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Review: The Walking Dead Season Two, Episode Three – Save The Last One

Published Fri, 28 Oct 2011 02:09:35 -0500

At the beginning of this episode, Shane is seen shaving his head. By the end of the episode, we find out why he is shaving his head. That's pretty much all the plot progression that happens in this episode, and while the haircut is a lot more significant than it sounds and marks a dramatic turning point in Shane's character development, it shouldn't mean that all the other characters have to stop what they're doing and watch.

What Lies Ahead and Bloodletting got by me with very little in the way of criticism, since the season got off to a powerful start, with some great moments and some shocking plot points. In the first episode alone, Sophia went missing and Carl was accidentally shot and left with bullet fragments in his stomach and internal bleeding. In episode 2, Sophia remained missing and Carl continued to grow weaker from his wound. In episode 3, Sophia remains missing and Carl continues to grow weaker from his wound. Aside from Shane and Otis' exploits at the school as they desperately search for the equipment needed to perform a life-saving operation on Carl, the action has pretty much slowed to a halt.

Don't worry, there are still Walkers in this episode. Mainly they're trying to crack open Otis and Shane's heads to get at the gooey goodness inside, but Daryl also rescues us from the monotony of A Day In The Life Of A Stationary RV by deciding to go on a midnight ramble to look for Sophia. This leads to the encounter with the Tree Zombie.

Tree Zombie is my favourite zombie so far. I think I like Tree Zombie even more than Bicycle Girl from the pilot episode. Without giving too much away, Tree Zombie is pretty laid back. He just hangs around, writing poetry, getting back to nature. Probably I was reaching for a bright point in a relatively dull episode but the tale of Daryl Dixon and the Tree Zombie was quite enjoyable. Andrea tagged along as well, but I'm choosing to ignore her until she quits whining about Dale rescuing her from the CDC and not being allowed a gun.

I feel I've been a bit too heavy-handed with the praise for Daryl in this series, not to mention the praise for Norman Reedus' bare arms, but I can't help it if he continues to be the best character in the series. Daryl is the only character who continues to search for Sophia in this episode, a task that would have given the other characters something to do beyond just sitting around and talking, and even he's starting to get frustrated by the lack of interest in finding her.

"What the hell is wrong with you people?" he asks. "We just started looking." And then he tells an anecdote that somehow leads to the sentence, "My ass itched something awful."

I'm going to summarise my feelings about this episode using a food-related analogy, which according to specialists is the best kind of analogy. In the first season of The Walking Dead, and indeed in the previous episodes of Season 2, character development happened in the midst of the action, as characters responded quickly and often instinctively to the situations that they found themselves in. It's what I like to call a "working lunch", because lots of things were happening and the writers used those events as an opportunity to build up their characters.

Save The Last One is a sit-down picnic, complete with ants in the jam. It develops a lot of the themes and issues that we've already seen: the threat of weaker characters being left behind for the benefit of stronger characters; the question of whether suicide is the wisest choice or just a coward's way out; even the Apathetic God issue rears its head once more. But the way that the ideas are developed is simply by the characters sitting round and talking about them, and regardless of how good or bad the writing may be this just doesn't make for very compelling television. And it certainly doesn't feel like a show about the zombie apocalypse.

This episode is worth watching for Shane's storyline, for the Tree Zombie, and to find out whether Carl lives or dies. Let's just hope the series picks up again after this.

You can catch The Walking Dead: Save The Last One on FX on Friday 4th November at 10pm if you live in the UK, and on AMC on Sunday 30th October at 9pm ET if you live in the US.

FINAL VERDICT: