Summary: Glenn tries to keep his secrets but ends up telling Dale everything. Lori struggles to deal with her pregnancy and keeps it a secret. She takes abortion pills but throws them up. Rick finds out and isn't pleased but he gets past it. Shane and Andrea go for gun training and Andrea becomes proficient with a gun. They have sex.
The Good: I liked the opening scene. It was creepy and harrowing in the way that this show has begun to specialize in as we got to see the chickens sacrificed to feed the walkers in pretty grim and brutal fashion. It was a good way to start the episode. Glenn's attempts to keep the secrets were pretty entertaining and funny, and it was nice to see an episode called "Secrets" live up to the title. I thought that there was some decent tension from all of these characters keeping secrets. I also really liked Dale who has slowly become a sort of leader as he essentially has three different confrontations where he tries to keep the two groups in balance and all of them were pretty good, particularly the final one with Shane (see: Best Moment). Shane was very good in this episode though. His character is wildly different from everyone else due to his aggressive nature and that adds a lot of potential for conflict. I also like seeing this new gun trainer version of Shane which helps highlight how Shane is able to live with himself after killing Otis, which is by cutting himself off emotionally so he doesn't feel guilt. I felt that his relationship with Andrea was done fairly well and it all organically led to them having sex in the car. The Bad: Unfortunately I didn't find this episode to be particularly significant. There doesn't seem to be a sense of importance to many things in this season. Take what I just praised, Andrea and Shane, and you realize that this episode doesn't seem to have very much of interest to it. While it's nice to see the two characters grow, we still don't understand them very well nor do we understand what significance their relationship has on the overall plot. This removes all of the momentum the series has while the pacing slows and the show feels like it's running in circles and killing time until its mid-season finale in the next episode. The Sophia story has suffered from this too, as her recovery no longer feels important since it has been drawn out for so long and is hardly talked about anymore. The show has lost the only sense of urgency it developed in this season. Also, the show seems incapable of writing female characters. Lori's storyline wasn't good at all and failed to make me like Lori. I understood her dilemma, but it's essentially the same thing being discussed from before about children in a post-apocalyptic world. It's redundant and bland, and it doesn't help that Lori had already conquered the emotion of wanting to just kill children so they don't have to endure this world. It doesn't make me sympathize with her to see her regressing in her character arc to a struggle she already dealt with. Furthermore she is hypocritical and downright awful to Rick, who comes off as sensible. The show has done nothing to make me care for or even like Lori. Worse though is Maggie who continues to flip flop with her emotions even more than Lori who is supposed to be the pregnant one anyways. Maggie is like a child with how she instinctively reacts to everything with no thought and only emotion, making her feel miscast or miswritten. I didn't like her verbal attack on Lori at all as it did nothing to make me understand Maggie more than I do already, and her claims that Glenn is a leader came off completely wrong and difficult to believe. The biggest offense this show is making right now however is in how dull it is to watch. When you watch other shows such as "Breaking Bad" or "Game of Thrones", there is visual beauty in every episode and how its constructed. Be it the cinematography, acting, directing, and more, those shows always stood out with the elegant nature of the show. This show completely fails at all of that. With the exclusion of the brilliant makeup, this show is really dull to watch. The first season didn't have this problem as there were always numerous breathtaking shots and moments, but this season has been painfully bland to watch. I can't recall a single memorable shot from these last few episodes. It's like there is very little care for making scenes look good and we only seem to get generic shots and transitions which feel jarring. It stands out even more in slower episodes like this one where not a whole lot happens. The Unknown: What is with Hershel's belief that walkers are sick? Surely he must have seen one of them die before coming back. It is an interesting standing on walkers though and I'm certainly curious to see how this will create conflict within the group. Best Moment: Shane threatening Dale was the most tense and dramatic this episode got. Shane has been the best part of this season by far and has remained compelling. Character of the Episode: Shane. Conclusion: This episode was a very middling one. Some good things and some bad things. However the show does have a greater problem where it is failing to progress the story along satisfyingly. We need this to be fixed immediately so that the show can start living up to its potential like in season 1. Score: 56
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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