What do you do with a zombie-bitten corpse?

What do you do with a zombie-bitten corpse?

What do you do with a zombie-bitten corpse,

Earl-aye in the morning?

Anyone? Anyone?

Smash a pickaxe in the middle of their brain!

Smash a pickaxe in the middle of their brain!

Smash a pickaxe in the middle of their brain,

Earl-aye in the morning!

Ah yes, cleanup from the zombie attack. Thankfully, Nutty had all those holes dug already. Good for him, thinking ahead. Bad for him, cause he got bit. I know the whole “emotional” side of humans would prevent them from putting a bullet in Nutty’s skull right there and then, but whatever. “We don’t kill the living.” Even if the living in question is a festering cesspit of death. It’ll come back to to bite them. HA! See what I did there?

Daryl spends his morning axing the heads of the fallen, until he comes to Dickhead Ed. Carol decides she’s got this one, and ooooh man, do we get to see how she REALLY feels. Meanwhile, Andrea still cradles the newly dead Amy like a crazy person, or perhaps like someone who just saw their kid sister savagely attacked and killed by zombies. Either or. We do know that the clock is ticking on Amy’s eventually transformation into zombie, but Andrea takes her sweet ol’ time. In fact, it isn’t till Amy turns zombie and tries to snack on Andrea that Andrea finally puts a bullet in her head. Seriously people, EMOTIONS DO NOT BELONG IN THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!

So the gang needs to settle on a plan: CDC or Fort Benning. I can tell you immediately that either choice would be disastrous. That’s almost as bad as saying “Hey gang, let’s go to the hospital for some supplies!” Avoid army bases, hospitals, and places where they store thousands of deadly diseases. Am I the only one thinking around here?? Rick is Team CDC and Shane is Team Army Base, so there a penis war in the making. In fact, while the manly men are scouting the woods for anymore surprise zombies, there’s a moment where Shane rests his gun aim on poor unsuspecting Rick. Luckily for Rick, Dale, aka Beardy, walks into the scene and catches Shane in his moment of macabre contemplation.

Let me take this moment to say I’ve never known a Shane who wasn’t a complete asshole. So chew on that for awhile.

CDC seems to be the agreed on destination, except for Morales and family, who choose to part ways. Poor Morales. I knew him…well, not well actually. We’ve seen him before, right? En route to CDC, Nutty decides he wants to be left at a tree. Thank god, cause these people probably would have waited till he was gnawing on someone’s arm before realizing it was a bad idea keeping a zombie-in-training around.

The scene cuts to an camera recording. We get to meet Dr. Edwin Jenner at the CDC. Yes, Edwin Jenner, who is more than likely a nice hat tip to Dr. Edward Jenner who, as we all know, is credited with the invention of the small pox vaccine. You’re right, who cares? It’s that crazy ex-cop dude from Little Children! Or, as I like to call him, Not-Biff (due to my propensity to mix him up with Thomas Wilson). Not-Biff seems to be working on some tissue samples of zombie flesh. For a moment, we have hope. Not-Biff will save us all. Then Not-Biff spills shit all over the samples, causing the CDC’s version of the Red Queen to start decontamination, which consists of flameballing the shit out of the lab. Where can I get one of these things?? Not-Biff then gets drunk and records his soliloquy of failure just as our traveling posse of survivors come banging on his door. He has a moment of hesitation but ultimately hits the door button, flooding the survivors in a Lost-esque beam of white light.

Aww yeah. Getting real with Not-Biff.

If there was a moral to this whole episode, it starts with the first few scenes. When someone in your posse of zombie survivalists starts to go nutty and proceeds to dig suspicious holes that look remarkably similar to graves, don’t tie nutty to a tree. Embrace the possibility that nutty has been given the gift of foresight and get the hells out of there. I mean, for crying out loud, ZOMBIES are walking the earth. Is it that far-fetched that someone could suddenly become a soothsayer? Right.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta… Atlanta is still sucking. Jack White zombie is nowhere to be found and, more importantly, neither is Mr. Shit Pretzels, thanks to hacksawing off his hand like a noob in the previous episode.

Why this episode wasn’t titled “The Search for Shit Pretzels” is beyond me. Because that’s what the men in Atlanta decide to do, providing they can first retrieve the bag o’ guns that Rick dropped in the first episode. You know, when we discovered zombies like the taste of horse. Eeeeeeeck. No surprise that this plan would not go on without a hitch, because then we’d have a dull show. Zombies + new survivors of a rather hostile nature + arrow in the ass = a stolen Glenn.

Flashback to camp…yep, Nutty is tied to a tree. Because he was “scaring the kids”. In the zombie apocalypse. Man up kids, else you’re gonna find yourself some zombie’s breakfast one day. Damn wimps.

Back in Atlanta, we’ve forgotten about Shit Pretzels because Glenn was a way more likable character and we’d like him back please. The crew heads out to the newest survivors’ digs. I forgot to mention…they have their own hostage to trade for Glenn. New crew, head by some dude named Guillermo who talks like every hispanic gang member he’s ever seen on tv, wants a simple trade. The guns for the Glenn. And maybe for the other hostage. Who effin cares, amiright? Just when shit is about to get real, in walks a SURPRISE Grandma!

“What, pray tell, is a ‘Surprise Grandma’”, you ask.

Ah, my poor naive little reader. You didn’t think that they were going the whole gang-banger route, did you? Oh no no no. See, it was a front for a nursing home. Guillermo is a janitor. BOOM! So after feeling like an ass for the whole standoff thing, Rick decides to give the nursing home army some ammo. And Glenn is safely back in the posse.  Unfortunately, Shit Pretzels may or may not have stolen the posse mobile, so they are forced to hike it back to camp.

Meanwhile, back in camp…Nutty is untied for a fish fry! WOO! After some laughs and jokes, zombies crash the party and eat some people. Including Ed. So much for redemption. HAHAHA! Unfortunately, we also lose Amy, sister of Laurie Holden’s character Andrea. And some other jerks I don’t even know. But the Amy thing…kinda rough. The posse got back in camp just in time to blow a few zombie heads off and to hear Nutty say he remembers why he was digging the holes. Damn you Nutty.

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:

1. Cut the actual chain of the handcuff.
2. Cut the pipe.
3. Cut just a thumb off, or a pinky. Either of these digits missing would make the hand slide through much easier.
4. Dislocate the wrist. I’m not sure about this one, but the kid seems to think it’ll work.
5. Dislocate a thumb. It worked in The Hitcher.
6. Keep pulling at it. Eventually it would come off. This tactic worked well in The Dragonslayer.
7. Wait for help, dumbass.

When we left off from the last episode, our sheriff buddy Rick was stuck in a tank with zombies on the outside. Zombies are still abound, but in the meantime, we (meaning all of you who didn’t read the comic) discover that Lori (Rick’s wife) and Shane (Rick’s best friend) have taken a liking to each other. In other words, they are getting it on. You see, even when the end of the world is at hand, it is imperative to get some. It would be a crime against nature to not. So, naturally, upon thinking her husband is dead, Lori takes a ride on the Shane train. Don’t be too judgey. We don’t know really how much time has gone by, and zombies can do funny things to people, emotionally-speaking.

Where was I? Ah, yes. Rick manages to get out of the tank with the help from another survivor. Also helping this escape is the new fact that ZOMBIES EAT HORSES. WHAT THE FUCK? I don’t remember cross-species munching in any of the zombie books are movies I’ve seen. Which begs the question: are there zombie animals later on? Or, does the zombie virus not live in foreign blood streams? Can a person get a zombie infection from a dog?
My mind = blown.
Anyway, our new survivors include Glenn, Andrea (played by Laurie Holden who I was convinced looks better with short hair, but I’m starting to get used to the long hair), Morales, Merle, T-Dog, and Jimmy Fingers. (Ok, I made that last one up.) As can be expected, someone with the name Merle is a bit of a douche-nozzle in every sense of the word, so he ends up handcuffed to a pipe on the roof. Which is, by the way, exactly what should be done with anyone named Merle in the event of a zombie attack. Don’t even think about it, just do it. Merles are no good to anyone. This Merle is played by Michael Rooker, who I can’t even see in other movies without thinking about shit pretzels, thanks to Mallrats.

Just to refresh: Zombies in Atlanta, Merle on the roof, survivors trapped in a department store. AND NOT LOOTING. For the record, if it’s the end of the world, I guarantee you on at least one of the many trips for supplies, I’m pocketing some useless shit like feather boas and whore heels and old lady gaudy rings. Why? Why not?

But I digress…Survivors minus Merle concoct a plan involving a sports car and a truck and manage to get the hell out of dodge.

Seriously, don’t feel bad for Merle. Shit pretzels. He made his own bed.