The Walking Dead Recap 2.1 – ‘What Lies Ahead’
by Britt Hayes
Editor’s Note: This recap and all future recaps contain extensive spoilers for The Walking Dead television series on AMC, as well as the comic books. You’ve been warned.
And we’re back! At the end of last season Frank Darabont shook up his writers room, promising some much-needed and fresh perspective on the series. Then came the news that Darabont had been fired and replaced with Glen Mazzara of The Shield (and Crash… and HawthoRNe… but we won’t talk about that). But let’s talk about where we left our characters at the end of season one. Having arrived at the CDC, the gang discovered a lone scientist who had rigged the center with explosives. He didn’t want to die alone, so he decided that they should all die with him. Okay, really, he just thought it best for everyone not to suffer, which was pretty considerate if not a little creepy of him. Andrea chooses to stay, so Dale says he’ll stay too; not wanting to endanger anyone else’s life for the sake of her own, Andrea finally agrees to evacuate. Our group hit the road in search of greener pastures, but not before our new scientist friend (Clancy Motherfucking Brown) can whisper something super secret in Rick’s ear. Maybe he told him there’s been evidence of someone with immune blood. Or maybe he told him of a safe place to go. Maybe it was the recipe for Coke. Or maybe he told him what Bill Murray said to Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation.
And so we begin season two with Rick speaking into his handheld radio in the hopes that maybe Morgan and his son will hear his message and his warning that the CDC was hopeless and they’re moving on. He almost tells us what the scientist said, but in a moment of cliché storytelling he says, “It’s not important…” Of course it is, Rick, and I genuinely hope Mazzara & co. aren’t planning to oversell this secret and string us along until the finale. Who do they think they are? The Killing? I mean, come on.
The crew hit a vehicular obstacle course (or as Lori calls it, “a graveyard”) on the highway, affording them an opportunity to siphon some gas and look for supplies. Andrea is still reeling from the death of her sister and cleaning her gun in the RV. Dale is repairing a busted hose on said RV while the rest of our friends scavenge the abandoned vehicles. Lori questions the moral integrity of taking the belongings of the dead, particularly when some of the dead bodies are still occupying the vehicles. There’s a nice unspoken moment where the group proceeds anyway – these people are dead and they don’t need these things anymore, and at the end of the day, this group of survivors are alive; in order to stay alive, they need to do things they wouldn’t normally do “in real life.”
They aren’t alone for long, predictably, as Rick spots a couple of walkers straggling into their area, followed by the effectively stunning reveal of a small herd. What makes this moment so fantastic is an idea that’s touched on in the comics – that while one or two zombies are manageable (and you should always attempt to kill them quietly, lest the sound of your gun attract some of their friends), you can become overtaken quickly by a group of them if you aren’t paying attention. The camera work here as we view the first couple of walkers through Rick’s sniper scope is pretty brilliant, allowing us to be just as taken aback when he pans over to the suddenly emerging herd.
The survivors all tuck themselves under cars and Sophia is almost killed when two zombies tear off after her into the woods. Rick rises to the occasion and chases after them, protecting Sophia and killing the zombies, but Sophia disappears and the rest of the episode is an Amber Alert search for the missing girl.
An issue I took with last season was that, while it made Shane eminently likable in a departure from the comics (and even after his encounter with Lori at the CDC, which is truly a feat), the real hero is supposed to be Rick – even in the show. So it’s nice to see them continuing Shane’s complexity, but really setting Rick up as our brave hero. He makes the tough decisions that no one else wants to make and because of this, Rick bears a heavy burden: he is both appreciated and resented by his fellow survivors. This should make for interesting group dynamics this season.
A problem that still lingers from season one, though, is the dialogue. While not as obvious and direct as, say, the season one finale, the character interactions still leave a little to be desired. It’s early in the season, granted, but I really hope that these characters can have more meaningful conversations and interactions as the season progresses.
In one of the better moments, Rick and Darrel are tracking Sophia in the woods and come across a walker. They kill him and smartly decide to gut him like a deer in one of a couple of moments that draws some nice imagery parallels with hunting in this episode. They tear open the zombie and remove his stomach to rummage through what he’s eaten so they can verify that Sophia was not his most recent meal. It’s striking, repulsive imagery that, while reminding us that this is AMC and they aren’t afraid to get a little nasty, cuts to the grisly reality of the situation. These are the sorts of decisions and actions that need to be taken in this new life.
Shane spends much of the episode trying to place some emotional distance between himself and Carl because he’s decided to leave the group. Later, when the group come upon a church during their hunt for Sophia, Andrea overhears Lori and Shane bickering about their affair. It’s this moment that leads Andrea to ask Shane if she can join him, but it also leads to my least favorite moment: Andrea being catty to Lori. Andrea is perhaps one of the best characters both in the comic and on the show, so it’s unfortunate when she’s given such trite characterization. I suppose it goes to show that even in end of the world situations, we can still waste our time with trivial pursuits, but it doesn’t feel like something Andrea’s character would do, especially given her current emotional state. Hopefully this doesn’t turn into a season-long conflict, where Andrea harbors the secret of the affair and the big question is whether or not she’ll tell Rick. It could possibly lead somewhere interesting, but I’ll discuss that more with the comic fans at the end of this recap.
There’s also some lame, cliché church stuff with Carol (Sophia’s mom), where she talks to God out loud while other people are in the room like some psycho drama queen. We get it. Your daughter is missing and your husband was gross (and a pedophile, apparently?!). Fortunately, I’m not alone because in the background, Rick tilts his head down and seems a bit exhausted by this whole exchange. Rick doesn’t escape my ire this episode, though, as later he decides to have a chit-chat with Jesus. Oh, and this Jesus has been conveniently splattered with the blood of zombies, in case you needed some ham-fisted imagery (and if you missed it, the camera shows it at least three times).
Before I get to the great ending to this episode, I want to touch on an issue I think many are having with this episode: the faster zombies. This is something that’s brought up in the comics, and I feel like it’s sort of understood on the show without the characters having expository dialogue on the subject. The longer a zombie has been dead and more importantly, the more starved it is, the slower it will be. A “fresher” zombie who has recently eaten will be faster. I like this idea in the comics and I’m glad they’ve introduced it on the show. It gives our characters a little more conflict with the walkers, and it gives us as viewers some variety, which, like pepper, is the spice of life (look it up).
The end of this week’s episode finds Carl joining Rick and Shane to look for Sophia because Lori is tired of being the overbearing “bad guy” mother who won’t let him out of her sight. The trio come across a stag in the forest, and before Shane can pull the trigger, Rick stops him to let Carl approach the majestic creature. Shane wasn’t the only one with his eye on the prize and another gun goes off, hitting the stag and Carl in the same shot. Our episode ends with Carl on the ground, bleeding from his chest. While it may have been a little easy to see this coming between all the running through the woods, the nods to hunting, and especially the deer, it’s still a pretty shocking moment to have in the season premiere. Perhaps more important is the man vs. self conflicts this creates: Lori allowed Carl to run off with the adults, while Shane was busy giving lectures to Andrea about how irresponsible everyone is with a gun because they haven’t had the same training he and Rick have as officers of the law. And now we have some genuine possible drama as Shane and Lori blame themselves, putting them in delicate emotional states – and everyone knows that a zombie scenario isn’t exactly the time to be irrational.
How Does it Compare to the Comics?
Note to readers: If you want to leave comments about how the show compares to the books, please leave a big SPOILER warning at the top of your post.
Hey fellow comic nerds! Let’s talk a little about how this week’s episode compares to the books, shall we?
It looks like they started making Shane a little more complex at the end of season one, and that’s continuing here. I’m wondering if Andrea’s knowledge of the affair will somehow lead to Rick finding out, ending in Shane losing it and Rick or Carl shooting him. I’d hate to see Shane go, but if they continue to make him such a great character, it might be the sort of incredibly emotional moment we’re hoping for on the show. Shane’s death in the book didn’t have the emotional impact it could have, but here they have a chance of really knocking the audience over.
Andrea seems to have begun her journey on the road to bad-assdom. Shane has brought up proper gun usage and with Carl getting shot, the camp should be learning how to use their guns soon, which hopefully means that Andrea will discover that she’s a natural with that sniper rifle. Gun-toting, no-nonsense Andrea is best.
Speaking of Carl – so this is the point on the show where they should have encountered Tyreese (can we get Tyreese already?!), followed by Carl getting shot in the woods by Otis and the group being led to Hershel’s farm. It looks like we’re definitely getting the farm, which means we’re also getting Maggie! And the previews for the upcoming season seem to confirm all of this, but I still don’t see Tyreese. Also, all of this is just making me antsy for the prison and Michonne.
