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| "That's where you're going to throw a wrench at me" |
Series: The Walking Dead
Episode: Season 2 Episode 10 "18 Miles Out"
Air Date: February 26, 2012
Recap: Sunday night's episode begins with a "flash forward" (pardon my "Lost" lingo) to Shane, Rick and Randall running away from a pack of hungry walkers. Cut back to an earlier scene with Rick and Shane driving a blindfolded Randall 18 miles away from the farm. Rick has "the talk" with Shane, tells him to back off his family (aka Lori) and to stop doubting his leadership abilities. Shane looks genuinely remorseful. At the farm Lori catches a suicidal Beth with a knife and alerts Maggie. Her and Beth argue about whether life is worth living now. Andrea and Lori fight about who's contributing more to the group and whether Beth has the right to kill herself. Rick picks an abandoned compound to leave Randall at. Rick stops Shane from shooting Randall when he mentions he went to school with Maggie. Rick and Shane fist fight over whether to kill Randall right now or not. Shane throws a wrench at Rick, breaking a window and awakening a pack of walkers. Randall and Rick escape while Shane gets trapped by the walkers in a school bus. Shane panics when he sees Rick abandoning him. Rick has a change of heart though and rescues Shane. Andrea tells Maggie she will look after Beth but leaves her alone in her room instead. Beth cuts her wrist but not deep enough to die. Maggie banishes Andrea from the house. Rick and Shane drive Randall back to the farm so that Rick has more time to decide what to do with him.
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| "Whew. So glad that ginormous motorcycle Shane threw on me didn't injure me at all." |
Ever since the Walking Dead came back from its mid season hiatus, its been on a roll. "18 Miles Out" is no exception. Gripping and suspenseful, it is a step in the right direction. Where it falters is how much time is spent on Beth. She is still too much of a side character for the audience to really care. I know that the writers are trying to show how stressed everyone is but honestly, it would have made for a much more compelling story if Beth had just gotten her wish. It would have been interesting to see how Andrea would have dealt with that. On the one hand, she was right about not being able to force someone to live if they don't want to but she was wrong in the way she handled Beth. Deliberately deceiving Maggie about looking after Beth? That's just cruel. Beth is Maggie's sister for Christ's sake. Of course she's going to fight for her to live. There's no way Andrea would have been so ok with all of this if Amy had asked to do the same thing. Also, Andrea is forgetting that Beth is not a grown woman, she's a hormonal teenager. Not exactly the most level headed type of person, even without the zombie apocalypse. Andrea is in danger of becoming a selfish character that can't empathize with others. It would be a shame to see someone with so much potential go down that path. (Major props to her though for putting "Queen housewife from the 1950's" Lori in her place. Andrea said what everyone else has been thinking for a long time.)
The episode was full of some great symbolism though, like the lone walker in the field that Shane sees. That look of loathing on his face as he stares out into the field makes the connection hard to miss; Shane is the lone walker. He has no purpose, no group and no where to go. After he shatters the window with the wrench, he sees his dirty, bloody reflection staring back at him through a shard of glass. His expression is as hollow and dead as the walkers that chase after him. The show (kudos to actor Jon Bernthal as well) has done a fantastic job of showing the slow unraveling of Shane.
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| "Let us love you Shane!" |
One thing I've noticed a lot recently is the show's tendency to repeat itself. Things like; discussing how Otis died (Shane's recounting of this event this week marks the 4th or 5th time its been mentioned), discussing how Shane tried to save Rick from the hospital (we've seen it in a flashback and heard about it a few times), Andrea being mad at Dale for stopping her suicide (brought up at least 3 or 4 times), the extended search for Sophia or even a few of the flashbacks themselves (i.e. one featuring Ed told us ground breaking news: he was an asshole). It would be nice to get some new information every once in a while. I hate to bring up Lost again (actually no, I don't) but it would be interesting to see The Walking Dead do something similar to the character-centric episodes Lost was famous for. Some insightful flashbacks to flesh out the characters would be rewarding to finally see. (Who is T-Dog really?) Also, there could be some tidying up of scenes to make more time for new scenes. There was no need for the "flash forward" from the beginning of this episode, its just a cheap ploy to create tension. We already see the scene later in the episode. And the Maggie telling-her-story-about-Beth to Andrea as well as the entire Lori-going-to-get-Rick-then-crashing scenario could have been cut. The seasons and episodes are short enough as it is. Better to use the time wisely.
Side note: where on Earth was everybody else in this episode? No Dale, Daryl, Carol, Glenn, T-Dog or Herschel? Not even milling around in the background? (not to mention, where is the world's worst boyfriend, Jimmy?!?) I know that AMC has had some highly publicized budget cuts but this was a little ridiculous. I wanted to see Herschel's face when he walks in and sees Beth's bloody wrist! Not hear about him stitching her up. How is Daryl doing after his little meltdown? Do him and Carol walk through the fields and braid each others' hair now? Does T-Dog ever help Carol and Lori with laundry?
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| "What do you mean, Daryl isn't going to be in this episode??" |
Best zombie kill: Rick's ménage à trois zombie pile up kill. Killing a walker by shooting his gun through another walker's mouth? BRILLIANT.
Best character development: Rick takes the torch this week. Taking on the role as alpha male, standing up to Shane and giving him a taste of his own medicine were all long overdue things for Rick. Although some may see it as a sign of weakness (Shane), Rick's inability to completely forgo his moral compass is what makes him so human and relatable. If he only cared about surviving he would have left Shane in that bus and killed Randall a long time ago. Rick is flawed and confused, especially in the logic he uses for killing people (he says that "it can't be that easy" of a decision to kill a man and that he needs time to think about it yet he took less than 5 minutes to decide that killing the men in the bar was ok) but at the end of the day, the guy really is just trying to do the right thing.
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| "I WANT MY BEST FRIENDS FOREVER NECKLACE BACK!" |
Best dialogue: Rick's "I wanted to break your jaw and let you choke on your teeth. But I didn't. That wasn't weakness." to Shane. Finally some anger from Rick and a much needed slap in the face to Shane.
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| "I HATE fresh mint leaves." |
Say what? moments: With all this talk between Rick and Shane about scratches causing infection (and possible hinters that the virus is mutating?) how is it that cutting their fingers on blades that they used to kill walkers doesn't get them infected? And you mean to tell me that with all the rumble tumble fights they have had with walkers (Rick's pile up kill this episode, Daryl's rolling fight with the walker in "Chupacabra"), no one has gotten even the slightest scratch?
Is that lone walker Shane saw walking in the field walking in circles? Shane saw him from the passenger side on the way to the compound and then saw him on the passenger side again when they were driving back on the other side of the road....
Was it just me or did anyone else think Randall looked like he only had one arm while he was wriggling on the ground in the clip before the credits?
promo for next week's episode "Judge, Jury, Executioner"
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