Monday, November 14, 2011
Recap City 'The Walking Dead' Season 2, Ep. 5: You can't piss on hospitality
Posted by Gwynedd Stuart @gwynnstu on Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 1:50 PM
- AMC
- Cockblocked.
Hey, at least he got a pretty cool necklace out of the deal?
And, actually, there was guilt-a-plenty this episode (which, was the best so far this season, right?), between Rick trying to make Shane feel bad for being realistic, Dale trying to make Glenn feel bad for sexing Maggie, and Hershel trying to make Rick feel bad for being alive — which I'd argue is kind of for good reason. "Rick's people" are rapidly wearing out their welcome at the Mister Hershel, DVM Homestead, where they're forever doing annoying things like stealing horses, shooting each other, and stumbling upon barns surreptitiously filled with lots of zombies.
BUT LET'S NOT GET AHEAD OF OURSELVES.
The episode begins in a flashback to Lori, Shane and Carl (and lots of people who were alive at the time, but probably aren't anymore) stuck in standstill traffic during the mass exodus from Atlanta. They've made friends with another little dysfunctional family of three, Bald Mom, Sophia and Caricature of an Abusive A-Hole Dad. Sophia says to Carl, "Your dad's nice," and Carl's, like, he's not my dad and he's not even that nice, but of course you'd think he is since your father is literally the worst person in the world. Lori and Shane walk to a wooded area from which Atlanta's skyline is visible, and they're just in time to see military helicopters indiscriminately drop napalm on the city.
My thoughts: Seems like witnessing omething like that would really inform a person's worldview in a very specific way, i.e. in a way that's obviously caused a major shift in Shane's worldview. Rick pretty much slept through the wholesale decimation of society and has only really seen the aftermath, which, granted, is also pretty ugly. BUT, I think that maybe Rick's a worse leader for it? It's like he was able to retain more of his humanness — his empathy, etc. — but it seems like perhaps it's better NOT to have those human qualities for survival's sake. OK, I'm done.
HEY. Is this show called "The Walking Dead" or "The Walking Boners?" Because I think Glenn over here's confused. Got a little action, now in his brain it's all vag, all the time. How lucky for him that he's LITERALLY one of the last men on Earth.
Rick and Shane are in the woods also being very male and Freud-y, totin' around phallic symbols and jawing about sex. Shane has a chuckle about banging the girls volleyball coach when they were in high school, and Rick's, like, "I don't know no sex," and Shane's, like, "WHY ARE WE STILL LOOKING FOR SOPHIA?" And it's a great question! Shane says, "Survival, Rick. It means making hard decisions." He accuses Rick for worrying too much about looking for cats in trees, and Rick's like, "Um, Sophia isn't a cat in a tree," and Shane says, " STOP TWISTING MY WORDS," even though he definitely just called Sophia a cat in a tree. Still, he's making a lot more sense than Rick. "[Sophia] only matters to the degree that she don’t drag the rest of us down," Shane says. There's already been SO much dragging.
- AMC
- "... and would it kill you to call once in a while?"
Meanwhile, loverboy Glenn visits Dale in the ol' RV to return a Harlequin romance novel and learn about menstruation. See, he thinks all the women are acting like weird bitches because their periods have synched up, but they're actually acting like weird bitches because the fucking world has ended. Dale lays the guilt on thick when Glenn lets it slip that he did sex with Maggie. Dale says, "Oh, son. You didn’t. Did it ever occur to you how her father might feel about this? He’s our host. Jesus Glenn, what were you thinking?" (The Dale version of this famous speech.)
Then Andrea shoots Daryl in the fucking face, and Dale — who is extraordinarily long-in-the-nostril, if you hadn't noticed — is like, "Oh, pish. Don't be so hard on yourself. Shit, I'll shoot Daryl, too. Love me, please."
Hershel has made clear to pretty much everyone at this point that he's getting sick of the gang's horse stealing, potential daughter humping, antibiotics wasting ... but, look! They made dinner. ALL BETTER. Just kidding. Dinner is awk-ward. Then dumb old Glenn makes it worse by talking about a guitar Dale found on the highway. "Doesn't anyone know how to play? SOMEONE must know how to play," Glenn says, and everyone's like, "Yeah, DEAD OTIS PLAYED GUITAR, dicklick, and thanks for bringing it up."
But who cares about insulting people? Maggie slips him a note that's like, "Wanna fuck?" And he does! In the barn. He grabs an old blanket and heads out there all set to intercourse, but instead of Maggie he finds a couple dozen Walkers just kind of hanging out and stinking up the joint. Hershel & Co. have skeletons in their closets and zombies in their barns.
Still, I'm pretty sure Glenn would have done it with Maggie in there if she was up for it.
Comments (4)
Showing 1-4 of 4
Anybody who did it in their parents' house when they were teenagers pretty much has done it with a buncha zombies around.
I'm glad Darryl's OK because he's the only male in the group who doesn't have the taint of the New Castrati. Can you imagine him participating in the psycho-babble that takes up so much screen time? Hell No! And we all need a Merle to pop up in times of need with a little motivation, right? I like these two characters, maybe because they remind me of a hundred guys I met on construction jobs, guys that couldn't read too good but they could fix or build or kill anything.
I knew the old doc was dirty. Barn fulla zombies, Jesus dude, what were you thinking?
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Wow, it's like I farted in here. Nobody's got nothin'? Sorry, I'll hold off next time.
Ahahaha. Listen. Do you think there's any chance Hershel was keeping the zombies in the barn until he could find a cure?
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