This episode opens with Shane, Rick, and That Guy that they took hostage from the week before all running (or crawling, in That Guy’s case) for their lives from a mob of Walkers. I’m kind of getting, what’s a good word? Oh yes, desensitized to these kinds of cold openings because the Walkers never really do too much damage and they don’t walk fast enough to scare me. Am I the only one feeling this way?

Anyway, Rick had a good hiding spot behind a building in plain sight, only a Walker stumbled out of a broken window of that building (this comes into play later), and Rick’s face can only be described as “tired.” Shane’s being chased, so he makes the smartest of all decisions and runs to go hide in a shitty bus with a shitty half-broken door.

Did I mention how smart this decision was? Genius. I was jumping out of my skin out of fright for Shane, and chuckling at just how silly that was.

Cut to the chilling, brilliant opening credits and theme song that I definitely do not have on my iPod, despite its shortness and lack of actual lyrics, and then we see Rick and Shane taking a drive, when Rick stops the car and steps out. Shane notices they’ve gone pretty far and Rick tells him they need to be “18 miles out,” to drop off the prisoner from the last episode like a baby animal into the wild. Shane steps out of the car and Rick decides in the middle of nowhere on what looks like a blistering hot day is a good place for them to talk everything out. Rick’s like, “Listen, Lori thinks you’re a nut and I kind of believe her so you need to chill out, basically. When I first found out about you having consensual sex with my wife, I wanted to punish you and only you, but I’m pretty much over that now. That’s my wife, my son, my baby. Everything ever is mine and nothing is yours, get it? Good. I’ve gotta stay alive to keep them alive. You will not be dangerous to them because I say so. Do you accept these terms?” and Shane squinted in the sunlight and was like, “Yup,” but you know, he didn’t look all that convinced.

I like that Rick laid everything out, told Shane face-to-face how he was feeling, but I don’t like how he made Shane sound so…deluded and like he was trying to steal everything away, the way Lori made him out to be. It just didn’t sound like a conversation between best friends, more like a boss and an employer. Or a husband and the other man?

Back on the road, Rick’s discussing their future, new plans, about using knives instead of guns to save ammo which should’ve been kind of glaringly obvious from the start, talking about how when the winter arrives, they’ll be able to use snowmobiles to make rounds and it’s kind of cute the way Rick’s being so realistic and practical. Shane does not look one bit amused or happy about the future, and is actually a lot more concerned with watching a lone Walker struggle through a field than listening to anything Rick has to say.

Little House on the Prairie had some big drama this episode because coma girl Beth finally woke up and surprisingly, doesn’t want to live in a world majorly inhabited by zombies. What a buzz kill she is. Lori really tried to convince her to stay alive, but her speech was honestly mostly cliched bullshit and of course Beth didn’t buy it. Andrea, fully reaffirming her status as Alpha Female (is there an actual phrase for that?), told Lori off, saying that maybe Beth will end up as lucky as Lori is, with a “husband, son, baby, boyfriend; she just has to look on the bright side.” Her delivery of that line was flawless and exactly the reason why I hated Lori being the one to try to convince Beth that living is worth it. So right. I love Andrea, did I forget to mention that? I didn’t love how she basically told Beth “either kill yoself or live, girl, I ain’t got the time” and her reaction to finding out she cut herself wasn’t very sympathetic to poor Rose, who was devastated. But Beth made a choice to keep on truckin’, and I guess that’s all that matters in the end.

Instead of hugging it out like I so desperately wanted them to, Rick and Shane ended up getting into a huge fight after they let That Guy out of the trunk and start to leave him there, but he started yelling about how he went to school with Maggie (“she didn’t know me or nothin’, I just saw her around” = “you know that dude that follows girls around always and installs cameras in the locker rooms? I’m that dude”) and Shane and Rick immediately asked him to repeat himself but he was all nervous due to the two grown men shouting at him in their outside voices. Shane got all fed up and pulled out his gun but Rick slapped it out of his hand and was all, “NOT NOW! JUST NOT NOW!” and Shane retorted, “Then when?” which was a great question. Shane then questioned Rick’s judgement by bringing That Guy back to where Lori and Carl sleep, but Rick just ignored him and told him he won’t let him make these kinds of calls anymore. He demanded that That Guy would be kept in the barn, unless, and this is such a low blow, “you bust him out first.” Catty, Rick.

Shane shrugged that off and said the sentence I was dreading, “I don’t think you can keep them safe.” Then the fighting ensued, with headbutts and grunting and screaming all while in the background, That Guy crawled toward the knife they dropped on the ground earlier.  Rick basically repeated everything he said earlier, all “I’m the boss,” and you can see it, you can see how emasculated Shane is feeling hearing this. So he throws a wrench, all big and hulking and red, right at Rick’s head. Too bad he misses and it breaks the window of the building behind him instead. A building that contained about a hundred Walkers. Clumsy Shane!

That Guy, having reached the knife, is on the floor and stabbing a Walker lady 50 times more than necessary and I just don’t understand how he’s in better shape than the other two able-bodied men also under siege. I just don’t. Rick’s slipping and sliding and falling into trash bags and getting dogpiled by Walkers, and Shane’s got Walkers right on his heels and can only find escape through a bus, and yet That Guy, tied up like actual bait, is just chillin’? Okay. Sure.

That Guy catches up with Rick and suggests they hit that old dusty trail, and Rick looks at Shane, trapped in the bus, waits a minute, then decides to just leave Shane for dead, and my heart broke into a million pieces. Until Rick doubles back in the car with That Guy, guns blazing, shooting Walkers, and saving Shane. That’s love, folks. The kind of friendship that I admire.

I expected a hug, a thank you and a couple “I love you man”s thrown around, but these are manly men and this is a zombie-infested world, not Blair and Serena or Manhattan. Oh, well. Rick reiterated what he said earlier about everything being his and Shane respecting that, which he grudgingly said he did.

As they were driving back, That Guy gift-wrapped in the car again, Shane watched that Walker, still in that same field, all alone, stagger on. Whether this is foreshadowing or simply just symbolism of an internal struggle, it was a beautiful ending to a pretty
climactic episode!