In this episode, Hershel gets to demonstrate the futility of being a one-legged, one-man band, while leaving himself and everyone else exposed to an inevitable and highly predictable reenactment of the zombie outbreak on Cellblock C. I marveled at his pigheadedness, adhering to a strict code lacking in self-preservation, killing zombies only after they turned and failing to secure his worst patients. While he takes Shasha’s mocking criticism in stride (it may have been light humor, but she was calling him stupid), he demonstrates, indeed, that he is, indeed, tough and stubborn old SOB (even if that means patiently waiting for his dead patients to turn to zombies before braining them, and compromising others while he labors to shelter them from viewing what they already know is going to happen, yet failing to protect them when it matters the most). So much being foresighted and economical (hell, even the dying Dr tried to talk some sense into him).
Which leads us to the fence. I’d read a comment on Wired’s critique, and I laughed at it’s surgical accuracy regarding how the plot has failed to move along, with the same issues cropping up, but without any real solutions being devised. Quite simply, he called it fence sitting. Fitting. Oh, how the story fails to be suspenseful when you already know that the fence will fail, just as the second outbreak is looming inside the jail. How many times did they have to deal with the fence, observe it’s weaknesses, only to become complacent (like allowing a huge crown of zombies to amass in the first place). You’d think they would have devised some other form of obstacle (like the moat Kevin McFarland suggests), or perhaps a way to distract them whenever they mustered in the same area (or is just getting inside just more important to zombies that human flesh these days?).
At least Carl and Rick got to spend some quality time together, continuing the long and over-played arc involving the on-again-off-again taboo of guns (seriously, like so many other subplots, it’s become a trope). Unfortunately, this mowing down of zombies just wasn’t as suspenseful as it should have been, and there was a significantly missed opportunity for them to start to lose it, or at least have their backs up against the wall. Yeah, I guess Carl got to kind of save his dad, and look cool, tossing pops an extra clip, before cooly blasting away like a seasoned infantryman…
And the Governor? Recycle, Reuse, Reanimate… I think this is pretty much The Walking Dead’s script in a nutshell. Hell, even the sustained idiocy of the regulars is interspersed with the repetitive bouts of madness, glowering rage (Tyreese seems to have channeled both Rick and Michonne), folksiness, etc. Honestly, I think they’ve gone bankrupt with ideas. I can only hope that the prison burns down and another regular finally gets it, because I’m getting extremely sick of the same old geography and characters (like Martin’s Red Wedding, let em die). Anyhow, you’d think they’d have depleted available supplies in the nearby surrounding area by now (clearly, not having access to adequate medical supplies has become an issue).
Finally, I can’t help but wonder, how long can zombies last without completely rotting away, what’s been sustaining all of them for so long? Oh well, I guess I should just chalk that last one up to questions you should never ask about an ongoing zombie apocalypse.
