The Walking Dead: “Living the Dream!”

We open on an idyllic farm scene:  An old tractor, come to rest in a field; cows grazing in the pasture; a huge old-timey barn.  Lest you’re tempted for two seconds to think that life doesn’t suck, we soon see the gang building a stone mound to honor Otis.  Although there is no body to bury (being as how Shane left him at the high school like a hostess gift for the zombie Thanksgiving), they are nevertheless memorializing him with a pile of rocks and a lame-ass service, during which they ask Shane to “speak for Otis” since he was the last to see him alive and all.  Awkward.

That social nicety attended to, Maggie shows Rick a topographical map of the county, allowing him to exposit that this is Day 3 of Sophie being lost.  Jesus, seriously?  It feels like she’s been lost and Carol has been crying uselessly since roughly the Middle Ages.  Doc points out that neither Rick nor Shane are in any condition to go out and search, what with Shane having a bum ankle and Rick being all drained of blood and such.  Probably as sick of most of these people as I am, The Man offers to head to the creek by himself to do some searching.  Rick asks if The Man is okay on his own, and tells him the finding of the farm, getting the map etc. kind of lets him off the hook if doesn’t want to continue to burdened by their sorry asses.  In typical fashion, The Man just sort of shrugs that off, telling Rick his “other plans fell through.”  Hee.

Maggie will make a run into town to see if there are any antibiotics left at the pharmacy.  Rick volunteers Glenn to accompany her, saying he’s their “go to town” guy.  It’s… nice to have a purpose, I guess.

Shane says he’ll drive out on the interstate to have a nervous breakdown wait and see if Sophia shows up.  There’s also some business about Hershel not wanting this to be an armed camp and maybe the weapons should be locked up.  Gee, it’s like he doesn’t trust them not to shoot him and his family in their beds or something.  Rick negotiates one armed guard “to make everyone feel safer,” and Doc reluctantly agrees.  NLR hasn’t had her weekly bitch session yet, so she pitches a hissy over having to give up her gun again.  Shane shuts her up by giving her another lesson in disassembling and reassembling the weapon, rather than just shooting her in the face like I would probably have done at this point, because I apparently have more anger management issues than Shane, and if that’s not scary as fuck, I don’t know what the hell is.

There’s more “where do we set up camp?” and “what about water?” discussion, which basically serves to set up the one solitary walker we’re going to see this entire episode. While pulling water from Well #2, Dale discovers a walker trapped in it.  For some dumb reason, our group of geniuses decide that the walker has to be extracted from the well, but they can’t shoot it in the head because then it will bleed zombie-virus-infested-ick into the water.  Guys, if this bastard child of the Jolly Green Giant and the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man has been in the well for several weeks, I think we can safely assume that that water is already mother-fucking contaminated, mmmkay?  I mean, even Lassie clearly realizes this.  You don’t see her running around barking about someone in the well, do you?

When a canned ham doesn’t work as bait (I’m not even kidding with this — They dangled a canned ham over the zombie’s head.  And they’re surprised it doesn’t take it?  No one wants to eat that shit.  Not even zombies!), the gang decides maybe their walker will be more interested in Chinese take-out, so they lower Glenn (“Doing great. Living the dream!”) into the well instead.  Because you’ve all watched TV before, you’re not at all surprised when the hand-pump they’ve secured the rope to breaks and drops Glenn lower than they intended to have him.  Lots of screaming and thrashing later, they manage to pull Glenn from the zombie’s reach and out of the well.  Ah, Chinese.  It never stays with you.  Always crafty, however, Glenn managed the get the rope around the zombie while he was down there trying to avoid being bitten and screaming for his life.  Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

The gang commences to heave-ho the walker up out of the well.  He is maybe halfway out when he appears to catch on something.  They all pull harder to try and bring it clear of the well, which goes about as perfectly as you might imagine:  the walker splits in half, with his lower half — and a bunch of juicy, rotted, zombie innards — going into the well, leaving the top half jibbering and thrashing on the ground, where he is quickly dispatched by T-Dog hitting him in the face a few dozen times.  ”Good thing we didn’t do anything stupid, like shoot it.”  Hee!  Well Walker might have been the only zombie of the episode, but he more than made up for that shortage with the ICK factor.

Speaking of bastard children (spoiler!), Lori asked Glenn to pick up a certain item that is in no way a home pregnancy test from the feminine hygiene aisle when he’s at the pharmacy, and to keep that between the two of them.

Glenn and Maggie ride into town, which is blessedly (or disappointingly, depending on your point of view) empty of zombies.  Glenn points out that he normally “does this” by himself.  Yeah, Glenn, we figured.  They head into the pharmacy, which sports a sign in the window that says “Take whatever you need, and God Bless.”  Aww.  Small towns.  They’re so friendly.  Maggie goes into the back to look for drugs while Glenn sorts through tampons and picks up the “True Blue” that Lori requested and –

Oh. My. God.  What a horrifying realization!  I’m going to have to dedicate an entire fucking ROOM of my house to stockpiling tampons in case of a zombie apocalypse.  Because if that whole curling up into a ball and dying thing doesn’t work out?  I am sure as hell NOT going without those.  No way, no how.  I will motherfucking cut a bitch!

Anyway, Maggie comes out to find Glenn with a box of condoms in his hand.  He starts stuttering out a non-explanation, which Maggie cuts off by asking if he has a girlfriend.  Glenn admits he does not.  Maggie suggests that they shut the fuck up and get to the wink-winking and nudge-nudging, removing her shirt to illustrate her point.  Glenn is quick to get with this program, because he and Maggie have apparently not read my recap of the season premiere, in which I helpfully pointed out that anyone touching anyone’s anything is beyond disgusting right now, given the level of personal hygiene going on here.  Let’s at least hope they think to use one of those condoms.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch farm, Rick asks Hershel to reconsider giving them all the boot as soon as they find Sophia, and Carl is well enough to travel, putting him on the spot and asking him to “think of the chirren.”  After waxing philosophic about how his own father was a Class A Douchebag, Hershel says that there are “certain aspects [he] won’t discuss, but that if they will “all respect his rules” he’ll consider it.  OMG, what if they’re some kind of religious cult or something, where all of the women are going to be sister wives and the men are going to have to grow ridiculous beards or some shit?

In other news, The Man finds a seemingly abandoned home, but upon investigation he finds a little bed made up in a pantry cupboard, and evidence of a freshly eaten can of sardines.  He goes outside and calls for Sophia, but she doesn’t appear.  He stops to admire the titular “Cherokee Rose” before moving on.  When he returns, he finds Carol in the camper, which she has cleaned and organized so it will be nice “when Sophia comes home.”  The Man puts the Rose (which he evidently picked) in a bottle and exposits about how the flower supposedly sprang up from a Cherokee mother’s tears when the White Man was driving them off of their land to give her hope and since Carol is a grieving mother maybe she too should have some hope and stop motherfucking crying all the damn time.  (I may have added that last part myself.)  I’ll take his word for it.  I’m lazy, y’all.

Later that night, as Rick prepares for bed, Lori steals out under cover of darkness to go pee on the “True Blue” that Glenn brought back for her.  Since it’s dangerous to be hanging outside in the dark with walkers on the loose, the pregnancy test very thoughtfully reveals its Plus Sign at once, rather than taking the requisite five minutes like they generally say on the package.  What a considerate EPT!

And that’s pretty much what happened.  You know, I’m all for the show spending a little time on characterization because, really, if we don’t care about these people then we’re not going to care if they get eaten by a bunch of zombies.  However, there needs to be a balance between these quiet character moments and showing the legitimate, constant danger that these people are in, and this episode just didn’t get it done.  One Jolly Green Stay-Puffed Giant Man does not a zombie apocalypse make.

What do you guys think?  Are you ready to shoot NLR in the face?  Were you looking for more zombies to make an appearance on this zombie show?  Are you already sick. to. death. of Lori’s Baby-Mama Drama?  Sound off in the comments!