TV Talk: THE WALKING DEAD 2.09 “Triggerfinger”

All right, guys, it's my turn. Devin did a great job of talking about the plot points and the general writing and flow of the show last week, and I thought this week's episode was once again excellent, filled with all sorts of suspenseful moments and setting up broader conflicts that I'm actually looking forward to watching next week. I watched the "Next week on..." clip, and I NEVER do that with TV shows. Well done, writers!

Ultimately, last night's episode seemed to be about how most of our characters are trapped. Lori forgets that cars are still dangerous even in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and so she decides to drive onto a ramp on the side of the road and flip her car over. She's left trapped in the car, and a zombie rips off his face to get at her through a hole in the windshield that was caused by... I guess the zombie's own head? I don't know where the hole came from, but the zombie ripping off his cheeks made me not care.

And while Lori is trapped in her car, Rick is trapped in the bar with Herschel and Glenn, because those dudes he shot last week had friends, and those friends cared enough to look for them and shoot up the saloon for a while before jumping onto spikes and driving away.

Meanwhile, Shane is trapped in his own illusions that what he had with Lori was real and right.  Late in the episode he tells Andrea that he should have run off with her when he "still had the chance," but let me take a minute and address Shane directly with this next paragraph:

Dude - YOU STILL HAVE THAT CHANCE. Andrea is a badass, she's hot, and she's the only other person in the group who thinks you're as right as you think you are. Lori is only happy when she's mad about something, and the only reason you think you love her and Carl is because you used to watch Rick's life from a distance. Get over it. Hook up with Andrea, realize that you can enjoy fucking her in the woods as much as you enjoyed fucking Lori in the woods, and don't worry about Rick's shit anymore. Lori will be mad at you for killing Otis, but Andrea doesn't give a shit because she doesn't like fat guys anyway. Also, Lori says stupid things like, "You killed the living to protect what's yours?" I know you couldn't hear that, Shane, because she was in a tent with Rick at the time, but still. She's the kind of person who says things like that. Let Rick have her!

Ugh. I wish Shane could hear me. Then he and Andrea could go join the other group and face off against Rick's camp in the coming war. Instead he's just going to get himself killed, and no one wants that.

Also, Lori: When some dude you fucked in the woods as the world was falling to shit tells you that you should admit that what you had with him was real and starts becoming a threat to your family, you need to ACTUALLY SAY SOMETHING WHEN HE ASKS YOU ABOUT THAT. Don't just bite your lip like Katie Holmes did ten years ago. Shane totally thinks he's Pacey right now, and unless you tell him otherwise, he's going to expect to go sailing with you this summer and then end up living in a loft with you while Rick is off making movies with Spielberg. Turning away from him and not replying when he accuses you of loving him, and then telling your husband about it later, is just messed up.

Anyway.

The scenes with dehydrated Beth were low points for me, but the scene where Maggie talks about Beth finding her birth control pills was the only time the episode really dragged. And with all this pregnancy going on, the pill is a good thing to talk about. I hope Maggie has enough saved up.

Daryl yelling at Carol for a while was also kind of weak, but it was short and Daryl's earned some downtime after being a badass for the first half of the season. I'm curious to see how he'll line up when it comes down to Rick v. Shane, though. He's feeling like he wasted his efforts and shouldn't worry about anyone else, but he also isn't leaving.

Neither is T-Bone, of course. But he also isn't doing ANYTHING, so who cares? I figure he's just hanging out until Merle returns so he can have another couple of minutes of action before he gets killed. In the meantime, it's fun to talk about him because his name is still T-Bone.

What did you guys think of the episode? Is Big Brother Carl gonna be cool? Should Glenn really be that mad at himself for having a reason to live? Would Shane have better luck if he just changed his presentation style? Would you kill the living to protect what's yours?