The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 6 recap

Carl makes a miraculous recovery, is up and helping Horrible Lori with farm chores just days after being seriously wounded.  His acting, however, remains mortally injured.

A creepy farm cannibal (where do these new people keep coming from?) breaks some chickens’ legs and takes them to feed the barn zombies. Can a zombie starve? Or would they eventually resort to cannibalism? Questions for the universe.

Maggie is now bribing Glenn for his silence with fruit and jerky. Honey, didn’t you just deflower him? Fruit and jerky are not your best options, is all I’m saying.

Daryl continues being the coolest person in the group and lets Andrea off the hook for shooting him in the head because she was “protecting the group”. I think, even during a zombie apocalypse, if you shot me in the head, I’d be at least slightly pissed off at you forever.

Glenn gets after Horrible Lori to tell Officer Rick about the baby and to eat better and take care of herself. He points out how skinny Horrible Lori is. I was just thinking about that—it looks like Sarah Wayne Callies has lost some weight between seasons 1 and 2. She appears to be the only one in the group whose body is changing over time (Andrew Lincoln and Jon Bernthal get a pass because Rick and Shane were already in great shape and wouldn’t have much weight to lose). This is like Lost when the fat guy stayed fat despite living off coconuts on that island.

I like Horrible Lori’s reaction to Glenn calling pregnancy a “medical condition”. Such a guy thing to act like being pregnant is like having a disease.

More talking about gun training. JUST DO IT ALREADY.

Carl, displaying his first bit of rum gumption ever, lifted a gun from the RV. Wearing his daddy’s hat is going to his head (pun!).

Fighting over whether or not Carl should receive gun training is the most interesting thing Rick and Horrible Lori have done in ages. Rick wins, of course.

Who would you rather: Raylan Givens or Officer Rick?

Once again, Glenn makes my life. He says to Dale, “You’re old. I mean, you know things.” Just keep doing this and the show will be fine.

Glenn REALLY can’t keep a secret.

OH MY GOD GUN TRAINING FINALLY.

Andrea gets a little awesome really fast and can suddenly aim a gun. Cannot wait for the Andrea/Rick/Shane/Daryl zombie-hunting awesomery to commence.

Herchel is f*cking nuts, compares zombies to paranoid schizophrenics. No dude, not the same AT ALL. Dale and Herchel have it out over the barn, but the most interesting part is when Herchel asks if Dale is sure of everyone in the group and Dale flinches. We’re looking at you, Stupid Shane.

Herchel is simultaneously really polite and super rude.

Stupid Shane is stupid, upsets Andrea during gun training by bringing up Amy getting eaten by a zombie that one time. Andrea may be catching on that Stupid Shane isn’t all there.

Horrible Lori whisper-yells at Rick for not telling her that Herchel expects the group to move on soon. I feel like this is how they were before the zombies came: Rick trying to take care of his family but not very communicative, Horrible Lori prone to haranguing and judgment.

Um, I get that people are going to want to sponsor TWD and that will mean product placement but brand-spanking new cars without a scratch on them just look out of place in this environment. Maybe get a little more creative than that, Hyundai.

Andrea and Stupid Shane spending so much time together makes me nervous. Anyone else?

Dale confronts Lori about not telling Rick about her Horrible Mistake. For a moment, Lori is not so horrible and displays genuine sorrow that she’ll bring a child into a world saturated in fear and pain. She dismisses her affair with Stupid Shane and commits to Rick in a way that is guaranteed to drive Stupid Shane nuts somewhere down the line. And then she kills the moment by managing to bum out the perpetually optimistic Dale.

Midway point: Glenn can’t lie/keep secrets, the farm cannibals are insane, gun training finally happened.

Maggie bitches out Glenn for betraying her trust and invites him to defend himself. He attempts to reason with her about the barn zombies. His answer should have been, “Bitch, ya’ll be crazy. Zombies are for killing, the end.”

The dynamic building between Rick’s survivors and the farm cannibals is basically: country people = backwards rubes, city people = savvy saviors.

Maggie gets her comeuppance when a zombie attacks her in the pharmacy. Glenn saves the day with a shelving unit AND a knife. He then does what his group does and kills that zombie until it’s dead, with extreme prejudice. Complicating the rube/savior dichotomy, we often see Rick’s group displaying the kind of savagery one would expect of backwoods people (see also: Daryl’s ear necklace) while the farm cannibals remain almost comically precious about their manners and way of life.

Glenn doesn’t even have to say it: his face is eloquent enough - You still think that’s a person?

I hope the intention here is for us to loathe Maggie, because that’s what’s happening.

Dear God, just find Sophia already. Please.

I really love the art direction on this show. While exploring a house looking for Sophia, Stupid Shane and Andrea find a hallway closed off, but a hole has been punched in the drywall, surrounded by bloodstains. I love these touches. What happened here?

Um, a roomful of bodies is what happened. What did the people in this house do?

Oh my god it gets better! (And grosser!) A burned-out room full of more bodies. Criminy—what did these people do? I love that we’ll never know.

Annnnnd here comes the inevitable zombie horde. History has shown us that if you’re out alone with Stupid Shane and zombies descend, it ends with you shot in the leg and left as bait.

Aww, Andrea gets her first zombie kill. …and then she turns into a preternaturally good zombie-slayer. You know what, fine. I’m so ready for a woman on this show to not be a bitch and/or useless that I’ll buy her instantaneous transformation into sniper-quality shot.

Glenn continues developing into one of the more interesting characters and gives Horrible Lori the kindest yet most effective speech about telling Rick about her Horrible Mistake.

Stupid Shane will f*ck anyone in the most inappropriate locations.

Horrible Lori takes the morning after pill then immediately makes herself throw it up. Can we not make this into a pro-life/pro-choice debate, America?

Dale takes one look at Stupid Shane and Andrea and knows they boned. He encourages Stupid Shane to leave. Dale is definitely suspicious about the circumstances of Otis The Fat Cannibal’s death. Stupid Shane proves everything Dale thought about him, but he also proves that he’s totally crazy.

Horrible Lori is, like, pathologically incapable of not upsetting Rick; she left evidence of the morning after pill out for him to find. They are infinitely more interesting as a couple when they’re fighting.

And here’s the moment we’ve waited 12 episodes for: Horrible Lori confesses about sleeping with Stupid Shane. Turns out, Rick had already figured it out. Why does everyone forget that Rick was a good cop pre-zombies?

Status check:
Officer Rick – The most patient, forgiving husband of all time.
Horrible Lori – Going to be a horrible mother to the Horrible Mistake.
Stupid Shane – Crazy and horny.
Andrea – Zombie-slaying sniper after five minutes.
Glenn – Almost as cool as Daryl.
Farm Cannibals – Cruising for a bruising. Or, an eating-by-zombie.
Sophia – Somehow still eluding discovery.

Worst thing seen/heard this episode: The house with all the corpses.

Zombie kill of the week: Glenn in the pharmacy with a shelf AND knife.