Your Favorite TV Character is Dead

   First of all, I'm letting anyone that reads this that I won't spoil anything of a tv series they like. I dislike spoiling, and I do understand that many people nowadays watch shows on their own timetable. On Demand channels, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and some other sites that are under the radar show tv series' that we may not have watched live.
   But in this present era, there are more and more shows that are upping the stakes. More where the horror is more in your face and actors will leave shows where their characters have died or been killed. While CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds and other shows of that ilk can be violent and but they're also serialized, making the stakes of whether a main character will die is less and less in comparison to the shows in the new era of 2000-up.
   Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Hannibal, American Horror Story, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, are all part of the shows that pull no punches. There are more out there. But up above in that photo with "fave" misspelled kind of represents how some characters are killed off shows lately. It's just more common than it used to be. One reason why that finale of season four of The Walking Dead kind of underwhelmed. Are we expecting more of a show like that now? But that's a story for another day (or another blog entry).

The Walking Dead "Better Angels"

   This episode could be dedicated to Dale's character. With all the references to him and mentions. It all begins at the funeral service for him with Rick speaking of Dale and his good conscience and how they all should try to keep his forgiving spirit alive. ( I felt it would have been more appropriate to have Andrea speak but they just showed Rick giving out his speech.) The show jump cut in the opening sequence to the group of Shane, Daryl, Andrea, and T-Dog all securing the perimeter of the farm and slaying off walkers. You can say this scene was dedicated to Dale also with how angry and upset the group was. With the anger with which they dispatched the walkers. Most impressive: Andrea slaying a walker by pitchfork.

"Better Angels" was one of the better episodes of the season, if not the BEST one so far. This was where everything that has happened before is affecting everyone and everything. This one was written by Evan T. Reilly and Glen Mazzara, the new showrunner. Strong writing that made the characters not seem stupid, but vulnerable and sentimental.

It had Carl confessing to father figure Shane that he had to do with Dale's death. It had the even stronger response by Shane back. Not your fault, take the gun. It showed how good Shane could really be with Carl and that he really cared. He attacked the guilt that Carl had and offered him a way to defend himself without seeming like a bad guy. Not at all! At one point, he does the right thing in telling Rick about Carl and his situation. And tells Rick that he needs to be a father to the kid. That being more important than Randall.

It had Lori being as sympathetic as she has been during the entire season. She told Shane how she felt and that she needed to thank him for everything he did. This doesn't vindicate Lori but humanized her. Perhaps the death of Dale has a lot to do with this. But she told him everything that she should have a long time ago. Because he did care about them and he wasn't the villain trying to sleep with the hero's wife. He was doing his part in a world that is overrun by walkers. Too late she said it perhaps but it was finally all said. Though that may caused Shane's epic breakdown in the second half of the episode.

Andrea continues to become more of a favorite to me. In her scene with Glenn and the rv, as heavy handed as it was, it was very effective in conveying what Dale meant to them.

Everyone on the show had a few lines and something to do. Even T-Dog! Well, except for Beth. Most of her scenes have been lying down and not in a good way. She was nowhere to be seen.

"Better Angels" was directed by Guy Ferland who is  a television journeyman director who has worked on anything and everything. He didn't go for many trick shots but decided to shoot for "Breaking Bad" type cinematography in several shots. The climactic showdown between Rick and Shane was beautifully shot. Done slowly, allowing both expressive actors time to shine under a clear sky and bright moon. Even that last chilling (chilling!) scene where a herd of walkers are headed towards the farm was directed well.

Shane. Damn, I'm missing his character already. In the comic book series, he was just villainous but in this series, he was kind of a "tweener". He did everything that was needed to survive but was mentally breaking down. Whether it was because of love or just the desperation of this world, but he was losing it. His final scene with Rick was incredible. Leading up to it, Rick and Shane searched for Randall. A man that Shane had let loose and then killed out by the trees. Rick at a certain point, KNEW something was wrong. And Andrew Lincoln just killed it by showing how smart Rick was at that point. He knew it was coming down to a confrontation with Shane away from everyone else. And Jon Bernthal killed his scenes by being alternately scary-psycho and heartbreaking. Then came the scene that delivered on all it's promise. The accusations, the pleading, and everything that Shane DID NOT say when he was confronted by Rick at the crossroads episodes ago came flooding out.

And Rick killed him by stabbing. Were his real intentions to kill Rick? Or was he committing suicide in a way? Or leaving Rick with the tough decision of having to kill someone close to him, forcing his hand and leaving behind the legacy of Rick now graduating into the man that Shane said he had to be? Wow! Certainly, Shane could have killed him but the more I ponder the scene, the more it looks like after what Lori said to him and everything else going on, that he wanted to die! Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps he was just mentally breaking down and was willing to do whatever he needed to to feel better. And what the hell was that going on his head before he became Zombie Shane?

Through his eyes, we could see his mind filled with blood, gore, teeth and biting sounds. Then he turned. He wasn't bitten. Randall wasn't bitten. Those guards of a couple of episodes ago weren't either. Is this how people die in this world now? Their heads filled with images of walker sustenance? Then raising up from the dead to feed on live beings, whether animals or people? What turned everyone into walkers after death must be a disease. It's already in the air! How much do you want to bet that what Dr. Edwin Jenner whispered into Rick's ear was that everyone is infected already and destined to become walkers? That they are practically the walking dead already?

Thoughts?

Randall the Limping Dead

Some new tidbits were learned about Randall this week. All of them through terrified pleading to Andrea, Carl, Rick, and of course Daryl.

We learned he is part of a group of "thirty men". So he says. We learned he was with a smaller group of those and they committed rape and torture right in front of him, but he took no part. So he says.

But the confidence that his group had in town when they were firing against Rick, Herschel and Glenn makes me believe he was a trusted part of their group. Or he's just a plot device thrown our way. In any case, he's causing much consternation between the survivors.

What shall I call him? Just plain old Randall? Or because of his witnessing or participating in a rape, should I call him Rapist Randall? Or even the far fetched moniker of Henry Gale? ("Lost" fans know what I'm referring to here.) The man who was imprisoned with the group on the island and tortured by Sayid (parallel to Daryl here.) and once he made his escape, he was known to have been the leader of "The Outsiders". Can this be? Young man turns out to be more than what he appears? He does know how to kill a walker. That was established already. Here is a detailed description of what Randall  has done on the show.

I honestly don't think he is anything else than a rat. Someone who will do whatever he can to get away from the group and save his life. And IT WILL HAPPEN. For dramatic reasons and the Rick Grimes -conscience- er, stupidity reasons he will escape. Fine. It can help the writers plan on fixing up Rick's character for season three. Make him more of a mix of Rick with some Shane mixed in. More reactionary, less conscience. Less stupidity.

Now, it will be interesting to see how this is pulled off. Randall should have a horrible injury that would hobble an average sized man for weeks. I hope he isn't shown RUNNING or even JOGGING away. At the very least, so our intelligence is not being insulted, have him do a kind of one legged hop. If I see him running, I will be upset. In fact, I would like for everyone else watching to be upset if he does run. So unless his group of thirty men are out searching for him and pick him up halfway, I better not see him sprinting.

The survival of Randall's character also serves to use this as a way to learn more about the group. What they're willing to do to survive or not willing to do because of a -conscience- er, dumbassness. But this show could have very well left him to stay impaled by his leg while walkers came over for their easy shish-kabob. No bullets wasted and no meds used up. Just plain left him there. Cruel yes. But in this series, the heroic thing to do would have been to just have Herschel put him down like one of his horses at the barn.  Not allow him to suffer his ghastly injury and not be eaten alive. And the show could still have had the feeling of impending danger by having a group of those thirty men searching for the farm. Can't be that hard to find it in that small town.

Wouldn't it have just been easier that way? Poor Andrew Lincoln. There's a good actor there that delivers but I wonder if in his head, he knows his character has been emasculated and criticized more than he ever thought his lead character should be.

The Grimes' Family Stupidity

I can fill out a 400 word post on how stupid the decisions of the Grimes family (Rick, Lori, and Carl) have been on "The Walking Dead" series. And I'm sure it's been done to death on message boards, blog, Twitter, fan pages and discussed on Mondays during lunch breaks. So I'm not going to do 400 words. Just a fraction of that and I will let you (whoever reads this) to decide if I'm right or add to this.

I'm just going to list the latest ones because there are too many.

Randall: Why go through so much effort to save him? Yes, it's been established that Rick Grimes is an honest man, a former sheriff that has a conscience. He's saving a man that tried to kill him and Glenn and Herschel. That could have costed more lives on the farm. Protect what's yours now. He can't arrest him or take him to a hospital and put a deputy to guard him and then stick him in the "pokey". Taking a seriously injured man to the farm and use up whatever meds and first aid they have left to them and then do what? Is this some man that wants to take in what seems to be a criminal? Endanger his family and friends and other survivors? Even worse, Randall mentioned knowing Maggie and about the farm. Then why take him there? And then sitting in the back seat so his leg gushes all over the back seat increasing the odds that he bleeds out before reaching the farm. Then drive over 18 miles away looking for a place to release him and "give him a chance". To then fight almost to the death over him (Though to be fair, there were some underlying issues between Rick and Shane). Then return with him and keep him chained up as a prisoner while his fate is decided. And once his fate is decided, then to not pull the trigger in what is one other thing that we as viewers KNOW will come back to bite him and the group.

F you, Rick! Hand over the reins of the group to Shane and go off and tend to your Olive Oil wife and son who needs you so you don't have him running off and making stupid decisions like grabbing a gun like a kid that finds his daddy's gun and wants to show it off in school and then tease the hell out of a walker almost getting killed. Where is Lori during all this? Wasn't she the one that said the women needed to tend to things around the farm? Doesn't that include watching your son, Carl? The same one that turned you into a blubbering mess when he was shot in the chest? Didn't you see what happened to Sophia in the woods? Why is your son unsupervised in the woods? You couldn't be THAT busy. Oh, and Sophia was the one that died because Rick had her go inside a cave. Yes, she should have stayed in there. But what was he thinking in the first place? No wonder so many people feel that Daryl is their favorite character. No wonder in my household no one seems to hate Shane the way Dale and a few of the others seem to.

There is some sloppy writing in this post which is customary for me but it's more this time because of the topic. This is a rant. On many shows, characters do stupid things because that's part of the plot and part of those characters and their motivations and beliefs. We may not like it but it makes for good drama when handled right. (See "The Shield", "The Wire", "Justified", "Southland") But here?! It smells like ...sniff...sloppy writing! I can be sloppy. What excuse do the writers of the show have?

Shane's Reflections

  
   This is the image of Shane that I had mentioned before in a previous post that made him look like a walker. It was shot in a way that made him seem taken aback either by how he almost took Rick's head off with an oversized wrench, or by the reflection of his own image on the window pane or the sound of walkers waking up inside what they thought was an abandoned building. Form your own conclusions.