The Walking Dead - The Morning After

(so technically it's two days later and not morning here but you get the idea.  I blame Downton Abbey for missing it.)

"Nebraska" opens with previouslies including Hershel and the barn-dwellers; Shane losing it; and Rick putting down a zombified Sophia.  Cut to the exact moment where the last episode left off…the end of Rick’s gun.  Post-barnmageddon people are pretty freaking upset.  Hershel’s blond girl heads straight for her mother’s twice dead corpse.  Too bad she wasn’t quite dead yet.  Thankfully Andrea was near by with a mother-effin’ scythe!  This was the one moment I wished the show was in 3D.  Andrea nails the back of the her skull with extreme prejudice and it’s lovely.

Hershel kicks them off the farm, again, but most especially he wants Shane gone.  This forces Shane and Rick to quibble, pull ‘em out, and measure, as per usual.  Shane still thinks his is biggest and the most powerful.  Dale knows if you don’t agree, Shane will leave your for dead Otis style.

Glen and Maggie are talking, as they do, about what next.  Will he stay (will Hershel allow it) or will he go with the RV crew?  Sophia was their raison d’etre on the farm so now who knows?  They’re interrupted by a noise and find the blond girl catatonic with Hershel nowhere to be found.  He’s presumed to be in town, drinking and I can’t blame the guy.  It’s decided that Rick (over Lori’s protestations) and Glenn will round him up.

It’s agreed they will bury the bodies of those they loved and burn the rest.  Dale and Shane have another face-off where Shane gets a bit of his crazy all over Dale and I know this will come to a head soon.  Carol wants no part of the burial because the Sophia she knew and loved died a while ago...alone, in the woods, and on the run for her life.  Carol does, however, go medieval on some wildflowers to deal with her pain and anger.  While she’s doing this, Rick and Andrea have piled the bodies on the back of the truck and are driving them off to be burned.  An arm falls off a body and onto the ground. Andrea hops off to get it and the whole time I’m holding my breath because I’m afraid the walker missing an arm is going to wake up and want it back.  He doesn’t and I breathe again.

Shane is at the well trying to wash some of the crazy off him and hears a noise in the woods.  Nothing to worry about, Shane.  It’s just Carol killing more tall grass.  He has a strange moment with her where he washes her hands but it calms them both down so I let it go.  Dale can’t let go of his fears regarding Shane and gets on his soapbox, this time with Lori in earshot.  He tells her his pitch-perfect theory of the Shane/Otis saga but she doesn’t want to believe it.  Plus it’s not like they could prove it. 

Lori asks Darryl to help find Hershel but he’s done finding people.  He’s pretty much done with just about all of it.  Also, he calls her Olive Oyl and it’s pretty great.  Lori decides to go off on her own to find Hershel.  She goes in a car so I guess they’ve decided to give the horses a rest?  She’s texting while driving (ok, map reading but basically the same thing), hits a walker, and loses control of the car.  She flips and that’s the last we see of her for a while.

Rick and Glenn find Hershel at the local watering hole drowning his sorrows in a bottle.  They plead with him to come home and fix his catatonic blond (BETH! She has a name!) but he's busy with his own demons.  Rick tries to talk to him about hope but it seems Hershel has lost that and his faith too.  Quite a 180 for him.  To Rick nothing has changed.  The living folks need them.  It’s moved beyond hope and beliefs and all that.  It’s about survival, y’all.  Then the door opens and we hear, “Son of a bitch.  They’re alive.” Whaaaaa?

NO EFFING WAY!! It’s the not-Donal-Logue-dude from Terriers!  I love him! (Terriers can be found on McStreaming and I recommend it.  Highly)  He and his super-sized friend are from Philly, are with a group, and have been scouting around.  He’s heard lots of rumors about where is safe and where isn't.  He also breaks the news to Rick that he’s heard Ft. Benning is one of the latter filled with “lame-brains.”  He likes the term “walkers.”  It’s more succinct.  They try to invite themselves to the farm and as much as I love him, I want him and his peeing-on-the-floor friend to move along.  I get my wish and they move on permanently thanks to Quick-Draw Grimes.  Dayum!  Also it’s worth saying…RICK SHOT FIRST!

Back at the farm the bonfire is lit and this is not the time to enjoy s’mores.  Ick.  Can you imagine?