The full Glen Mazzara era has begun on The Walking Dead with ‘Nebraska’ and already there’s a ton of talk and a bit of controversy, but not the kind I suspect AMC was hoping for.
Watercooler talk on the forums and in general critiques of ‘Nebraska’ is about the distinct lack of zombie action after a half season of limited zombie action. This, to me, isn’t fair. I may have been a facilitator to this in previous reviews, but it seems that people are either upset that there are not enough zombies going about and getting shot, or too many zombies being depended on like a thematic crutch. After the seemingly endless hunt for Sophia that we were subjected to, the mid-season finale of a total zombie massacre was an almost cathartic release for the audience and maybe the thought was that it would continue, but wouldn’t that be (no pun intended) overkill?
The first “not looking for Sophia” episode finds our Gang estranged, emotionally spent, and unsure of where to go next – both emotionally and physically. As the gang tries to come to terms with Sophia’s end, we see reactions that run the gamut of emotion.
Carl’s reaction, I think, is a bit misunderstood by Lori. Carl tells her that if he were in Rick’s position, he would have shot her too without hesitation. Lori takes this as her son becoming colder as a human being and relays those fears to Rick later in the episode, but there are a couple of things that Lori is failing to see.
The first is that shooting Sophia in the manner that Rick did was the most humane way to put her down. Not that she’s equivalent to a dog, but in the state that she was in, the quicker it came to an end the better.
The second is something that almost all of the group seems to be failing on, that is aside from Carol ironically enough, and that is that for all their talk about how Hershel’s group inside the barn were no longer the loved ones they previously cared for, they still harbored feelings for their own similarly afflicted. They bury Sophia, but by their own words, it isn’t her any longer. So are they doing it just to appease their own emotions or guilty feelings about not being able to save her, or just being hypocritical?
Carol seems to nail it on the head; that her daughter had died a long time ago. Now if she meant that they were all, in a sense, dead after the zombie apocalypse transformed their lives or if she meant it more in a literal sense can only be inferred, but maybe it’s a mix of both.
Just when I’ve started to like Andrea as a character, Dale had to go and turn into nothing more than an archetypal crazy old man who leers a lot. Shane’s ongoing diatribes over the uselessness of said crazy old man may be well pinpointed, but also seem to be more of an ongoing internal dialogue being outwardly expressed.
It seems the rest of the Gang are just as annoyed with Dale. When he goes off again about how Shane killed Otis, Lori completely tosses his assertion aside, as plausible as it would seem to anyone that has taken two glances at the overly intense Shane.
The Walking Dead has been fairly sparse when it comes to ancillary or additional characters. Mostly we have our core group and the drama is in its dwindling numbers.
‘Nebraska’ turned that whole dynamic on its head as we were introduced to a pair of newcomers. Hershel ran off after his Wife, family, and friends (or the zombie shells of them) got capped and Rick surmised that he retreated to his previous watering hole. Hershel, after a couple shots of babbling juice, laments to Rick about how he was right about how the zombies in the barn weren’t really the ones he loved, and that there was never going to be a cure.
In walk Dave and Tony, a couple of do-no-goodnicks packing heat and looking for a place for them and their unknown number of associates to crash. The tension during this drawn out scene was intense and excellently executed. It just goes to show that the show at its heart is character driven, not zombie driven. I was expecting to see another moment of Rick trying to calm everyone down and be almost overly diplomatic with Dave and Tony as they subtly, then not so subtly, attempt to push Rick into giving up the whereabouts of the farm. Dave and Tony were probably expecting that as well, and what followed was both shocking and AWESOME.
I think what happened to Sophia changed Rick fundamentally, even though he is still the calm voice of reason. He’s officially crossed beyond a threshold that now those kind of actions are no longer at the extreme end of the reaction arc, but rather a perfectly rationale option.
In an act of pure idiocy, pregnant Lori decided to leave Hershel’s farm to bring Rick back – by herself – and flipped her car over after hitting a zombie, becoming pinned in the wreckage. So now we have another missing person to worry about.
Personally, I can’t wait for Lori to get offed. I know that’s awful to say her being pregnant and all, but I do hope it’s after the child is born if that’s any consolation. Her character is just useless and serves nothing more than trying to perpetuate a rift between Rick and Shane, but they are so far gone at this point that she is no longer needed in that respect.
I thought ‘Nebraska’ was a great The Walking Dead episode as an excellent follow up to the mid-season finale and get start for showrunner Glen Mazzara. I hope we see more episodes like this as well as ones with a healthy body count. That’s going to be the key to the series’ longevity; a good balance between the two. You’re not going to please everyone, but mostly that’s because people love to bitch, even when it’s about something they love.
– James Zappie
