Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 9 "Triggerfinger"

I have less words to say about this episode and I don’t know why. I didn’t like it less than last weeks. But I don’t think I liked it more. But, don’t get me wrong, it was awesome. The scenes where Rick, Glenn, and Hershel were fighting with a group from Dave and Tony’s crew were as intense as anything. One of the reasons for this being that we’re dealing with enemies with fully functioning brains, and not mindless corpses with horrible skin. Zombies are dangerous enough, but they don’t use either GUNS or INTELLIGENCE. Also, I would be remiss to not mention poor Randall, the kid that got his leg impaled on a fence spike. It fulfilled the necessary amount of violence and gore that we require as bloodthirsty television viewers, and it also can be chalked up as yet another example of Rick being badass and being willing to do what no one else is.

I told Shane to move over last week, and Andrea nicely explains why. It’s not that Shane is making the wrong decisions, because really what he did to Otis, lying to Lori about Rick, wanting to abandon the search for Sophia, and unleashing the barn zombies were all the right call. “It’s [his] presentation that leaves something to be desired,” explains Andrea. “Have you ever considered a lighter touch?” she asks of him. I liked scene a lot. It reestablishes the connection that Shane and Andrea have, what with their being outcasts, having decisions made for them, etc. But of course I still don’t want them to leave. Though that’s something I don’t think I have to worry about happening.

Besides the action in town and that scene, I didn’t really like the rest of the episode. I think it’s because I don’t like any of the characters. Not that I dislike them, it’s just that I barely know enough about most of them to care enough to like them.

That’s why so many conversations seem…arbitrary and scenes seem so disconnected from each other, and that’s why so much of the action is driven by these people being stupid. Okay, not all of them. There’s Rick. He’s the good guy. He wants to do the right thing, and the inner conflict comes out of the fact that “right thing” has shifted drastically far away from what it used to be and what he knows. Then we have Glenn, the Everyman, the kind of a nerdy guy. And I like him because he tries to do the right thing, like Rick, but isn’t always up to his own standards (like tonight when he gets scared and hides because Maggie feels). He’s also very resourceful, and I hope he continues to get more to do. Then there’s Shane, who has a lot of potential as the “crazy, on the edge guy,” but his amount of crazy changes depending on how much the writers needs him to be crazy about in any given episode. And then there’s everyone else, whom I can’t even describe as much as the other three, and I only used two sentences. I mean, Dale was cool, but now all he has is his desire to get Shane kicked out of the group. Lori is whatever negative, unhappy conversation the writers come up with, and her opinions are really whatever the opposite of her scene partner’s (except tonight with Rick, which I’ll get to). Daryl has potential because he’s awesome, but now he’s going crazy. Carol, with her daughter dead, only exists because apparently no one else talks to Daryl anymore. Maggie loves Glenn. T-Dog is black. Ok, there’s Andrea, who I like almost in spite of myself because of those blue eyes. I guess she’s pretty defined too, what with her views about life/death and her journey to becoming strong.

The fact that I barely know anything about these people is made even more annoying by that fact that this show’s writing has them literally stating how they’re feeling. This isn’t a bunch of complaining, this is me trying to flesh out why I’m sometimes having issues with the show. Because the action and the zombie stuff is always top-notch, so it has to be the characters, right? Well, I hope we work on that (can we just kill T-Dog and Carol now? Please? They aren’t necessary at all anymore. T-Dog never was). Besides, I like this show, even though I have problems with it. No show is perfect (except maybe Breaking Bad). I also have faith that it’s going to continue to get better.

Which brings me to that final scene between Lori and Rick. This works extremely well, especially with the look on Rick’s face that we linger on long enough for me to get really uncomfortable and scared. He’s creeping closer and closer to that edge. It’s exciting and chilling. And I love Lori going all Lady Macbeth with Rick; she’s exploiting his need to prove himself to her (and Shane) in order to get rid of a potentially tricky problem before it gets any worse. Granted, her choice of argument here, that Shane doesn’t believe Rick can protect Lori and Carl, works well enough, she adds on to that her and the group’s general fear of Shane. She doesn’t have to add that, but what she could have added was the fact that SHANE TRIED TO RAPE HER. Remember that? Am I the only one who does?? Telling Rick that would get him to do the deed right quick. Do we not because we still have four episodes left to go? Come on Lori, I know your head may be a bit jostled after that car crash, but still.

Other thoughts:
-speaking of that car crash, which was just plain silly, we get our weekly dose of fun zombie stuff. The zombie sticking his head into the hole of the windshield and scraping off his face was grossly awesome.

-The sound editing continues to be one of the best things about this show. The sound of Randall’s leg being ripped up off that spike. *shudders*