Save the last one. Wow. That’s a pretty ominous title for an episode. It makes us ponder what we’re saving exactly.
We open to the sight of a shower running and the sound of buzzing. As the camera slowly pans up we realize that it’s Shane or Deputy Dickface as he’s been dubbed, giving himself a Buzz cut. Why? Why is he doing this? We’re a little disoriented since we have no idea if this is present day, pre-infection, or post outbreak. There are the telltale signs that whatever point in history we’re in something bad has happened, and it sets up the episode rather nicely.
School’s Out Forever: We hear Lori’s voice at the fade in and as she’s talking to Rick, telling him to eat something. We realize that they’re talking about Shane. We then see him. Shane and Otis are back in the abandoned school where we left them at the end of the last episode. You’ll remember they barricaded themselves in with only a small pin in a gate keeping the zombies at bay. Having gotten out, and now running for their lives, Shane and Otis are making great cinema, the pace harrowing with palpable angst. The music is tense, and while Rick is telling a story about Shane in the earlier days of their camaraderie and friendship, you watch as a hungry horde of zombies chases Otis and Shane through the twists and turns of the school. The zombies are closing in, gaining on them and getting ever closer with the pull of each breath. Suddenly they come upon a locked door, and in that moment you see the abject horror on Shane’s face as he realizes that he has to make yet another turn in what has to seem like an unending maze. Just think about your high school…at night. Think about what it would be like if you had to run the halls of that school with a horde of zombies nipping at your heels. You can’t run into a classroom. You’ll be trapped. You don’t want to close yourself in. So you keep running and running through the halls hoping for an exit that doesn’t lead to another throng of zombies.
When we finally see Rick and Lori at Carl’s bedside, Rick is recounting a story of Shane’s doggedness in the past. In that instance we realize that Shane has always been the guy who got things done. Yes, Rick might throw on his cowboy hat, and philosophize with the best of ‘em, but when you need something solved…you get Shane. And as he attempts to convince Lori of that fact, we have a feeling Lori already knows since Shane was the one who kept them all alive before Rick arrived, something some seem to forget.
Sleep When You’re Dead: In Dale’s RV, Daryl is having a hard time sleeping, and it’s no wonder, Carol is crying and whimpering about poor, lost Sophia, who I said last week REALLY NEEDS TO BE FOUND, because I can’t deal with this stall in story much longer. I need Sophia to either be found or be a zombie soon. There’s really no middle ground. Safe Sophia, or eat your face Sophia, that’s it. The other reason Daryl can’t sleep is that on the other side of him Andrea is loading and reloading a clip, doing so in some sort of OCD cracked-up lady way. There’s no gun. She’s just reloading the clip. Sheesh. These guys need television. Finger puppets? A zombie variety show. Something.
Daryl, our favorite bloodhound, tells both women that he’s going to walk the road and look for Sophia. It looks like it’s about midnight. Pitch black…and Daryl is going out to look in the woods for a little girl. This sounds like a great idea…to zombies! Seriously. You’d think the zombies had telepathy and said to Daryl, “Yes, yes, go outside in the dark. Maybe you’ll find something. Maybe you’ll get chomped in the thigh.” Andrea, bored with Kitchen Table Clip Loading and Dale Hating, decides to go along to Dale’s dismay.
Daryl and Andrea, walking and talking in the dark, discuss the chances of Sophia surviving so many days by herself. Daryl shares how he was lost at 9 surviving on berries and little else, while wiping his ass with poison oak. Yes, but Daryl, you were a scrappy little redneck and this is a little girl who’s probably only ever had tea parties and doll birthday events. We’re pretty sure she doesn’t have a few sticks of beef jerky in her pocket, and if she’s encountering zombies in the forest, yeah well, that’s much more than a few days with an itchy ass.
Show Some Spirit…at the Zombie Pep Rally! Shane and Otis find their way to the high school gym and when we find them again, they’re perched on top of the bleachers with a sea of zombies grasping at their feet. Here they devise a plan of escape. Otis will try and make it to the locker room while Shane covers him by picking off the closest walkers. Um, hmm. Okay. No obvious flaws there. None more than, you know, getting down. The second part of the plan has Shane knocking out a window and dropping about twenty feet to the athletic field below. Well, it starts off badly. Who saw that coming?! Otis jumps, falls, and a crawler zombie grabs hold of his leg. Yay! for crawler zombie! We haven’t seen much of these guys. They’re always good for a shock out of nowhere. The only thing better than a crawler is a runner. Good gracious. Those two together could make a whole movie!
Shane picks off the crawler for Otis and takes out a few more while he gets away. Shane then gets to the top of the bleachers and starts breaking his escape window. Two zoms see him and shamble his way. Shane shoots one into the other, and now he’s left with his next challenge….how to drop down twenty feet without killing himself. Looks like he doesn’t have a lot of time to figure it out. As he’s lowering himself down…whuhpah! A pop-up zombie grabs hold and after a few punches, Shane is able to fire a round into the zombie’s head. Yeah, and since it’s pretty hard to hang on to zombie chum, he falls the rest of the way and you hear a nice loud crunch as he comes down on his ankle. Oomph. Otis then fires three more rounds presumably into zombie skulls and we know he’s on the move. A bit later, Shane finds himself surrounded until Otis shows up to help out. Otis shoots the ones nearest to Shane, and then they both take off limping and struggling along. For the moment they’re glad to have one another. JUST WHERE DID THEY PARK THE CAR…ON THE ROOF?
Emily Post for the Zombie Apocalypse: As was decided in the last episode, T-Dawg and Glenn have made their way to the farmhouse. They debate for a minute the protocol of just showing up at someone’s house. T-Dawg is under the assumption that in a zombie apocalypse niceties are a luxury they can’t afford. However, as they approach the doctor’s daughter Maggie, who’s sitting on the porch, she says otherwise as she asks if they closed the gate on the way in. Apparently, just because things are crazy, doesn’t mean you disavow all manners, T-Dawg. Once inside, everyone sees that the situation with Carl is pretty dire. The Doc tells Lori and Rick that if Shane and Otis don’t return soon, they’ll have to decide whether or not to let him operate without the respirator which would make his survival rate near nil.
What Are We Fighting For, Again? After being told the slim chances for Carl’s survival, Lori is contemplating the benefit of Carl living. She wonders what kind of life Carl will have. Will he become a zombie? Will he die? Will he grow up to be a hardened killer, and an unstable person from all the carnage he’s witnessed? She asks Rick just what kind of endgame they can expect for their son at the end of all this, and if death now would be better. Rick thinks this is crazy talk. But is it? Are they being selfish for wanting Carl with them when he could just fade into the ether free from the responsibility of keeping himself alive at all costs? Lori asks Rick to give her one reason why Carl should live in a world overrun with zombies. At the moment Rick really doesn’t have an answer.
And with this we get the first moral question of the episode. If death presented itself for a loved one, would you let them go, rather than have them continue a life of fear and misery?
Twisting in the Wind: Daryl and Andrea come upon a camp, and mysteriously the trees are shaking. When they finally reach the site they realize there’s a walker suspended from a noose. Confused, Daryl looks closer and sees a suicide note which says, “Got Bit, Fever Hit, World went to Shit. I Quit.” So the guy has just been dangling there since he turned. He’s a piñata! He’s a zombie drape! He’s a chandelier. He’s a veritable Christmas tree globe! And apparently there’s a stench. Andrea says she’s going to puke, to which Daryl says, “Go ahead if you got it.” Have I mentioned how much I love Daryl? He tells it like it is, and doesn’t pull any punches, yet we’re getting to see a human side to Daryl. Last season he was drawn with such a heavy hand. All kvetching and no soul. Now, he has a personality, and the ability to make quips and bring levity. He mentions to Andrea how the other walkers have eaten the flesh off the hanging zombie’s legs. This is enough to make Andrea’s vom happen, to Daryl’s quiet glee. That was payback for Andrea’s laughing at Daryl’s rashy bum earlier.
Daryl turns to leave but Andrea wants him to put the thing out of its misery. Daryl asks her if she wants to live or not. Really for Daryl, it’s all about not wasting time, or resources. She says she’ll give him an answer for an arrow to take out the swinging walker. He agrees, and she says that she doesn’t know if she wants to live, if she has to, or if it’s just a habit. Yeah, that pretty much sums up the current sentiment. Daryl shoots the thing, but says it was a waste of an arrow. Ever efficient, that Daryl. They return to the camper without Sophia, and Carol finds it hard to face them.
Dale wants desperately to patch things up with Andrea so he apologizes and gives her back her father’s gun, and hopes that she doesn’t use it on herself. He also asks for her forgiveness, and she says she’s trying.
Are You There, God? It’s Me, The World: Maggie has taken a bit of a shine to Glenn and they launch into an existential conversation of their own. Glenn says he was praying when Maggie finds him on the porch, and he asks if she thinks God exists. Maggie says she’s been wondering the same thing but notes that it seems that a lot of prayers apparently have gone unanswered pretty much the world over since the world is now hell.
Carl wakes up and is lucid enough to say to his mother that he saw the deer. He says that it was pretty and so close…he then trails off as he has a seizure from a loss of blood. After the seizure when Rick and Lori are next together, Rick’s reason for why Carl should live is that he talked about something beautiful and living. The deer. He emphasizes that it means there still may be something better somewhere that they just haven’t found yet. The deer signifies that perhaps there is hope.
Save the Last One: Time is up for Carl, and a choice has to be made. Lori and Rick decide to do the surgery without the respirator. In the nick of time, Shane rolls up with the gear…alone. After grabbing what is needed, the doctor asks after Otis, and Shane just shakes his head solemnly. The doctor instructs that no one mention anything to Patricia, Otis’ wife and the doctor’s field nurse. We then see a flash of something in Shane’s eyes. Without asking verbally, Rick wants to know what happened. Shane says they were chased by the horde having little success at escape, and says how Otis told him to keep going… he then says he looked back and Otis was gone. Rick reasons that Otis wanted to make it right. The it being shooting his son in cold blood.
The doctor gives Rick and Lori the news that Carl has stabilized, but there’s still Patricia to deal with. Rick decides that he’ll go with the doctor to give her the news. And Shane again has a creepy, faraway look. He comes skulking into the house, unable to look at Patricia. He checks on Carl to see that he’s okay, and Lori tells him to stay. He doesn’t though. And as he’s walking through the house, more and more it looks like he’s falling apart. Maggie stops him and gives him clean clothes to wear. Otis’ clothes, which nearly undoes him on the spot. At this point I’m shouting at the television. WHAT DID YOU DO SHANE? WHAT DID YOU DO?!
We’re now back to the opening sequence with Shane alone in the bathroom. He’s checking over his scrapes and wounds and notices something in his hair. A patch? A gouge? Oh, boy! At first we were sure it was a zombie bite. Finally! But no. The scene replays where Shane and Otis are recounting how many rounds they each have as they’re running from the horde. Otis is down to four, and Shane has five. After firing off a few rounds, Otis says he’s down to his last, and Shane says he is too. He then turns to Otis and says “I’m sorry.” Otis looks back confused. Shane then shoots him in the leg. As he falls Shane attempts to take his gear. Otis tries to fight back. He grapples with Shane, pulls his hair, and won’t let go until Shane pistol whips him into submission. With one final heart stopping wrench Shane frees himself and watches as the zombies descend on Otis and feed amidst his screams and wails of terror. We end with Shane shaving his head and looking at himself in the mirror. A look that says that he thinks he’s probably a monster.
Yes, he probably is. But what were the options? On one hand you can say that the whole reason they were there was Otis’ mistake, and Shane was given one task, save Carl, the boy he loved. Did Otis fit into that equation? Yes, but ultimately it’s possible neither man would have survived the mission if there wasn’t a little distance set between them and the walkers. So, as we’re learning, Shane is put to task to make some of the hard decisions. Rick gets to ponder morality. Shane has to act on it, or against it.
What did you think?
