Episode 2×09 picks up with Lori coming to in her overturned car with a very determined zombie trying to shove his head through a hole in her driver side window. This is a pretty cool bit of zombie shenanigans with the zombie so voraciously wanting to get to Lori that he is slicing flesh from his face as he keeps shoving his head through the broken window. Lori tries to climb out the other side of the car but her spindly limbs are totally incapable of holding her 89lbs so she has to get creative and breaks off the gear shift to shove into the zombies orbital socket. Now outside of the car and seemingly safe from danger, Lori doesn’t notice the second zombie shambling towards her until he actually gets his hands on her (how she didn’t hear him considering the foley artist went haywire with the zombie squishy moving noises is a mystery to me) but it didn’t matter because Lori went 2 for 2 in the zombie killing decathlon by taking the second zombie out even easier than she did the first. I am starting to wonder about just what the military was doing when the zombie outbreak began because if the poster child for “heroin chic” can dispatch two of the undead while possibly reeling from the effects of a concussion then there is no reason why a well-trained, heavily armed military force couldn’t have averted the zombie apocalypse completely.

While Lori is getting her Xena Warrior Princess on, the rest of the crew at the farm finally notices that she is gone. Shane is slipping in his creepy stalker duties…I’d expect him to keep one eye on Lori at all times especially since he thinks she is carrying is lobes fetus. So realizing Lori is a moron and did something moronic, Shane sets out to find her. he comes across the car and the two dead zombies but no Lori so he drives on till he finds her walking in the direction of town. So she was just going to waltz into a town that she has been told is infested with zombies completely unarmed? What exactly was she going to do if she was beset upon by a large group of zombies…nag them till their brains turned to goo? Shane, in a bid to get her back to the farm, lies and tells her that Rick has returned already. This doesn’t go over too well with Lori which I guess puts Shane back in the dog house with her…or was he already in the dog house? Lori is incredibly fickle so I can’t keep up with her mood swings where Shane is concerned. It is a bit bizarre that the straw that breaks Lori’s back (and considering how skinny she is I’m sure straw could do the job) is a harmless lie Shane told to get her back to safety (since she was injured and wandering deserted roads alone in the dark!) and is what sets her down the path of completely turning on Shane. The lying about Rick being dead, attempted rape, constant undermining of Rick as a husband, father and protector, or even Shane’s all around creepy/bully demeanor doesn’t do it but a little white lie? Off with his lobes!!!! Shane does make one more inappropriately clumsy declaration of love to Lori and this conversation makes me think that Lori and Shane were bumping uglies long before the dead started to come back to life.

While all of this is going on back at the homestead; Rick, Herschel and Glenn get into a shootout with the group that the two douchebags form Philly that Rick killed last week belong to. These guys are not really shown but they didn’t seem nearly as menacing as Renee from TRUE BLOOD and his chubby friend. At least none of them pissed in front of the others and made crude remarks about the lack of “cooze” that’s available during the zombie apocalypse. Anyhoo, Herschel proves to be worth a hell of lot more in a fight than Glenn as he busts a cap in one of the strangers while Glen completely freezes. The stand-off comes to a sudden end when zombies begin pouring into town after hearing all of the shooting. The crew leaves one of their own behind when the idiot jumps off a roof and impales his leg on an iron fence. Rick being the Dudley Doright-esque character he is decides that it would be wrong to leave a person who just tried to shoot him and his friends defenseless against the oncoming zombie horde so they take the guy back to the farm with them. I did like that they blindfolded the guy like Batman used to do when taking people back to the Batcave.

The joy of seeing Rick, Herschel and Glenn back alive is short-lived when the castaways discover that they have brought back one of the guys who tried to shoot the threesome in town. Rick’s big plan for the injured outsider? Maybe he wants to get information from him about the size and location of his group? Or find out how well armed they are? Nah…that would make too much sense. Rick’s plan is to patch the guy up, let him heal for a bit and then send him on his merry way. This does not sit well with Shane which causes him to huff and puff and stomp around like Yosemite Sam but Herschel nips that nonsense in the bud by basically telling Shane he better check himself before he wrecks himself. Herschel is a fan of the pre-ARE WE THERE YET? Ice Cube, dontchaknow.

This sends Shane into petulant stomping away overload with Andrea following dutifully behind him like the treasurer of the Jr. World Leaders club who let the captain of the football team feel her up one drunken night at a party and has decided that the two of them are now soul mates. She has become the head cheerleader of Team Shane and proudly made that fact known to Dale who really needs to just get over whatever attraction he has to Andrea because she obviously doesn’t feel the same way. Andrea gets Shane to calm down long enough to offer him a piece of advice about how he can catch more flies with honey or something. I’m sure the moral of Andrea’s story was completely lost on our volatile attempted rapist.
Meanwhile Glenn has come to some bizarre decision that his relationship with Maggie makes him less useful to the group so he can no longer continue to be with her. Yeah, I don’t get it either. A hot, nubile farmer’s daughter wants to have regular sex with him and considering the pickings of the womenfolk were kinda slim before Maggie came on the scene I have to say that Glenn is being a moron.
We end the episode with Mr. and Mrs Grimes helping each other remove clothing from their battle weary bodies. While doing this Lori starts working on Rick by telling him that she thinks that Shane is dangerous, that Shane thinks the baby is his, he claims he is in love with her and that Shane killed Otis to protect her because he considers Lori to be his. She then goes into Lady Macbethian mode by putting the seed in Rick’s head that maybe Shane needs to be removed before he makes up his mind to get Rick out of the way. How positively Shakesperean!

The Characters
Lori had a lot of the focus this episode from being a bad ass one woman zombie killing machine to deftly manipulating Rick into mulling over the idea that killing Shane would be the best thing for their family and the group as a whole. While her turning into this type of character is a bit of a shock, I honestly I can’t say I didn’t like it….at least making her a manipulative bitch is better than the annoying drip she has been for the duration of this show so far. I was still rooting for her to get eaten by the zombies earlier in the episode though.

Rick…Rick, Rick, Rick. I really think the whole saving a dude who was shooting at you 5 seconds ago is stupid. I assume this was the writers once again attempting to show the contrast between Rick and Shane but I think the same thing could have been done much better if it was Herschel or Glenn who got hurt rather than some stranger who seemed perfectly willing to put a bullet in them. Maybe Glenn could have gotten shot in the leg and Rick had to fight zombies off to save him which would be a better way of showing that Rick and Shane view the zombie apocalypse through different lenses. It also would have made Glenn’s goofy behavior later in the episode easier to understand. Or at least Rick could have said he wanted to bring him back to the farm to interrogate him and find out some info on the group they had the shootout with. Instead it was a case of two steps forward (Rick killing the two dudes at the end of last episode) and four steps back (him being a bleeding heart when it is not called for) with the Rick character.

Shane is continuing to be a creepy stalker douche and this episode perfectly illustrated why I don’t like the character. While other people may be living their own zombie apocalypse role playing game through him all I can think about when the character is on screen is that all of his actions are based completely on the fact that that he is simping for another man’s chick who doesn’t want him. That is his whole motivation…not pragmatism, not ultimate survivor’s instincts. Nope, he is just a lovelorn twat with anger issues who can’t take a hint when he has been rejected.

Still don’t like Andrea. Didn’t like her in season one and like her even less this season. I don’t get what the show is going for with the character but if the point is to make her insufferable than they are doing a bang up job.

The show also needs to drop whatever the plan is for this Glenn doubting himself because he loves Maggie shit immediately. It seems like a totally manufactured bit of drama for the Glenn/Maggie relationship. We already had the issue of Maggi not wanting Glenn to risk his life anymore. they could have played with that mores than having Glenn all of a sudden become scared stiff because now he has something to lose.

This episode was the most I have liked Herschel all season. Drinking whiskey, shooting people, telling off Shane. I’m liking the new Herschel.

Don’t know what the point is of the Carol/Darryl scenes and really don’t care. Darryl needs to be given some story that doesn’t involve pining for old spinster ladies with buzz cuts or beating himself up over dead little girls that he barely spent any time talking to.

And T-Dog still needs to die.

Final Verdict:
This episode was a step in the right direction. While not a non-stop whirling dervish of zombie action things did pick up and the scenes between characters just talking actually had some purpose and helped move story along (for the most part). I am liking how the sides are beginning to form behind who is the better leader and Herschel’s new found sassiness is working for me. I’m also intrigued by this shift of Lori from nagging pain in the ass to proactive manipulator. Things are looking up for this show and I’m hoping the final episodes of this season realize the full potential of the groundwork that is being layer in the past few episodes. B-