Rick Grimes makes some hard cuts and some not so hard cuts in the last episode of “The Walking Dead.”
No one can blame him.
He starts with Herschel’s leg that had to be hacked off after a walker took a bite. The director has some fun with macabre humor in this episode by taking a long shot of the room with Hershel’s hacked off foot left behind on a prison floor. The effect brings out one of those sad giggles, especially when people tip toe around it as they leave it behind.
But a left-footed Herschel is not Rick’s major problem: it’s a group of five prisoners who managed to stay locked up and oblivious to the rise of the walkers and the end of their world. Rick and his crew try to play fair with the new group, but a turf war seems preferable to the convicts, especially their leader, Tomas.
They settle on going their separate ways with the convicts taking over a another section of the prison, but they will need help getting rid of some walkers. Rick, Daryl, and T-dog try to show them the ropes on how to kill walkers. This leads to a hilarious scene when the convicts try a good old fashion prison riot jump on some walkers and find that a shanking just does not do the job anymore. Daryl and T-dog sardonically shake their heads as they watch the amateurs try to show that they can take on some scrawny dead people.
The laughs end quickly when Tomas pulverizes the head of one of the convicts who gets infected by a walker. The blood splattering is intense and it is clear that Tomas turns his friend’s head into ground beef to show Rick that he is a bad-ass. Well this episode, like last week’s episode, is intent on teaching us that Rick does not suffer fools.
He is a man carrying tremendous rage.
His manhood was put into doubt by his best friend. His wife may be pregnant by him. And finally he had to kill Shane to show him that he is a man. The specter of Shane still haunts him and he fights it every time he gets a glimpse of it.
This time it shows itself in Tomas who just happens to swing a machete at Rick in the middle of a battle against some walkers and then explains it away with the excuse,”3@%! happens.”
Well, that excuse can hold water for so long and it stops working when Tomas shoves a walker on Rick. The walker is killed and Tomas and Rick are left staring at each other, and this time it’s Rick who repeats Tomas’ excuse before he buries his machete in Tomas’ skull. There is a collective, “That’s right- and that’s what you Get.â€
Before the cheering can come to its full force- the writers put it to an end when Rick chases down and banishes one of Tomas’ friends who was in on the plot to kill Rick. The man begs Rick for his life, but Rick slams the door on his face and has him face the walkers- weaponless and alone. His screams can be heard even with the door shut. Guilt and sorrow flash across Rick’s face, but they are not enough to make him go back to the man he was before killing Shane.
The question is who is the man that Rick is becoming?
Leave a Reply