The Walking Dead: "Nebraska"

The Walking Dead is a love/hate thing for me, alternating between horrific brilliance and lame contrivance, and the latest episode, "Nebraska", is no exception to the rule. The strength of the show lies in its ensemble cast, which-- with a couple exceptions-- encompass a large group of flawed and fully-fleshed out characters. Problem is, the show's writers keep making these characters do extremely stupid things in order to generate tension, which makes it a little hard to feel sympathy for them. Instead, you find yourself shouting, "Aw, come on!" at the television.

The most recent episode, for example, features a bit where Lori goes zooming off in a car, chasing her husband Rick into town. This in itself is a bit out of character for Lori. She's always been a very cautious woman, choosing to hang back most of the time while everyone else is doing the fighting. So there she is, driving down the road, and for some reason she decides to pull out a road map and peruse it at full speed. Well of course, a walker conveniently stumbles out into the road at that exact time and place, and she hits the creature, suddenly accelerates to what look to be about 190 miles an hour, and does a Dukes of Hazzard-style jump over a grassy knoll on the side of the road. She ends up rolling the car over and getting pinned inside it.

Say it with me:

"Oh, come on!"

If the show was like that all the time, I'd give up on it. Fortunately, toward the end of the episode, there is a brilliant scene where Rick and company confront a couple of scouts from an alternate band of roving survivors, and it becomes evident pretty quick that these new survivors are not the kind and decent folk that our heroes are. One of the scouts actually pees on the floor of the bar like an animal, asking Rick if his group has any "cooze". I can easily imagine such a confrontation occurring in a post-apocalyptic setting, and it doesn't feel contrived at all.

In the final analysis, "Nebraska" was a decent start for the second half of The Walking Dead's second season. It had its high points and low points, but I feel more confident now that this season will end on a much better note than the seemingly endless hunt for Sophia that spoiled the first half of this season.

The Good: Carol's reaction to the death of her child, well acted and understated. Shane's surprisingly tender sympathy toward the bereaved mother-- don't trust him, Carol! The tense showdown in the bar.

The Bad: Shane's ridiculous temper tantrums. It's becoming tiresome. Not enough screen time for some of the "smaller" characters. Shane, Rick and Lori are just not that interesting, guys! Let's see more of Carol, Daryl and T-Dog.

The Ugly: Lori playing Dukes of Hazzard while running to fetch her husband from a bar. Hilarious... but I don't think it was intended to be funny. Also, it was pretty sexist (chasing after her husband, women can't drive, damsel in distress).

Final Grade: B-

"I'm just going to shoot you while pretending to pour myself a drink..."