, Lori will die, and it will be over, so Carl needs to learn how to protect himself because he won’t have the kind of childhood his father had – his now includes the need to carry a gun. It’s time to put away childish things.
What we’re finding more and more is that the second part of the season likes to divide the episodes up into emotion and action, or in some instances, into light and dark, if that makes sense in a world with such ominous darkness. But that light and dark can be characters themselves, and somehow the change from one to the other happens with almost the flick of a light switch, and this is how we return to the world of Randall and his fate.
Now, we are aware, despite some flowery conversations with Lori, some heartfelt moments with Carl, and the push and pull with Rick, that Shane is slowly becoming more and more unhinged. There is something residing in his frontal lobe that is making plans, so we’re not too surprised to see him walk into Randall’s holding cell alone. And in a brilliant shot, we know it’s Shane by his trademark pants tucked into combat boots look that it seems only he has. We know from first glance that whatever happens here will not be good for Randall. Shane’s mania is palpable. He is thinking about the outcome of doing the thing he most wants to do which is to flat out kill Randall, and he pulls his gun to do it with a look of almost monstrous rapture at just the notion of pulling the trigger. Then, he notices that Randall has been working on those cuffs, rubbing his wrists raw in an attempt to slip free. This poses a whole new option for Shane, and he’s elated as the wheels start turning.
T-Dawg is sent to retrieve Randall from the locked shed to find that Randall is missing as he shouts “There are snakes out here this big?!” circa Ice Cube in the mid 1990’s. No, T-Dawg says, “Oh, hell naw!” in what must be the worst bit of dialogue written for a character this entire season. Why? Why Walking Dead writers do you give this huge exposition to nearly everyone else, but T-Dawg is stuck with such immature commentary? Can he not have a politic moment of his own? Sheesh.
In the woods Shane is walking Randall along under the pretense of helping him escape. Oh, he says he wants to join his group’s gang. Sure, yes, that’s it, but we know Shane is plotting something, and as Randall is yammering on, Shane is more and more cagey and cautious, and then twist, crack, scream, we hear someone fall to the ground and realize that Randall is no longer talking. He’s been killed off screen. Shane then with the look of a crazed man rams his head into a nearby tree, hides his gun, and we know with sickening clarity that Shane has started something in motion. Is it more than just creating a cover for killing Randall?
Rick tells everyone to go to the house and a four man team of Rick, Shane, Darryl, and Glenn go after Randall whom Shane has said punched him, took his gun, and got away. Darryl, our erstwhile tracker, doesn’t quite believe that Randall got the jump on Shane. Not maniacal, zombie head twisting, Shane. But the team splits up and Darryl and Glenn start off one way, Rick and Shane go the other. Night falls and it seems that the group is walking in a bit of a circle, or at least Glenn and Darryl are. Rick, however, seems to be turning Shane’s story over and over in his mind, and begins asking a few questions about the details of that spun tale. Shane with self-inflicted blood running down his face looks evermore the killer.
Darryl is starting to figure out the holes in Shane’s story, he finds two sets of tracks, blood on the tree where Shane hit himself, signs of a struggle, and then a Walker approaches. It’s Randall. Darryl and Glenn manage to take him out, Darryl allowing Glenn the final blow to the skull. Was it by design to boost his confidence? Perhaps. (Zombie Kills: 8) Now that seemed strange, right? Didn’t Shane kill this guy? Yup! This is what Glenn and Darryl figure out. He was killed by a broken neck and the zombiefying happened later, but without a bite or a scratch. Curious.
Back with Shane and Rick who have come upon a clearing in the woods, which with the moon high above is starting to look a little bit like high noon at the OK Corral. The ruse is now over. Rick knows this is exactly what Shane wanted — to bring him out of the way to kill him. Shane doesn’t deny it. Shane believes he has it all worked out, and thinks firmly that the rest of the group will accept whatever story he tells. We find out that Shane has never let go of his rage. No, not at all. He’s held on to it, and used it. Remember in the first season when he pointed that shotgun right at Rick and Dale came upon him? Yeah, it’s all coming to a head. He calls Rick out by telling him that he’s got a “broken woman, and a weak boy” and no way to fix it. Rick still the negotiator is able to talk Shane down, but he gets closer, closer still, even while telling him there is a way out of their current situation. But there is no way out. Shane’s intentions are clear if not now than soon from now. Rick takes the opportunity and stabs Shane, and tells him in his dying moments that it was “You not me who did this!” Upon Shane’s dying form we see flashes of zombies, screeching, and clawing.
We don’t know if this is what Shane is seeing or if it’s a premonition, but Carl, that invisible little minx, appears and he raises his gun at what Rick thinks is himself, but really it’s at zombie Shane who has now arisen — without being bitten. Carl shoots Shane in the head. (Zombie Kills: 9)
We end with a new horde of zombies coming forward, well, inexplicably. We also begin to think the zombie virus just lies dormant for some until it can emerge after a human death. But what about Dale? He didn’t come back. Is it selective? Is it about karma? Heh. Maybe. In that case, no one was more ready to become a monster than Shane.
