Tell It To the Frogs

Warning: Here There Be Spoilers.

After 2 episodes of "The Walking Dead," Rick was finally reunited with his wife and son, both of whom had assumed he was dead.

When we last left our intrepid band of survivors, Rick and a group of scavengers from the camp outside of town had barely managed to escape Atlanta, leaving racist hothead Merle handcuffed atop the roof of the department store where they'd nearly met their demise. As episode 3, "Tell It To the Frogs" opens, Merle, severely sunburned and on the verge of insanity, vainly struggles to escape as the walkers (or 'geeks') try to force their way onto the roof and have their way with his delicious flesh.

Rick and company finally arrive at the camp, to the astonished joy of his wife Lori and son Carl (Chandler Riggs). Torn by Rick's return, his former partner Shane now finds himself bereft of the comfort he found in Lori's arms when they all assumed Rick was dead. Lori takes no time in ending things with Shane and when he takes Carl frog-hunting in the quarry, she tells him in no-uncertain terms to stay away from her family. We do find out that it was Shane who told Lori that Rick was dead in the first place, which leads me to believe there was nothing going on between them before the zombie uprising and that Shane simply took advantage of a woman whose marriage was shaky to begin with. Shane immediately lost points in my eyes, despite his taking down of wife-abusing Ed (Adam Minarovich) with a well-deserved if a bit over-zealous beating. Shane was obviously taking out a bit of his own frustrations on the neanderthal Ed. Poor Rick, of course, has no idea of what's gone on while he made his perilous way back to his wife and son.

Meanwhile, the appearance of a 'walker' devouring a deer close to camp means that the food supply in the city is dwindling and the zombies have begun to make their way into the woods in search of sustenance. It also means the deer that Merle's brother Daryl (Norman Reedus of The Boondock Saints) was stalking is no longer of any value as food. Of course, Daryl is none-too-pleased to learn that his racist cracker brother has been left behind and insists they attempt a rescue. Rick, Glenn, TDog and Daryl return to Atlanta, despite the others' protests, only to find that Merle has found a rather grisly solution to his captivity. Of course, Rick has an additional impetus to return to the city: the bag of weapons and ammo he was forced to leave behind when surrounded by zombies at the end of Episode 1.

As of yet, there have been no human fatalities in the series, though I am betting as we get closer to the series' first season finale, that will change. And that will also be a game changer. This comparatively less gory episode delved more into the personalities of the survivors; a rag-tag group of relative strangers who have been thrust together by circumstances in an effort to survive the unthinkable. The women reminisce ("I miss my Maytag;" "I miss my coffeemaker;" "I miss my vibrator.") and the men grow increasingly unhappy and resentful. Personally, I think it will be a living person who makes the first kill, rather than a zombie. And then all hell will truly break loose among these stressed-out and desperate survivors.

In other Zombie news that won't wait until Saturday's edition of The Zombie Zone, Deadline is reporting that writer/director and Zombieland restroom victim Mike White has officially signed to direct to the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (via). The Chuck and Buck writer has just the right kind of twisted sensibility to make a perfect adaptation of the mashup novel, wherein Jane Austin's heroines must cope with both the ideals of Victorian romance and the Living Dead. Yum!

More, anon.

Prospero