The Walking Dead - The Morning After

“Beside the Dying Fire”  aka “The Ricktatorship”

Our previouslies gives us the many scenes showing that Shane lost it mentally and then lost his life, twice.  Good job saving your dad’s life, Carl!  That totally makes up for taunting the swamp-walker.

In the city there are walkers feasting and are suddenly distracted by a helicopter flying overhead.  They wander off together, down a highway, through a field, and right into a large fence.  Like a crowd at Lollapalooza, they push and push until the fence goes down.  Wait, what about that chopper?  Anywhoodle, the walkers are in the woods now and hear a gunshot.  They follow it and guess where they end up?

Titles!

Inside the house everyone is worried.  Darryl and Glenn show up and share what they found out in them there woods.  Darryl heads right back out to locate Shane and Rick.  We join the latter with his young son who is asking lots of questions and getting no answers because daayyum! that’s a really big herd.  Please be aware that this is another suspend your disbelief episode.  I thought Rick and Carl were between the herd and the house and therefore could have run straight to the house but then were suddenly surrounded.  If you argue that fast-moving zombies could outrun a 9-year old I’ll buy it.  Also though I have issue with the way the whole thing went down and I realize it all happened to get them off the farm and to the prison but still.  Couldn’t they have hid in the house (basement, maybe?) and waited a day or two for the herd to move on?  How long would it have taken the herd to eat the cattle and kept moving?  So setting that all aside, I’ll get back to what went down.  Ok, so Rick and Carl lead the walkers to the barn and get them inside where they set the place on fire.  The folks at the house have armed themselves and notice that the barn is aflame.  They jump in the cars and practice their drive-by shooting skills on the walkers loitering around the barn in search of, I’m assuming, sticks and marshmallows.  Or flesh.  Meanwhile, Lori is just now noticing that Carl is missing and freaks the hell out.  Jimmy, who is driving the unwieldy RV gets feasted on but at least he pulled up where Rick and Carl could use the RV to escape the burning barn. 

-Commercials!  Did you see the Prometheus trailer?  Thoughts?  Ukie’s not impressed but I think the scope of it looks pretty cool and will pay a bit extra to see it on an IMAX screen.

Hershel’s picking off walkers and doesn’t join the ladies who are escaping the house. In fact he’s so in the zone I don’t even think he heard a shrieking Lori.  Otis’s wife, whose name I never bothered learning gets it bad and poor Beth takes a bit too long letting go of her hand.  T-Dog and Andrea pull up to get the ladies and the latter hops out to give them some coverage.  Maggie and Glenn take off.  Hershel runs out of ammo and almost gets bit from behind but is saved at the last second by Rick.  Andrea gets left behind.  Holy crap, that sucks.  Darryl is on his chopper (not the flying kind) but hears a scream and backtracks to get Carol.  Is it too much to ask that we all have a Darryl during the upcoming zombie apocalypse?  Rick, Hershel and Carl jump into a Suburban and head off.  Poor Hershel looks back onto his burning farm.  Dude’s been through a lot since these knuckleheads showed up.  The herd is starting to move on and the barn’s roof crashes down.

-Commercials!  As a steadfast Whedonite I am very excited about Cabin in the Woods.  I’m excited that it’s finally being released (after being shelved for quite a while).  And I’m totally excited that reports from SXSW say that it’s as good as Iwant it to be, better even.  YAY!!!

Darryl and Carol are on the road (and now I have a little Willie Nelson song in my head), zigzagging around walkers.  Maggie and Glenn are together and she’s flipping out.  Glenn gets the hysterical woman out of the driver’s seat and calms her down by reminding her they both made it and that he loves her.  Typically this is when the walker in the back seat would pop up and eat Glenn but that doesn’t happen and I love this show all the more for it.  Rick, Hershel and Carl make it to the spot where they left Sophia a message on the car windshield thinking that’s where everyone will end up, except no one seems to know this.  In fact, was there a plan for this kind of occasion?  Or was it just an understood?  Carl is pretty stressed that his mom’s not there and Hershel offers to stay behind so that Rick can take his son to safety?  Rick reminds Hershel that he’s supposed to be a man of faith and he should exercise that a little and wait for the others to show.  I giggled a bit when Hershel admits that his thoughts on Christ resurrecting the dead would be a bit different than it turned out.  T-Dog, Lori and Beth are together and Lori’s trying to get T-Dog to head back to the spot on the highway but he refuses saying it’d be suicide.  So she opens the truck door and threatens to jump out and he relents.  Rick is just about to try and talk Carl into leaving when everybody rolls up like it had been the plan all along.  They take a headcount and no one can confirm seeing Andrea actually get bitten.  Darryl offers to go back and get her but then doesn’t.  They leave and the camera focuses one last time on the message to Sophia, the whole reason they ended up at the farm.

-Commercials!  Thoughts on The Raven?  Personally I think they’re riding Sherlock Holmes’s successful coattails but it could be good. It helps that I’m a Cusack fan too.

Andrea’s still alive, ya’ll!  She’s running from the walkers and if you watched Talking Dead after (you should have!) you know she spent 12 hours on this scene.  Apparently she couldn’t get out of bed for two days after.  Rick’s gas-guzzler is on empty so they have to stop.  He’s trying to be positive and believes there’s a safe place for them to live.  The group brings up Randall’s turning without being bitten and Rick spills what he found out at the CDC…they’re all infected.  He thought the guy was crazy and didn’t give any credence to it until now.  They’re all pissy that he didn’t tell them sooner but I kinda get it.  Lori is back to whispering in his ear until he comes clean with the entire Shane scenario.  She looks surprised and loses it when he adds the part Carl played.  Have I mentioned how much I dig Andrew Lincoln and how annoying Lori has become? 

-Commercials!  Wrath of the Titans looks just as bad as its predecessor and I just don’t care.  I’m gonna see it and I’m gonna laugh at it and enjoy every ridiculous second of it.

Andrea is understandably running out of steam and gets jumped by a walker.  This looks like the end for her but then the walker's head is swiftly removed from its body.  Behind it stands a dark figure armed with a katana and hoodie and two armless walkers chained to her.  For those who haven’t read the books, you’re gonna love this chick.  Seriously.  At the un-fun campfire there’s a noise off in the distance and most everyone flips out.  Also they’re questioning Rick now because of his decision to keep the infection thing to himself.  He spills to them about the Shane situation and invites them to try and survive without him.  If they stay it won’t be a democracy or even a cheerocracy.  It’s a Rickocracy and he’s Il Duce.  The camera floats up over the un-fun campfire to reveal a rather large building in the distance.  It’s prison time!  See ya in the fall!