Hey guess what? Merle is still on the roof! Oh, that Merle! The zombies, however, have figured out how to walk up stairs. I’m kidding, I’m sure they knew how to do that. They just decided to walk up for shits and giggles. Unfortunately for the zombies, T-Dog had chained the door shut to protect the same guy that shoved a gun in his face and spat racial slurs at him just one mere episode ago. In my book, that means T-Dog should go. He is clearly too weak and forgiving to be counted on in the zombie apocalypse. What’s next? Not shooting a family member or friend when they’re turning into a brain sucking zombie? T-Dog, there is no room for softies like you in my end of the world scenario!
Eh, maybe I’ll cut T-Dog some slack for being human and having decent “feelings” and all that shit. Just this once though.
The poor zombies are trying to break down the door to get to the racist sunbathing on the roof. Merle decides to stop talking to himself and start trying to figure out how to get out of his handcuffs. D’oh!
Back at the camp, the survivors not looting return to the survivors not having orgies. What is with this crowd of rational people anyway? The world is over…are you really concerned about stds? Fuck it up! Have some fun! WOO! No, they’re washing their clothes instead of looting new ones and foraging for mushrooms and catching fish and lame shit like that. PShhh!
But hey, it’s reunion time for our hero and his family, and awkwardness for Shane, doer of his best friend’s wife. Night falls and we’re introduced to another asshat, Ed. If Ed strikes you as the wife-beating, sulking, tiny dick type, rest assured…he is. (His wife DOES mention in another scene that she misses her vibrator, so there you go. Also, why are these people not packing properly?) Ed is on my list of “Who else should be handcuffed to the roof” but I figure he’s got it coming. Or he’ll be one of those lucky bastards who magically find redemption of some sort. I doubt that though.
The next morning, Rick decides maybe leaving Merle on the roof wasn’t nice. Sigh. But before he can really formulate a plan, the camp is rattled by the screams of Rick’s son. Tearing through the woods, they stumble upon a zombie. A zombie eating. A zombie eating A FREAKING DEER. WHAT GIVES?? It’s like the makings of a bad action movie: ZOMBIE DEER: BAMBIE STRIKES BACK! So, our zombies eat venison it seems, and we meet brother of Merle, Daryl, and his other brother Daryl.
That joke dates me, huh?
Daryl is unsurprisingly not happy about the whole “Merle on roof” situation, but he’s on board with the rescue posse going back to recover Merle. Rick, T-Dog, Glenn and Daryl head back to the zombie infested city, the cruel setup to a bad joke, no doubt. But these boys have skills, and manage to get their way through the city, into the department store and up on the roof in the last 5 minutes or so of the episode. But..gasp! No Merle. Instead, the boys are greeted with an empty set of handcuffs dangling from a pipe, a suspiciously bloodied hacksaw, and a miscellaneous hand which really makes the bloodied hacksaw less suspicious.
That Merle. Crazy bastid.
Just for the hell of it, my oldest and I were discussing ways Merle could have gotten out of the handcuffs without losing a whole hand:
- Cut the actual chain of the handcuff.
- Cut the pipe.
- Cut just a thumb off, or a pinky. Either of these digits missing would make the hand slide through much easier.
- Dislocate the wrist. I’m not sure about this one, but the kid seems to think it’ll work.
- Dislocate a thumb. It worked in The Hitcher.
- Keep pulling at it. Eventually it would come off. This tactic worked well in The Dragonslayer.
- Wait for help, dumbass.