Then, here comes Andrea and, oh she's whining about her gun again.
This is either the coolest, or silliest rescue vehicle ever. I can't decide.I don't want to say Frank Darabont was dragging anything down, but Frank Darabont was dragging The Walking Dead down. This second half of the season has represented the shift in creative direction from the time when Darabont was still on the show, to now, when he is off working on something else. The man is a film genius, but the slower pace was killing this show.
Now, we get episodes like "18 Miles Out." While not as good as last week's stellar episode, if the next two episodes can maintain this pace leading up the finale, this season will be ending on a very high note.
Keeping with my list from last week, the two best characters on the show, Shane (Jon Bernthal), and Rick (Andrew Lincoln), went on a little road trip this week. Their goal was to simply dump Randall (Michael Zegen) off somewhere so far away that he couldn't find his way back. Of course, things got complicated.
Randall claims to know Maggie (Lauren Cohan) from high school, which is a stupid thing to say when the two men with guns don't trust you as it is. But he keeps yammering on, effectively sealing his fate. Maybe. For tonight, he proved to be helpful, eventually assisting Rick in getting Shane out of a jam. Rick knows he can't trust Randall, and Shane refuses to trust him, but who knows what could happen to him next week.
Of course, Rick and Shane's disagreements didn't begin or end with Randall. In what has been a season and half coming, the two alpha-males finally went at it. It was a so-so fight as far as television brawls go, but things got very real when Shane decided to throw a wrench. At a window. Which then released a small horde of walkers. Nice going, Shane. This episode had some of the most intense, and most gruesome moments with the walkers in quite some time, including an absolutely slick double head shot from Rick.
I never really thought Rick was going to leave Shane in the bus to pick off the walkers one by one with a knife, but there was always that possibility. Instead, he saved Shane and put a sense of finality on their earlier conversation - Rick is the leader, and Shane needs to accept that or move on. I still can't side with either one of them. Rick's set of rules have gotten them this far, for the most part, but when push comes to shove, can he actually make a tough choice like Shane has had to do? I imagine we'll get that answer within the next few episodes.
The only other story line of the week involved Beth (Emily Kinney). Who, you ask? The girl who has uttered about two lines to this point, and laid in bed for a week, that's who. Oh, you haven't met yet? Well, she wants to kill herself. Which is fair enough, as far as I'm concerned. Her life has pretty much sucked since we've met her, and I'm all for thinning the crowd of minor characters.
Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Maggie don't agree. Naturally, by our society's rules, they are right. And, really, things could be much worse for Beth. The whole story line wasn't great, but one thing really annoyed the hell out of me: Lori saw that Beth had taken the knife from her lunch plate, so Lori quickly took it from her to prevent the poor girl from offing herself. My first reaction was, "Woah, Lori actually did something productive." And I was happy. Then, here comes Andrea and oh she's whining about her gun again. Andrea (Lori Holden) and Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) deserve each other, as they are easily the most annoying characters on the show. Andrea has some high and mighty attitude about suicide and making a choice, coming right down to believing she knows exactly what Beth is thinking because at some point for about three seconds she thought about killing herself. And then, Dale convinced her not to and her life has been quite alright since then. But yeah, Andrea, killing yourself was far and away the better option that you should have taken.
I just can't stand the preachiness of this woman. Lori isn't any better, though. Her flip side of the coin essentially boiled down to, "Oh, let the men do the hard work while we cook and do laundry. That's important stuff for women to do." Now, I am by no means this hardcore supporter of the belief that every woman in every show should be this superwoman who can do anything, but Lori is seriously setting woman back to the 1960's with her attitude.
As much as I know it isn't possible, due to the preview of next week's episode, I had a hopeful moment where I thought, "Randall's driving the car, let's see if he takes them somewhere that isn't the farm." Think about it: the two best characters on the show, dealing with a new cast of much more interesting characters. Best show ever! Alas, they had Randall tied up at the end, and were on their way back to the farm.
I hope that the final three episodes of the season are as focused as these last two have been. All of the characters may have a story to tell, but it's better to tell one or two over a couple episodes, than all of them over thirteen.
As always, please comment below if you feel you have anything to share about the show. Thanks for reading, and I'll meet you back here next week.