Walking Dead Recap S2E7: Pretty Much Dead Already

Rick is distant during breakfast. Glen’s thoughts are on Maggie. Camp is really quiet as everyone eats, except the sound of Andrea sharpening a knife. Glen finally tells the group of the zombie barn, and they all look a little shocked, except Rick who looks a little pissed.

The zombies do their endless shuffle as the group goes for a closer look. Shane is less than pleased to confirm Glen’s findings. He’s ready to either waste the zombies or leave the farm, but Rick tells them they can’t do either, and Carol isn’t ready to give up on Sophia. Daryl is more determined than ever that the girl will be found, and heck if he’s not ready to give up on her after all that he went through to retrieve her doll than no one else should either. Shane’s thinks his harshness is helpful, truthful, and maybe it is truthful, but it’s not what the group really needs or wants to hear. Rick wants to talk to Hershel first. Dale tells Rick that Hershel sees the zombies as sick people and nothing more. Shane is upset by everything, running on a short fuse, and his outbursts rile the zombies.

Shane makes sure that the zombies can’t escape the barn, or at least I assume that he’s not trying to get inside as he fiddles with the locks.

Maggie goes on like it’s a normal day. Glen tries to talk to her, and gets a egg smashed on his head for his efforts.

Lori tries to do some work with Carl, but his mind is on Sophia. He tells her he doesn’t plan on leaving until they find Sophia, and maybe not after that. Poor boy is so optimistic, his little heart is gonna be crushed if they don’t find her.

Carol finds Daryl, trying to saddle up a horse, and tries to stop him. He’s the only one searching for her girl, and Carol voices her fear that her baby is gone, and that they’ll lose Daryl too. He’s not recovered enough from his last ordeal, and he lashes out when his weakness shows.

Dale has a chat with Andrea. She’s armed to the teeth, and headed out to search for Sophia. He warns her off of Shane, and she like usual doesn’t understand what’s going on, and lands at the wrong conclusions. Andrea’s changes this season have been the least pleasant. She’s struggling so hard to find herself, and be what she envisions she wants to be, and she’s failing miserably and has been just plain annoying.

Rick goes to see Hershel, and I can bet money this won’t end well. Rick offers to help Hershel with his fields, when Hershel makes mention of having too little time. And so Rick just comes right out and tells him that they found the barn. Of course, Hershel doesn’t want to talk about it, wants them to leave things be. 

And Rick has been respectful up to this point, but now that Carl is well does he not understand that Rick’s group could easily over power him and take the farm. Seriously someone should clue him in. But Rick won’t let the barn matter go, Hershel tells him that he wants them gone by the end of the week, and finally Rick gives him a little piece of his mind, and of the horrors of what world outside his farm is really like. He begs Hershel not to send them away, tells him of Lori’s pregnancy, but he ultimately leaves the choice in Hershel’s hands. Maggie overhears the whole thing.

Shane is on barn watch, waiting to hear how things went with Hershel. The news isn’t good, and Rick fudges on the truth. They can’t clear the barn, they can’t go. And Shane frustrates Rick to the point that he spills the beans about Lori to him too.

Maggie is less than pleased with Hershel’s decision. Maggie tells Hershel what the surrounding area is really like, its not all picturesque like he would like to believe. And she makes her own case for Rick’s group. Hershel isn’t a bad man, he just doesn’t want to understand. And when she tells him that one of the “sick” people nearly killed her, but that Glen saved her, the hardness in his eyes drains a little. They’re interrupted by some news.

 Rick and Andrea plot out a course to search for Sophia when Hershel asks him for a little help.

Lori prepares supper when Shane tells her that he thought Rick was dead, and when they saw he wasn’t he wished he was dead, not because of Lori but because he feared Rick would die. He doesn’t believe Rick was built for this world, and Shane goes on to blame Rick for all of their problems. And now he’s sure that the baby is his, but Lori tells him that the baby will never be his no matter who supplied the DNA. As Shane stalks off, you know he’s gonna do something bad. Carl stops him and tells him that they’re staying until they find Sophia. And Shane doesn’t argue with him, just tells him that they need to do whatever possible to stay. Shane tears about Dale’s RV searching for something, but doesn’t find it. I’m guessing a weapon. He goes searching for Dale.

Hershel brings Rick out for some zombie wrangling. He’s willing to let Rick’s group stay, but they need to get on board to his way of thinking, or at least not killing the walkers. Who sees this lasting for about five minutes? Zombies gonna eat, People gonna shoot.

Daryl takes Carol to another Cherokee Rose. He apologizes for what happened earlier, and Carol finally asks why he keeps searching for Sophia. Daryl tells her because she’s still out there and there’s nothing else to do.

Rick and Jimmy struggle to get one of the walkers out of the river, and he sees that walker wrangling isn’t nearly as easy as Hershel made it out to be.

Maggie is still upset about Glen telling everyone about the barn, but he had his reason. He sees himself as too complacent about the walkers, but he’d rather have her angry at him, then dead. And she accepts that, how could she not, not only is he like the last normal guy, but he really did have her best interest at heart.

Shane catches up to Dale in the swamps. Dale taunts Shane, and he’s poking the cornered bear. Shane wants the guns, that Dale was going to hide, and Dale threatens to shoot Shane, but he doesn’t really have the guts to pull the trigger. Dale is living on borrowed time, he still has too many morals, this is Shane’s kind of world, where the consciousless rule. Shane takes all of the guns back.

 Maggie offers to wash Glen’s cap, when the group all gathers around the house. Shane arms the group, and rallies the troops, Maggie begs Shane to stop this for the sake of the group. Lori tries to stop him, and they all see first hand what Rick has been up too. Shane of course goes off the deep end about the zombies, and uses the groups past losses as ammo. He makes a very graphic display on how the walkers are no longer like the living, and finally crosses the line when he shoots one in the head. Hershel frozen by the graphic display cannot help Rick with the remaining walker, or stop Shane. The entire group is watches in horror as Shane breaks open the barn doors. And with the zombies loose and charging, the group has no but to kill them. They quickly dispatch the zombies as they appear, Hershel is distraught over the loses, and then when they think they’ve shot them all, the big reveal.

Little Sophia shambles out of the barn. That one hits the group the hardest, and they’re as emotional as Hershel and his group were about the rest. No one is able to raise they’re gun as she comes towards them, but Rick does what needs to be done, Rick is the only one who can, and he shoots little Sophia. So Shane was right, Sophia was dead, but even he was unable to do what really needed to be done. Rick isn’t soft, he’s compassionate to a fault, but he gets the job done when he needs to.