"The Walking Dead" Episode 206: Finger Lickin' Good

Posted by

on November 21, 2011

"Um ... That's not the stick shift"

This week's The Walking Dead began the set-up that will lead to next week's mid-season finale (already!)

The primary (and welcome) focus was on the Awakening Of Andrea, who finally went from hysterical basketcase to badass-in-training. It begins when she realizes that she's a crack shot at target practice ... but only if the targets are stationary. Question: Where does this target practice take place? So much has been made of the fact that the sound of gunshots brings zombies a shuffling (and Sophia went missing because Rick refused to shoot), it's odd they would ring the dinner bell at the farm.

Unfortunately, once Shane takes Andrea down the road into the woods, her inner flibbertigibbet comes out, and she becomes flustered when she can't hit the moving target that Shane sets up. Even when he brings up the inevitable, "Pretend it's Amy's eater," she still can't shoot straight.

After the sad display in the woods, they decide to check out a housing complex near where Sophia's doll was found, and find a vast wasteland of nothingness, with a hint of despair still lingering in the air.

I miss the suburbs.

Anyway, after investigating a house and realizing that Sophia probably never came near the complex, they try to leave, and find themselves surrounded by zombies. Shane shoots the zombies near the car, but Andrea is upset that she still can't hit a moving target, and starts to fall apart. Shane doesn't coddle her, though, and after she finally blows a hole through her first brain, she relaxes and finds her inner Shane, and starts picking off zombies right and left.

On the ride home, still flushed with excitement, she decides to ... take the bull by the horns, and grabs Shane's abundant crotch. He pulls over and they have sex, which I'm guessing involves Shane grunting and snorting a lot. At least ... that's how I picture him.

"Did you order the Half Decap?"

Meanwhile, Glenn is keeping two juicy secrets, and it's eating away at him so fiercely he has to tell someone or risk explosive diarrhea. When Dale gently nudges him, he blurts out, "Hershel has walkers in the barn and Lori is pregnant."

Dale decides to play his game of passive-aggressive patriarch, and he drops pregnancy hints to Lori until she admits she's knocked up. He sees the apprehension on her face, and when she says, 'I haven't told Rick," he asks, 'Because of Shane?" Lori is confident that the baby is Rick's, but she's not sure she wants to bring a baby into this world. Dale puts on his stunned look.

Dale then sets his sights on Hershel, and tells him that he knows he's keeping zombies in the barn. Hershel explains that they're just really, really sick people, who need our love and understanding ... and flesh. Dale tries to explain that Hershel hasn't seen the outside world, and he doesn't realize that these aren't really people anymore, but Hershel counters with, "My wife and stepson are in there ... they're people." Dale puts on his stunned look.

In the best scene of the episode, Dale sees the sleazy car sex afterglow on Shane, and tells him that he doesn't like him using Andrea, and maybe it's time for him to go. He then intimates that there's more to the Otis story that Shane told everyone, and he flashes back to the first season, when he saw Shane set his gun sight on Rick in the woods. Shane gets a hot psycho look on his face, lowers his voice and says, "You think I'd shoot Rick? That's my best friend. That's a man I love like he's my brother. That's the kind of man you think I am? Well maybe you'd better think that through. Because If i'm the kind of man who'd gun down his best friend, what do you think I'd do to someone I don't even like who starts throwing accusations my way?" Dale puts on his stunned look.

"Head & Shoulders? Aisle nine."

Lori asks Glenn to make a pharmacy trip, and Maggie decides to accompany him. On the way, he tries to understand why her dad is keeping walkers in the barn. She says, "I wish you'd stop calling them that," and when he responds, 'What do you call them?" she says "Mom. And Shawn. And all our neighbors, Mrs. Kravitz, The Rubbles, Fred and Ethel, Ned Flanders, and Lenny & Squiggy."

In the pharmacy, Glenn picks up Lori's items, and Maggie picks up something else ... a zombie! As it uses its "people skills" to try to gnaw on her, Glenn comes to the rescue and knocks its block off ... and when it keeps coming, he buries a knife in its skull.

When they get back to the farm, Maggie furiously throws Lori's bag at her, saying, "Here are your abortion pills! Next time go to the pharmacy yourself." She then tears into Glenn, telling him he's just a doormat for everyone, and they've made him Zombie Bait, and she thinks he's too smart to be taken advantage of like this.

Lori is torn up about whether to go ahead with the pregnancy, and when she takes a handful of the morning-after pills, (which are helpfully labeled just "morning after pills"), she immediately sticks her finger down her throat and pukes them up. Rick finds the empty packaging and runs off to find her, and she explains that she knows that Hershel wants them gone, and how can they bring a zombie appetizer into the world. Rick is all Rick, and says he's working on Hershel, and wants to know if there's anything else she's been keeping from him. Shockingly, she admits that she slept with Shane, and Rick says he always knew, and he's made his peace with it.

ROTTING-BEEF CAKE:

Look at that Zombie Hipster