Review of 18 Miles Out

It really is hard to say this, but I am incredibly close to giving up on "The Walking Dead." A show that had tons of promise after season one, season two has been nothing but a train wreck of melodrama, dumb character progressions, and terrible story progressions. Maybe the worst thing they have done in all of season two, including the fall, came last evening in the decision to cut up the most interesting scene of the night. When the episode begins, Rick and Shane are fighting off zombies in a location we have never seen before. Shane gets in a school bus to keep the walkers away, Rick hides under a zombie corpse, and that kid they saved in town an episode ago is crawling on the ground, tied up, trying to reach a knife. Begin opening titles. While I do know the show has a history of having exciting scenes in their opening minutes before the credits, I was flabbergasted they decided to use this scene as their opener. Not only is it the climactic moment of this episode later on, it decreases so much tension and fear when this scene arrives later. What's worse, the editing of the scene is not linear with the actual event. When the attack really does happen, the kid has already got the knife and has cut his legs free, Shane is running around for a while before getting to the bus, and Rick is fighting off his zombies much earlier than Rick is. Let's take a step back though. After the credits, we have a scene of Rick and Shane standing at a crossroads (where else could this scene take place…the symbolism hidden so well in this show). Rick tells Shane that Lori, Carl, and the new baby are his and that he has to back off. After a minor discussion, Shane sits quietly and they get back to work. Their job: to find a place to drop this kid off. So they head down the road and find a public works center that looks abandoned, a perfect spot to leave the kid while still giving him a chance to survive. They drop the kid, leave him tied, and throw down a knife, but the kid mentions that he went to high school with Maggie. Both Rick and Shane know what this means: the kid likely knows where Maggie's farm is. Of course, with Rick and Shane nothing is easy. Shane immediately decides that they need to put a bullet in the kid, but Rick wants time to think. And Shane, being Shane, makes the stupid comment about not being able to protect his family and this situation being an example. The two begin to fight while the kid crawls towards the knife. Near the end of the fight, Shane throws a giant wrench at Rick that misses, shatters a window, and wakes up a horde of zombies inside the building that now have an escape path out of the room. Nice Shane…real nice. But I'm going to cut you off just like the show did, because for some reason the show-runners decided they wanted to edit this attack on Rick and Shane with the storyline about Beth in bed, who is now trying to commit suicide. She tries to sneak the knife from her lunch from Lori, but Lori spots it when cleaning up and gets it back. Thus begins the argument between Maggie and Beth about why she would want to kill herself, while an argument between Andrea and Lori takes place in the kitchen about not letting her kill herself. Andrea says it's her choice whether she wants to live or die, but Lori thinks she is right about taking the knife away. Sure, maybe we aren't in this situation to know any better, but who isn't with Lori here. Suicide is Beth's easy way out, but a pointless one. Even if she feels like she has no purpose to live, how can anyone standby and just let her kill herself. So, of course, Andrea goes up to the bedroom and tells Maggie that she will watch Beth. Andrea lies, leaves Beth alone, and a few scenes later Beth has cut her wrist by a broken mirror in the bathroom. It isn't deep, she will survive, but the damage is done. While Andrea is right that she made the choice to live by not cutting herself that deep, Adrea made the choice to let her cut herself. Maggie tells her off, says she is never welcome back in the house, and leaves to tend to her sister. This storyline was just the epitome of what this how is turning into: over-dramatic conflict that will result in nothing. Honestly, I would have rather seen Beth finish the job, because at least we would have had a true tragedy on our hands and outlawing Andrea could be justified a bit more. The show consistently gets us to the point where someone in the group might die, but then pulls back, saves the person, and leaves anger and stupid arguments in its wake...