The Walking Dead S02E05 Review: Barn Conspiracies & Redneck Survivors

The Walking Dead, Season 2, Episode 5: Chupacabra

A mostly decent episode, but one that still felt like it went on for a bit too long. The Daryl parts were excellent, of course, and both the opening and ending segments of this episode were great, explosive ones. It definitely brought up some of the momentum that we lost in the past two episodes. But still, the pacing really is a problem that's bogging this show down. 

Let's talk about the good part first. The opening flashback shows us that Atlanta ended up being napalmed by the pragmatic government folk. Or whoever is in that jet, it doesn't matter. The ending shows that Glenn's innocent desire to have some post-apocalyptic loving with Maggie ends up with the unsettling and frankly unexpected revelation that the Greene family is keeping a small herd (that's the proper term as far as this show is concerned) of zombies cooped up in the barn. Man, and all Glenn wanted was to get laid! Yes, we did get hints of something sinister, with Hershel being an increasing control freak, and getting increasingly pissed off that things are happening in his farm with him knowing about them only after they happened. Throughout this episode he's been wanting more segregation between the two groups. It isn't that far-fetched to think that he's really up to something crazy, whatever he's trying to do. We'll see next episode. 

Meanwhile Lori is hiding the pregnancy from Rick. Oh this is going to be dragged on for a long while, isn't it.

The search for Sophia, meanwhile... yields a doll. Yay. It's something, at least, compared to four episodes' worth of jack shit, and Shane isn't having any more of this shit. It's cruel, yes, but it's also pragmatic (and not boring), with actual arguments talking about risking everyone's lives for one little girl (citing Carl getting shot, plus Daryl himself getting hurt this episode), and the normal survivability of children out there are generally under 72 hours and that's without a zombie apocalypse. Whereas Rick is driven partly by a sense of guilt, and his argument sums up to "we gotta do this it's the right thing". The morally right thing, perhaps, but definitely the utterly stupid thing to do. The Rick/Shane argument was a bit too much of the same thing being revisited for my tastes, really, because they already did a variation of this argument last episode.

Meanwhile, Daryl gets dropped off a horse into a creek, falls on one of his arrows, and, alone, has to contend against two walkers who found him and hallucination Merle. Hallucination Merle is a gigantic twat, continuing to basically piss on Daryl, telling him to go kill Rick for leaving Merle behind, telling him that he's always going to be an outsider no matter what and generally acts like the shitstain he is. Daryl manages to survive, and looks completely awesome while doing it (he's got a necklace of zombie ears for extra manliness and insanity) but whether his character arc will go anywhere, and whether his little crisis of loyalty will be explored any time soon will remain to be seen. It's a nice buildup for his character, though, since he's grown softer and more likable over the recent episodes. The gun-happy "I can do this, I'm an adult" Andrea very nearly kills Daryl with a rifle shot, though, because, y'know, sometimes you do have to put your foot down. It's a miracle Daryl didn't die. 

We get a couple of fun scenes with Glenn and Dale. Dale has been an understated source of much-needed levity throughout these episodes, and I definitely appreciate this old man hanging around. As it were, however, with the clue to Sophia's whereabouts, and the revelation of the zombie army milling about in the barn, I think we're in for some serious plot advancement next episode and it couldn't have come any sooner.

Also, I know, I know, I'm behind on reviewing some of the Sunday mangas and superhero shows, but real life's kind of being a bitch right now and these Walking Dead episode reviews are easier to churn out mostly because I watched some of them like a week ago, half-wrote a review and all I have to do is complete it instead of writing from scratch. So yeah.