Carol’s got a science project. Glenn’s getting laid. Daryl is unfailingly helpful. T-Dawg is not only speaking, he’s advising. But the winter hasn’t changed everyone for the better.
In “Sick,” we got to see just how much Rick has transformed since Shane’s death and the disastrous fallout from their confrontation last season. As leader of the group, Rick has adopted a big stick dictatorial style, expunging those members of his small society who he deems unfit. The lengths he goes to protect his own group leads to summary execution for men who may, or may not have, deserved it.
With Glenn, Maggie, and Beth, we see a family on the verge of falling into ruin, as Hershel’s fate hangs in the balance. “In God’s hands” is back as a popular diagnosis, and Lori gets it, having acknowledged to Hershel last week that before modern medicine many women died in childbirth. Last episode, she seemed a threat to herself and her baby. In “Sick,” Lori is given some sorely needed hope in life and family when she restores Hershel’s.
Still, Hershel’s predicament could have easily been avoided were it not for the complete and total bumbling of the raid last week. Glenn continued to be the practical one, spray painting arrows pointing retracing their steps. This tactic is only really useful if you know for sure there’s only one entrance and one exit. That is Rick’s failure, as is the slaughter that follows the decision to clear out yet another cell block this week.
It’s clear that none of our new inmate friends are particularly bright, being of the criminal element in Georgia of all places. Their first attempt at “killing” walkers is comical in its stupidity. Rick is the man who used to wear a badge, and his cavalier attitude, though mostly (maybe totally) justified in this situation, masks a craven subconscious desire to be King of the Hill. With Tomás and Andre added to the list of casualties, it means the two surviving inmates can trade more of their food, or even better, just hand it over to Rick.
Lori maintains that Rick is “not a killer,” and wants to believe in all of his best qualities. Forgiveness, she finds at the episode’s closing, is not something she is going to get from her husband. And Carl, meanwhile, does everything he can to be useful to the group and to please his father. In holding on to her son (which means treating him like a child), Lori’s strength is starting to show.
Carol has more than one upped Lori in the soldiering on department. She has lived through Lori’s greatest fear–she has lost her family. Carol is concerned enough for Lori’s baby to go prodding into the field of comparative Walker biology, and in doing so proves to us that she hasn’t given up on life. These two ladies will be ones to watch this season, at least on this side of the prison walls.
Speaking of prisons, it seems next week Andrea and Michonne will be entering hostile territory. Some very grim and serious-looking men have set up their own little community. Most likely one where it is hard going if you happen to be female. Meet your tour guide: Merle!
This third season is moving at quite the clip. I think I like it.
Tom Gibbons is a freelance journalist living in Albuquerque, NM.
Latest posts by Tom Gibbons (see all)
- Review: Star Trek – Into Darkness – Hip and Trippy - June 9, 2013
- The Walking Dead Third Season, Episode Sixteen “Welcome to the Tombs” - April 14, 2013
- The Walking Dead Third Season Episode Fifteen, “This Sorrowful Life” - March 30, 2013
