The Walking Dead Season 2 E12: Better Angels (Part 2)

If you have not read my review of episode 12 (Part 1) from this season, you may do so here: The Walking Dead Season 2 E12: Better Angels (Part 1)

Picking up where we left off, everyone is trying to figure out what happened.  Shane comes out of the woods and lies to everyone about what happened.  Shane, Rick, Daryl and Glenn form a search party to hunt down Randall.  Daryl questions Shane’s story, things just aren’t adding up.  To make things quicker they divide up into groups of two: Shane with Rick and Daryl with Glenn.

Daryl finds some tracks and continues to discover just how off Shane’s story was.  There was obviously a struggle between Shane and Randall.  They hear and see a walker out in the woods and it attacks them.  Glenn manages to kill him only to discover this walker used to be Randall.  The odd things is, there aren’t any bites on his body, his broken neck is the only injury he has.  They don’t understand how he turned.

Meanwhile, Shane leads Rick through the woods.  Rick seems suspicious of Shane and after a while lets him know that he knows what he is planning.  They talk about this murder, about Lori and Carl.  Shane says that Rick’s family is broke, and he has no idea how to fix it.  Rick moves closer and closer to Shane, slowly pulling out his gun, handle first, to give it to Shane.  Rick attempts to talk Shane out of this but the look on Shane’s face says it all.  While Shane is distracted grabbing Ricks gun, Rick stabs him with a knife he had been pulling out with his free hand.  Yelling at Shane about making him do this, his friend’s life pours out and Shane dies in front of him.

Rick killing Shane is one of the best scenes in the entire series.  If you remember back to the first scene ever on the show, of Rick and Shane talking, you remember just how close these guys used to be.  Shane even risked his own life to save Rick once and now it has come to this.  With two seasons worth of build up, it’s a tense moment that probably took most people by surprise (as it did Shane).

We see a flash of zombies (Shane’s perspective).  Rick thinks about what just happened as Shane’s body starts to reanimate without him knowing it.  Carl shows up and draws his gun on Rick.  Rick thinks Carl wants to kill him for murdering Shane.  Actually zombie Shane was walking towards Rick and Carl kills him.  This scene was a reference to the comics where Carl kills Shane.  Rick checks Shane’s body while the camera pans out to show a herd of walkers heading their way.   The walkers had been out in the woods and heard the gun shots.

The Walking Dead Season 2 E12: Better Angels (Part 1)

If you have not read my review of episode 11 from this season, you may do so here: The Walking Dead Season 2 E11: Judge, Jury, Executioner

This episode has a great opening.  We see Dale’s funeral spliced with scenes of the group pulling together and hunting down walkers.  The survivors are finally securing the farm and being aggressive.  Shane and Rick get into it over releasing Randall but it doesn’t last long, Rick tells Shane how it’s going to be.  Hershel and Rick ask Andrea to keep an eye on Shane for them, to make sure things don’t get out of control.

Carl goes to Shane to talk.  He tells Shane about the gun he stole from Daryl, the walker he saw and how it’s the walker that killed Dale.  Hershel allows everyone to move into the house for safety reasons and because winter is coming.  Lori makes an odd decision to talk to Shane, thanking him for all he has done for her.  She even tells him the baby could be his and that she did have feelings for him also.  Considering she had just tried to talk Rick into killing him, I’m not sure what she is doing.

Shane goes to Rick to discuss the walker that Carl saw.  Shane gets mad at Rick because he won’t deal with it.  He feels Rick is more concerned with setting Randall free than being a Father to Carl.  Shane may be unstable, but he has been right about Rick to a large degree.  Rick makes a lot of weird decisions, like saving Randall in town, that put not only everyone freeing Randall at risk, but everyone at the farm as well.  And Carl does need his Dad and discipline.

Glenn and Andrea have a heart to heart about Dale and his final moments.  Both of them were close to him in different ways.  Both let him down at times as well.  Rick decides to take Shane’s advice, he talks to his son, man to man.  Rick gives Carl a gun.  In this world, you have to be ready to defend yourself at all times.  It’s hard enough as a man, but as a child or woman, you have even less of a chance of making it.

Shane starts acting crazy in the barn in front of Randall.  T-Dog comes to get Randall and set him free but he is gone.  We cut to Shane out in the woods with Randall.  Shane asks Randall where his camp is.  He says he wants to join their group because this one is done.  They walk off camera and Shane breaks Randall’s neck.  To make it look like he was jumped, he slams his own nose into a tree.  Again, Shane’s action are out of control but letting Randall go was a terrible decision.  They never should have saved him in the first place considering the group of guys he traveled with.

The Walking Dead Season 2 E11: Judge, Jury, Executioner

If you have not read my review of episode 10 from this season, you may do so here: The Walking Dead Season 2 E10: 18 Miles Out

We open on Daryl beating the crap out of Randall.  Daryl is torturing Randall for information about his group.  It works but the news isn’t good.  Randall’s group is made up of about 30 people, armed to the teeth, who love to murder and rape.  This certainly doesn’t make Randall look very good since he does live with these guys.

Rick decides the best thing to do is execute Randall.  He is a threat to the farm since he can lead everyone back to them.  Dale wants to talk about things with everyone.  He talks Andrea into guarding Randall so Shane can’t kill him before everyone has made a final decision.  Shane comes by and has a talk with Andrea.  He says the group won’t go through with it and tells her his plans for taking over the group.

Things are getting interesting now.  We have this unknown group of people Randall was with and we have Shane as a threat from the inside.  The walkers may not even be the biggest threat anymore at this point!  Carl sneaks into the barn where he is spotted by Randall.  While Randall is trying to manipulate him, Shane comes in and tells Carl to stay away from here.  Randall is dangerous.

Dale travels around the farm and does his best to rally support for Randall to have a trial, without much luck.  Carl, becoming increasingly annoying all of the time, is rude to Carol.  After getting a chewing out from Rick he wanders over to Daryl’s part of the farm and steals his gun.  Seriously, what is up with this kid?!  He walks out into the woods, by himself, and stumbles upon a walker stuck in the mud. Instead of running away like an intelligent person, he is an idiot like always and starts throwing rocks at the zombie.  Of course the walkers starts to get free and comes after Carl but he escapes, losing Daryl’s gun in the process.

Dale and Shane have another confrontation, which actually ends somewhat peacefully.  Shane agrees to do what the group says.  Hershel and Glenn also have a heart to heart about Maggie and Hershel gives Glenn a watch that is important to him.  Later on, everyone gathers in the house and has a big debate about if they should kill Randall or not.  Dale argues that the group is losing their humanity.  Andrea, surprisingly, agrees with Dale.  Almost everyone wants to stay out of it and let Rick handle it.

Daryl, Rick and Shane take Randall to the barn to execute him.  Rick is ready to shoot him while Randall begs for his life.  Carls walks in and says to shoot him.  Rick, feeling guilty, decides to simply hold Randall prisoner for now and decide what to do with him later.  Rick tells Lori he couldn’t go through with it because Carl wanted to watch, he has become hardened.

Big Spoilers…..

Dale is walking in a field by himself and hears a cow making noise.  He sees that the cow has been ripped open and when he turns around a walker is there.  The walker takes him down and rips open his stomach with his boney fingers.  Everyone else, hearing the noise, comes to help him but it’s too late to save him.  After killing the walker, Daryl puts a gun to Dale’s head and pulls the trigger to put him out of his misery.  The walker who killed Dale was the very one Carl had been throwing rocks at.  Carl was the one who lead him in the direction of the farm.  I can’t stand this kid, it would have been nice if they had killed him off instead of Dale!