Maybe it’s because I’m in the midst of some serious “Angel” geekery with my “Rewatching the classics” project, but the Shane-Rick showdown in last night’s “The Walking Dead” (8 p.m. Central Sundays on AMC) reminded me of Faith begging Angel to kill her in Season 1’s “Five by Five.”
The Shane arc is played a bit more closely to the vest, though. Although my heart was racing during that final scene and I knew I was watching a soon-to-be-classic TV moment, things weren’t clearly spelled out for the viewer.
Did Shane confront Rick as a means of committing suicide? Or was it a case of him going crazy with love and jealousy and taking things too far?
Whereas “Angel” gave us the “wow” moment and then let us soak in all the emotions of it, “The Walking Dead” gave us the “wow” moment but leaves lingering questions. Although I sort of wish it would’ve dwelled on the “Fall of Shane” arc a bit more and given Jon Bernthal some meatier material, there’s no denying that there are some compelling questions heading into next Sunday’s Season 2 finale.
Was Shane going crazy by natural means, or was he somehow infected by something related to the zombie plague?
It’s been reported that the information Rick has been keeping secret all year — whatever the CDC scientist whispered to him in last year’s finale — will be revealed next week. As of now, the logical assumption is that people (or at least some people) turn into zombies simply by dying (we’ve seen this with the two cops and now Randall and Shane). They no longer have to be bitten by a zombie to turn into one.
This wouldn’t necessarily be a huge deal logistically. It would simply mean you’d have to smash the corpse’s head in before the funeral. Therefore, in order for this to have dramatic heft, I have to assume people can be infected while they are still alive and that living people can actually turn into zombies — or something along those lines. I think the exact nature of how that happens will be central to Season 3.
While I can’t argue with last night’s episode in terms of pure pulp-entertainment brilliance, I have to note that the Randall arc was kind of wasted when Shane murders him as part of his scheme. Talk about a path not taken: Randall indicates that his group is only about five miles away and that Shane would fit in great with them.
We’ll never get the definitive answer as to whether Randall was a wicked schemer in the vein of “Lost’s” Ben Linus or just a survivor caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s too bad. As much as I accept that cable networks’ shorter seasons allow for more money and attention to be lavished on a per-episode basis, I can’t help but think the Randall arc would’ve been handled better in a traditional 22-episode season. Even just a flashback episode showing Randall’s backstory — a method “Lost” sometimes used — would’ve been cool.
At any rate, “The Walking Dead” will certainly get away with that omission because it traded the Randall Question for all these new questions. What are your thoughts on last night’s episode: Did Shane have a death wish or did he really intend to murder Rick? Was he acting under his own power or going crazy due to a zombie infection? What did the CDC guy whisper to Rick?
Share your theories in the comment threads below.