Tonight, one of the most popular shows in cable history, the zombie apocalyptic drama The Walking Dead, returns to AMC.
December’s mid-season finale left us with the heart-wrenching moment when the survivors finally found Sophia (Madison Lintz) — a young girl they had spent most of the season desperately searching for, after her dramatic separation from the group. The trouble with their discovery was that it came too late; Sophia had already died and become a zombie.
Many fans agreed this was exactly the kind of wakeup call the survivors needed, something to inspire them to revolutionize their way of thinking, and reacting, in the face of unfathomable odds — in favor of the zombies. For too long we’ve watched Rick (Andrew Grimes) struggle with doing “the right thing” at the expense of everyone’s safety; trying to recover Merle, followed by a long campaign to find Sophia. Neither were successful, and both put the survival of everyone else in jeopardy.
Which is why we have Shane (Jon Bernthal).
Love him or hate him, Shane’s the kind of man who’s psychologically built to survive the zombie apocalypse. Not only has he been opposed to every recklessly compassionate decision Rick’s ever made, but he’s the one who will apparently shoot you in the leg to save himself from a hoard of ravenous walkers. This is the end of the world, people, and when the flesh-eating zombies outnumber you 1,000 to 1, you do what you have to do.
When asked what we can expect from the second half of the season, including answers to some important unanswered questions, executive producer and comic creator Robert Kirkman had a few things to say to TVGuide.
How will having to kill Sophia affect the group, particularly Rick?
Robert Kirkman: This season is very much about Rick’s emergence as leader or making the decision that he’s not that great at it. He’s torn in that everyone is looking to him for answers constantly and he is the de facto leader of this group, but it’s not like he asked for this. Over the course of this season, we’re seeing him making a lot of decisions and being forced into making decisions that don’t end up being good ones. This situation with Sophia is a very good example of that. Leading to that girl turning into a zombie and ending up in that barn is very much a decision that he made, so it’s going to wear on him. Moving into the last half of the season, he’s definitely going to be dealing with his thoughts on how they got to that point, and it’s going to be a tough thing for him to deal with.
Hershel and his family knew the survivors had been searching for this little girl. Did they know Sophia was in the barn? Did she wander in to take cover and fell prey to the zombies?
Kirkman: That’s all going to be revealed when we come back in February. That’s definitely a big question. Shane was pretty pissed-off and I don’t think he’s going to calm down after the initial shock of seeing Sophia. When we pick things up, things will be at a pretty high level of intensity and that’s going to be the first question that’s asked. Did they know she was in there? And if they did, why were they hiding that information from them? These groups are already very much at odds over the fact that Hershel doesn’t want them to stay there, and they feel like being sent back on the road will be a death sentence, so they’ve already got enough to fight about and this is just one more problem being thrown into the mix.
Will Shane be ousted from the group for the severity of what he just did?
Kirkman: That’s all a matter of perspective. There are characters like Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) who are going to see him as a loose cannon because he is complicating things for everybody. But at the same time, Andrea (Laurie Holden), Daryl (Norman Reedus) and T-Dog (Irone Singleton) were all very quick to jump in with Shane and participate in cleaning out the barn. From their perspective, those characters may be seeing Shane as a person who is showing leadership quality and is making good decisions for the betterment of the group. We could start to see more people come over to Shane’s side of things.
Team Rick or Team Shane? Team Zombies? No matter who you’re rooting for, the return of AMC’s The Walking Dead will hopefully take these characters to a darker, graver, more appropriately dire place than they’ve ever been before.
And be sure to stay tuned for our weekly recaps of The Walking Dead, written by DarkMedia contributor, author W. Scott Poole (Monsters in America).
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