{"id":31431,"date":"2012-03-13T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=31431"},"modified":"2017-09-24T22:00:27","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T05:00:27","slug":"walkingdead-212-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/walkingdead-212-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Walking Dead’ 2.12 Recap: “Why Now?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the words of the immortal Darth Vader: “Nooooooooooooooooooo!!”<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Just in case you didn’t think Shane was a crazy, macho-headed rageaholic, this week’s episode is finely tuned to bring you to Rick’s side of the fence. All season long, I’ve been championing Shane. Even though he sweats profusely and has weird OCD about rubbing his head approximately twenty two times every scene, he was still the only character who acted like he was knee-deep in a zombie apocalypse, and the only one who didn’t see much sense in Rick’s foolish, life-endangering errands. How’d that whole Sophia thing work out again?<\/p>\n

As Rick flip-flopped his way through his self-imposed leadership, Shane stood in the background cursing everything Rick half-way decided. It took the death of Dale for Rick to finally start saying, “It’s my way or the highway,”<\/em> even though I’m still not sure who gave him that power in the first place. So, in order for us to distance ourselves even more from Shane, we’re treated to a character development that happens faster than a now-mutated zombie virus which simply wakes up the living dead sans bites.<\/p>\n

Shane goes from a sneering realist to a head-smacking, murdering psycho in thirty minutes flat. Sure, Shane had his own way of doing things, but compared to Rick’s way of running the farm, Shane’s ideas always seemed much more efficient for Rule Number One: Stay Alive. He still wouldn’t stand idly by while his fellow campers were in trouble. He was a bad dude, just one who realized that they’re living in a changed world. Trying to put together some kind of “society” should come second to making sure everything is as safe as possible. I didn’t buy Shane’s quick descent into madness. The moment Lori came up to him and said her last words, I felt like something was going to happen.<\/p>\n

During his convenient mental breakdown, Shane comes up with a diabolical plan: Free Randall, kill him in the woods, and then kill Rick too while he’s searching for Randall. He’d get his make-believe family back and be free to roam the farm incessantly rubbing his head without anyone brave enough to stand in his way. Only, he can’t do it. While both of them are bathed in moonlight, Rick talks and talks until he finds the perfect time to stab Shane right through the heart. My favorite character of the series gurgles, spits up blood and then succumbs to his injuries. Sadness.<\/p>\n

One wonders if Shane’s demise makes way for Season Three’s upcoming character, the Governor, who has already been teased about. Rick’s main antagonist is out of the way, and I’m assuming that the Governor will take over Shane’s vacated Bad Dude spot. <\/p>\n

I know one thing: Now Rick has no competition from anyone in the camp. Daryl is the next most interesting character and his part has been woefully underwritten this season. He’s gone from making undead jewelry out of zombie ears to following every one of Rick’s orders without hesitation. During this episode, he plays Detective Daryl, which reminds me of John Locke and his sweet tracking skills. (You’ve always got to have at least one tracker in a show like this.) T-Dog’s still around, but you wouldn’t know it since one of his only lines this episode is (and I’m not making this up) “Oh, hell no!”<\/em><\/p>\n

Then there’s Carl, who still somehow finds himself unsupervised. Rick is off roaming in the woods, but where’s Lori? How does Carl make it all the way down into a field in the middle of the night? Come to think of it, if Shane is planning to murder Rick, why does he finally pick an unconcealed spot a stone’s throw away from the farm house? I understand that the field looks much better for cinematography sake, but Shane is smart enough not to lead Rick all the way back to the farm and then kill him there.<\/p>\n

Now we finally know the answer to the odd conversation that Rick and Shane had about the zombie guards who didn’t have any apparent bites. We have a new super zombie virus which picked the opportune time to mutate. Once Shane is killed, barely a few minutes later he rises from the dead and almost tastes sweet revenge as he sneaks up behind Rick. Good thing Dead-Eye Carl is there, to blow Shane’s brains out. Yet one wonders about Dale. Will he soon dig himself out of his shallow grave and start munching down on his once-beloved friends? There would be no greater joy than seeing Dale’s beard streaked with chunks of Carl, but one can only hope.<\/p>\n

[Ed.: Daryl shot Dale in the head after Dale was bitten by a zombie, so it seems unlikely that Dale will rise from the grave. -JZ]<\/em><\/p>\n

Shane is gone. Antagonists have a short lifespan because people always side with the Good Guy. Even though Rick has claimed that he isn’t the Good Guy anymore, he really still is. He’ll always be that guy. He’ll never have a psychotic break as fast as Shane did, and his time will never come. We’re stuck with Rick, forever. That may make some people happy, but not me. Not me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the words of the immortal Darth Vader: “Nooooooooooooooooooo!!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":31432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[480],"tags":[601,168,799,165],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31431"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31431"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31463,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31431\/revisions\/31463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}