Friday, April 12, 2013

Walking Dead - Season 2 Episode 4 "Cherokee Rose"


I really enjoyed this episode. It was consistently entertaining. Everyone had some good dialogs, surprisingly and refreshingly few of which were about zombies. Shane and Andrea discuss gun safety, Daryl tells a nice story about a flower to comfort Carol, Glenn and Maggie delightfully have sex in a drugstore. Rick and Doc get to take a walk around the property, as the two Scoutmasters of their respective troops, and discuss the overall situation. What I liked about these conversations was that they were much more organic than previous episodes (especially the first season, where the writers were apparently just like, oh, we can’t just have zombies for an hour, we need these people to say things and then barely tried). Okay, maybe drugstore sex isn’t the most organic development, but Maggie is awesome, Glenn is awesome, and I’m glad I’m getting more time with the both of them. And how could Maggie not resist Glenn after his manly display of well-diving zombie-wrangling?

Which brings us to the zombie-of-the-week. I thought it was a deliciously disgusting situation, and that zombie may have been the grossest so far. Everything is grosser when wet. Fact. But as fun as it was to laugh at them for stupidly thinking a decayed body would have the structural integrity to be lifted up and over that well, I found the whole thing ridiculous. We saw Rick and Doc walk around that whole farm, there has to be other wells they have access to. Also, um, there’s a zombie in that well. Getting him out won’t make the water any gross, regardless of if it’s “contaminated” or not. They should’ve just given up and moved on to a different well. Instead they risk Glenn’s life? Really? Whatever, Glenn’s a champ and gets his part of the job done and then gets laid. If we’re keeping score that’s Glenn: 2, Everybody else: 0.

Then again, maybe your decision making skills aren’t as top notch when your malnourished wandering around in the hot Georgia sun.

I’ve noticed how wishy-washy I am when it comes to the pacing on this show. I want it to go faster, because when things slowed down the quality dropped, but now things have been slowed down and the quality is getting better. Though I’m not sure how much longer I want them to stay at Doc’s farm. And come to think of it, Doc isn’t so keen on them staying much longer either.

But that brings us to this episode’s “twist.” Lori, using the world’s fastest response pregnancy test, finds out that she’s pregnant. Of course, this could just be a false positive, but I hope it’s not because that would be plain lame. This isn’t the best “twist” the show has done, especially following Carl getting shot, then the truth about Shane and Otis. But this doesn’t mean it’s bad, because I’m not asking for the twists to get more and more crazy until an episode ends with aliens coming down and eating the zombies. Being pregnant during the apocalypse is, I can only imagine, a crazy unsettling thing, and hopefully this will give Lori some better stuff to work with here than just being Negative Nancy (not to be confused with Debbie Downer Andrea).

This Lori situation now changes things. Doc doesn’t want them staying for too long. Rick might be Rick and respect Doc’s wishes and have them head on to Fort Benning (that is, if they ever find Sophia). But Lori needs to tell Rick. Because giving birth at the farm with someone who’s more qualified than anyone else to deliver a baby is flat-out better than any other option I can think of (That, or go zombie-infested elevator birth, or go home. (Thank you Abed)). But do we want to be there for 9 months?? That’s probably not gonna happen, from the perspective of it being a TV show. They can’t just have them at the farm for the rest of the season, with zombie-of-the-week

Oh yeah, Carl is awake and now has Sheriff Woody’s…er…Katara’s….er…Rick’s hat. Because we needed more scenes of how adorable Carl is. 
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-That’s not a good look for you, Shane. Sorry not sorry.

-Ouff. Otis’s funeral. Asking Shane to say some words. Once again, being put in that position where he has to make a decision that he doesn’t want to make. He has to lie. And has to wear Otis’ clothes.

-Can we hurry up and find Sophia? It was serious, then kind funny, and now it’s just getting annoying at this point. Maybe it’ll loop around to being funny again?

-Hi, my name’s Daryl. Sleeves? What? What are sleeves?

-Hi, I’m Andrea and my resting facial expression is the saddest grimace you will ever see.

-“That’s Glenn, our…’Go To Town’ expert” Yes. Bring Maggie. Go to town with Maggie.
   “I hear you’re fast on your feet and know how to get in ‘n’ out.” WINK WINK.

-Also liking the dynamic between Shane and Andrea. Hey, we both consider ourselves outcasts, let’s hang out.

-Ewwwwwwwwwwww zombie in the well. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww. It looks like a Muk and Oogie Boogie tried the Fusion Dance. (Yeah, that was a lot of references. Pokemon, Nightmare Before Christmas, Dragonball Z)
-Wait, “we need live bait.” And they look at Glenn??? Why??  “doin’ ok?” “yup doing great! …livin’ the dream…” GLENN FTW
-IDIOTS! You should’ve guessed he was gonna rip in half! Y U SO STUPID??

-Daryl for the win again. I still think Glenn got MVP for this ep, but Daryl comes in a close second with the story from which the episode gets its title.

-Carl you perfect optimistic angelic little shit. And I mean “shit” in the most endearing way possible. “I’m just like you now dad, we both got shot!” AND he gets the hat.

-Do pregnancy tests give results that fast?

-We open with a funeral, an event of death. End with a positive pregnancy test, an event of life. Yet both are tragic. Another good bookend-ing.

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