Bucking the trend of opening each ‘Walking Dead’ episode directly where the last one left off, ’18 Miles Out’ pulls a fast one by launching us right into the middle of an undead nightmare as Shane fends off famished Walkers from inside a school bus, Rick runs from a few more, and their new tied-up friend slinks along on the ground trying desperately to reach an abandoned knife.
It turns out that we didn’t simply flash-forward in time, but were just being treated to the episode’s climax in order to make us ask that all-important question: “How did it come to this?” That’s a tactic that ‘Lost’ employed numerous times.
After the beginning melee, we find Shane and Rick driving alone on an empty stretch of road (kudos goes to whoever in the camp is tasked with washing cars; that Hyundai is the cleanest post-apocalyptic car ever). Ever since Lori took Rick aside and bad-mouthed Shane, the tension has been mounting between the two friends. In a fitting but not-so-subtle visual analogy, Shane and Rick happen upon an intersection, some may call it a… ahem… crossroads. This is where Shane and Rick will have their heart to heart about Shane sticking it to Rick’s wife, and how Rick’s not going to have that anymore.
Rick lays down Rick’s Law. Shane is going to have to accept Rick as El Presidente of the group or else. That’s just the way it’s got to be. Shane counters with a few words of discouragement, calling Rick a giant post-apocalyptic wuss, in so many words. The two have been at odds for quite a while, and the fact that they’re driving a man who could possibly give up the location of the Farm Base has become the typifying event in their tumultuous friendship. Their discussion features more head-tilting seriousness than any of their talks ever have. Seriously, what’s with all the head-tilting? “I’m tilting my head slightly to the left. That’s how you know I’m serious about how great it was boning your wife when I thought you were dead.” “Oh yeah, well, I’ll tilt my head the other way to reiterate my hurt feelings over said boning.” (Note to self: Construct totally serious and scientific study on everyday conversations to see how much head-tilting really goes on. I’m curious now.)
Meanwhile back on Farm Base, Beth has gone all Andrea on us and wants to end her life. Still, no one has even bothered to look for bites or scratches. After Shane and Rick have a quick conversation about there not being any bites on the zombie guards they encounter, and that they must have been infected by scratches, I totally thought we’d cut to a shot of Beth rampaging through the house, growling, hungry for brains. What was the point of that conversation anyway? Were they foreshadowing something to come, because I thought for sure they were foreshadowing what was going to happen to Beth.
It’s pretty much been decided that the show isn’t going to be dealing with any of the extraneous characters in the near future. Apparently Daryl’s ghostly vision of Merle a few episodes ago was enough development for his character. T-Dog has all but been forgotten. I half expect someone to walk out in the woods after an episode or two, find the devoured remains of T-Dog and exclaim, “So, that’s where he’s been!” Carol and Dale have also taken a back seat in the proverbial RV as they weren’t seen or heard from in this episode altogether.
Back at the epicenter of conflict, Shane and Rick slug it out like real men over… well, just about everything that’s going on. Maybe it’s just fun to fight someone who actually fights back yet doesn’t try to eat your brains in the process. However, while they’re trying to decide who is indeed the Alpha Male of the group, they happen to arouse a gaggle of Walkers. The ensuing chase puts us right back to where the episode started, now filled with some skull-stabbing, cranium-exploding action for all those of you (and me) who have been dying for a good old-fashioned zombie shooting gallery. Shane being stuck in the bus is pretty exciting until we all go “Duh!” and realize that Shane could’ve run and jumped out the emergency door in the back at any time.
Here’s where I have to point out some glaring holes in this episode. First off, is anyone as surprised as I was that the kid who they had tied up was actually walking on two legs? Let’s all think back to last episode and that rod-iron spear sticking through that kid’s thigh, which Rick simply pushed up and off like a piece of meat from a skewer. Apparently, they headed back to the farm, Hershel worked his magic, and the kid was up and walking with a slight limp. Hershel may just be a veterinarian, but the guy deserves to be working as a world-class surgeon in his spare time. Secondly, Tied-Up Kid exclaims, before Rick and Shane have a chance to leave him abandoned in an empty parking lot, “I went to school with Maggie!” I’m not sure how long Hershel was working his magic medicine on the guy or how long they let him recover at the house before taking him out on the road to dump him, but isn’t that something that would’ve come up during that time? Especially if the kid routinely saw Hershel and most likely Maggie? Nothing about that kid, his situation or his lightning-fast recovery time makes a lick of sense.
So, here we are. A few characters (Daryl, T-Dog, Dale and Carol) have been all but written out of the show. Lori can’t stop telling people what to do. Rick’s self-imposed morality is rubbing off on her. Shane can’t stop tilting his head to show how deadly serious he is. Beth wants to off herself and wants her sister to do it with her. “Come on, it’ll be like a little Heaven’s Gate party!” Hershel is nowhere to be found, probably getting drunk again. Shane and Rick have finally done something to each other rather than just talk about what they should do in this new Walker-filled world. Things move ever-so-slightly to an interesting storyline in this episode, but the show has a long way to go. Sometimes I feel like we’re stuck under a zombie dogpile and it’s going to take some real fighting to get free. (The zombie dogpile was the high point of the episode by far.)
Mario Menchaca
Something else that struck me while watching this episode was, after Shane and Rick find those biteless zombies, and suggest that they could have been infected by mere scratches, Shane uses the same knife he used to kill a walker to cut open his own hand to use his blood as bait for the walkers chasing him on the bus!
Could that useless “these zombies have no bites” conversation lead to zombie Shane?!?!?
Aaron Peck
AuthorGood point about the knife. Yeah, that whole conversation seemed weird.
Lahrs
I think it is setting up a situation that was explained in the comic, otherwise, it was a rather pointless conversation.
Was the point of Rick seeing the two dead officers supposed to remind him of the good old days with Shane, and that is why he went back? Or was it so he could get some guns, then remembered something about Shane and then he went back?
The entire storyline with the kid does not make sense. Okay, Rick has a moral sense to save a kid, but he knows sending him off after the kid heals is a death sentence. Further, he re-rescues the kid near the end of the episode just so he has time to think whether to off him or not. That seems sociopath to me.
Andrea is finally starting to turn into the strong female character she is supposed to be, which is desperately needed in the show. Lori is content to let the men do all the hunting while she strives to be alpha female, all the while repeatedly making stupid mistakes. As a guy, I get the male fantasy of swooping in and saving the damsel in distress, but why do so many female characters come off as absolutely helpless characters with no intelligence? This isn’t just a Walking Dead thing, happens all the time in shows.
Josh Zyber
There’s a pretty big difference between dropping a kid off to fend for himself, realizing that he probably doesn’t have much chance, and actually shooting him in the head yourself.
Rick had to bring the kid back to the farm, because the kid knows Maggie and knows where the farm is, and could lead his trigger-happy pals there. Either Rick had to kill him right there (which he wasn’t prepared to do) or bring him back to the farm.
The two dead cops reminded Rick of himself and Shane, which is why he went back to rescue Shane.
Paulb
Agreed, we were talking about this too. You just say ‘a scratch infected them’ then you go and cut yourself let alone get splatter all over yourself when you have big wounds from beating on each other. We can look the other way on that last part as we have but not right after we are highlighting how infectious it could be. Though I assume they are setting it up for some sort of future where either someone/some group is infecting others though some means or implying it could be airborne (haven’t read the comic).
Josh Zyber
Personally, I thought that this was a suspenseful and all-around very good episode. We got off the farm for a little while, had a massive zombie attack with lots of creative kills, and the personal conflicts were well handled and made sense. I loved the scene where Andrea put Lori in her place.
I know that Aaron doesn’t watch The Talking Dead afterwards, but the actor who plays Hershel relayed a great story about watching the show’s first season with his 97-year-old mother, who’s a big fan and urged him to try out for a part. When he got some script pages to read for his audition, she begged him to let her see them. That’s pretty awesome.
Aaron Peck
AuthorI thought it was one of the better episodes of the season, but those gaping plot holes were buggy.
Josh Zyber
I will definitely agree with you about the thing with the kid’s leg magically healing. Hershel made an offhand comment in the previous episode about “repairing the muscle” as best he was able, but there’s no plausible way that kid could be walking again, much less stomping on zombie heads. Even if we’re supposed to believe that a lot of time has passed between episodes (and there’s no other indication of that), he should be at the very least badly hobbled and using a crutch or cane.
T.J. Kats
The funny thing about that is the banner image looks like Rick is starring at the kids leg thinking “how the fuck are you walking already?”
cardpetree
Read somewhere that anybody that dies can end up a zombie. Does that mean that zombies are going to start coming up out of graves?
Tom Landy
I thought the scratch reference was referring back when Shane was with the big guy and used him as a sacrificial lamb. Didn’t Shane get scratched then? I thought he had a scratch on the back of his head or something.
Lahrs
I do not believe Shane was scratched, I think Otis had pulled some of his hair out and he shaved it to hide that fact.
The show has done a horrible job letting the viewers know how much time has passed, but I think if Shane were scratched, he would have changed by now.