The Walking Dead, Season 2, Episode 12: Better Angels
Well, Rick and Shane finally duke it out again, and Shane ends up being the big human villain of season two. And it ends in a fitting climatic confrontation. But before we go there, let's talk a bit about the other parts of the episode. We get Dale's funeral. We get a montage of the team (even T-Dog, who barely has an action scene in this series) going around being zombie hunters and cleaning out their farm territory. We get a great speech about how they're going to take Dale's ideals to heart. We get that real powerful yet soft scene with Glenn working on the RV, reminiscing with Andrea about Dale... and the two of them are certainly the closest to Dale, arguments notwithstanding.
The only weak point here is probably the Rick/Carl talk. It's probably supposed to be depressing and melancholic with the futility of even children having to defend themselves even when Carl's disturbed by the idea that his cowboying around ended up not killing the walker and possibly even attracting it to the farm area... but it just doesn't work. The acting is kinda stunted, and while I get that Carl's kinda all screwed up emotionally right now, Rick being so obsessed with Randall up to ignoring Carl -- something that Shane points out and probably fed his whole tunnel vision 'I'm the only one that can protect Lori and Carl' thing.
Also didn't work was Lori confronting Shane and talking to him. I get that it's well-intentioned and trying to make Shane one of the group again, but, y'know, attempted rape in season one. And surely Rick must've told Lori about the fight they had a couple episodes back? And her going all "I don't even know who the father of the child is!" is going to send nothing but mixed messages, and she definitely kinda gave mixed signals to Shane.
It's definitely a Shane episode, though, as everything we've been building for throughout two seasons with the love triangle, tunnel vision and differing views on how to lead the party come to a head. Shane pretends to play along with Rick wanting to let Randall go as planned, but with Shane's small band of supporters like Andrea folding in with Rick, Shane starts getting desperate. A decision that's definitely not helped by Rick seemingly trusting Daryl more than Shane at one point when going to deal with Randall.
I really liked how Shane basically made his way to the barn and had his gun onto Randall's head. It could've simply been Shane shooting Randall in the head, defying Rick and doing what he wanted just like what he did with the barn zombies... but no. We can just see the moment when he plans something more sinister, involving dragging Randall into the forest, snapping his neck and whacking his own head to a tree. I'm honestly not sure what the game plan for Shane after that is, since if Randall didn't get up and go all zombie Daryl probably would've found the body in record time. But I guess that's all he needed for distraction.
I do like how Rick wasn't even surprised by Shane intending to murder him, and the confrontation is nice, absolutely tense yet sad at the same time. Shane's off the hinges but not all the way exaggerated, whereas Rick's all "man we can talk this out" and all, but, y'know, ends up being the one to deal the fatal blow as he hands the gun to Shane, whose guard is down, before stabbing him in the heart. I do like how Rick isn't as naive as he seems, and the moments with Sophia and the two bar jackasses do show that, yeah, Rick isn't a pushover. I mean, Shane has tried to kill Rick in that fight with a wrench two episodes before, has disobeyed Rick and shown unstable behaviour several times, and has just set up this elaborate plan to kill Rick and probably frame Randall for it.
So yeah, confrontation. Shane dies. Rick lives. Daryl and Glenn play hunter-detective and figure out the clues. That last "Damn you for making me do it!" from Rick is suitably gut-wrenching.
And then Shane rises up as the living dead, and Carl, who probably moonlights as a ninja considering him popping up everywhere last episode and here, shoots zombie Shane. We never see Shane get bitten, not that we know of, and while it's possible that Randall survived the neck-snap and got bitten by a zombie later... the two of them are quite definitely killed by something that's not a zombie. Yet they rise as zombies. Is there something more than meets the eye going on? Do people that die from non-zombie-bite causes come back as zombies? It's a bit clever since all the other deaths in the show involve zombie bites, headshots (Dale) or being vaporized with no trace (Jacqui, Jenner).
Early on Hershel shows that he's finally learned to accept the Atlanta Team (bar Shane), and last episode he gave Glenn his blessing, basically, which I didn't mention. But this episode seems to have Glenn and Maggie be all tsundere and shit, which is kinda annoying.
I thought it was a bit silly that the single shot that Carl fires at Shane's head brought down like the entire zombie horde down upon them simply because this is the penultimate episode, especially since the farm and the areas around the farm are noted to be remote and they just cleared the farm early in this episode. Plus they have been doing target practice and being noisy as hell with vehicles, so why does this one shot attract a horde? But, oh well.
It's a big Shane episode, really, and the other bits are just bonuses. And the character certainly got a well-deserved sendoff as his story was tied up nicely. Great show, great climax... except, wait, it's not over yet! Zombie horde time! One more to go before season two ends.
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