The Walking Dead Re-Watch No. 1
TWD Re-watch Masterlist
Season One Episode Two: “Guts”
Note: The recap of this episode was taken from Wikipedia, the original post can be found here, because it's Christmas and I'm a lazy bum, sorry ;)
Recap
The episode begins with Sheriff's Deputy Rick Grimes trapped inside a tank at an abandoned military blockade in Atlanta, surrounded by a swarm of walkers.
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With the assistance of Glenn, Rick is able to escape from the tank and take shelter in a department store where the other members of Glenn's group are holed up.
Glenn: Nice moves there, Clint Eastwood. You're the new sheriff come riding in to clean up the town?
Rick Grimes: Wasn't my intention.
Glenn: Yeah, whatever. Yeehah. You're still a dumbass.
Glenn [looking up a ladder]: “The bright side? It will be the fall that kills us. I'm a 'the glass is half-full' kind of guy.”
Tensions quickly rise, as Glenn and Rick attracted the attention of the walkers to the previously unnoticed store, risking the lives of everyone inside.
On the roof of the building, Merle Dixon, a virulent racist, attempts to assert his leadership over the group and beats another group member, a black man named T-Dog.
Merle: “Who the hell are you, man?”
Rick: “Officer Friendly.”
Rick subdues Merle and handcuffs him to a pipe, leaving him under the watch of T-Dog while the rest of the group look for a way out. T-Dog is able to make brief radio contact with the larger group of survivors, which includes, among others, Rick's former partner Shane Walsh and wife Lori (who, it was revealed in the previous episode, have begun a relationship, both thinking Rick was dead) and his son Carl.
Morales: Hey T-Dog, how's that signal?
T-Dog: Like Dixon's brain: weak.
They find an exit to the sewer, but it is securely barred and the sewers have walkers in the tunnels.
Rick [to Andrea, who considers a gift for her sister Amy]: “Why not take it?”
Andrea: “There's a cop staring at me.”
Andrea: “Would that be considered looting?”
Rick: “I don't think those rules apply anymore.”
As the walkers try to break through the plate glass doors of the store, Rick decides to try to reach a box truck at a nearby construction site. To reach the truck, he and Glenn cover themselves in the blood and viscera of a dispatched walker, taking care not to get any of the olfactory camouflage on their skin.
Rick: “Give me the axe. We need more guts.”
Everyone: “Urgh!”
Glenn: [while being smeared with zombie guts] Oh, this is bad. This is really bad.
Rick Grimes: Think about something else. Puppies and kittens.
T-Dog: *Dead* puppies and kittens.
[Glenn vomits]
They are able to successfully pass among the walkers, shambling towards the construction site, until a brief rainstorm washes off enough of the blood scent that they begin to draw attention. They make a break for the construction site, scaling a fence with walkers in pursuit, and Rick is able to reach the box truck. Glenn drives a Dodge Challenger, its alarm blaring, to draw the attention of the walkers away from the store, while Rick drives the box truck to one of the store's cargo doors. In the rush to escape, T-Dog accidentally drops the handcuff key down a drain, leaving Merle stranded on the roof.
T-Dog tries to apologize to Merle but Merle insists that T-Dog did it on purpose. T-Dog does, however, in an attempt to keep walkers from killing him, padlock a heavy chain to the roof access door. The entire group (other than Merle) is able to escape the city in the box truck, apart from Glenn, who drives away in the Challenger.
Some Notes & Thoughts
1) The Atlanta Camp, I'm a bit torn about that. On one hand they are far enough from the city and have a water/fish supply and can gather food in the surrounding forest. But you mostly see Dale or Shane on the roof of his camper, apparently the only guards, no one is walking along the perimeter and there seem to be no trip wires installed as an early warning system...? I can understand that they feel safer in numbers and grow more complacent the longer they go without seeing a walker, but - Shane, as their designated leader (is he?) doesn't really think far ahead, does he?
2) Shane + Lori: If you listen to fans online, you either love or hate them (or Rick), there's no middle ground. In the comics, they have an affair going on right from the start, while here Rick being supposed to be dead sets them on the path to having hot sex in the woods... Nice symbolism with the wedding ring, both seeing it, stopping and then Lori setting it aside. Is it love? Just the sex, the last way to feel good in a world that's gone to shit? Does Lori use Shane, because he would do anything to keep her and Carl alive?
3) Glenn: You just have to love the guy! Need to go somewhere? He'll volunteer and have a strategy planned out in no time; he's simply a nice guy, helping a stranger like Rick in the hope that someone will do the same for him when he needs it.
4) You have to give it to Rick, though, whatever else you think of him, he's a good shot. He really made the rounds he had left cont, almost every shot went to the head. Not half bad considering he was running and the walkers were not totally stationary targets either.
5) Merle Dixon: His introduction scene speaks for itself, I'm not going to touch the topic of his blatant racism with a meter-long pole, no thanks ^-^” As for him himself, though, I had to look up the term 'redneck' that is most used for Merle, because I was not familiar with it. I really love how Rick handled the situation with him, though. Turning the tables on Merle, letting him eat his own words - but then bluffing, because he is not ready to shoot another human, only as a last resort, and then we see how his hand hurts XD I like him as well when he encourages Glenn to speak up and make his sewer-excursion plan. He knows that Glenn's reliable and knows this stuff, so he has no problem to let him take the lead. He's able to delegate and be smart about it. And with the walkers, Rick adapts quickly too, using their weaknesses in creative ways.
6) I know that after what happened only recently it seems to be in bad taste, but - yay for the show playing in the USA, where there's no shortage of guns. Just try to survive the ZA living in Europe - you're pretty much screwed by default. Here, we could at best use hammers, shovels and stuff, because most people don't even have access to baseball bats °-°
7) It happens rarely, imho, that an episode really lives up to/deserved its title, but boy, does TWD take it seriously here °_0 “Guts” indeed, all around in fact! Rick is certainly able to think outside the box - I'm not exactly a fan of zombie movies in general, but using intestines and blood to camouflage your scent to walk right through a horde of biters? I have not seen that one before - of course then it starts to rain *facepalm*
8) Rick giving T-Dog the keys for Merle's handcuffs... any thoughts on that one? I mean, he was covered in walker guts and pretty preoccupied with other things and it's not as if T-Dog went up to the roof alone, but... And then Morales, Jacqui and Andrea, all run without a care for Merle, but T-Dog doesn't, wants to free him - and then drops the keys... Makes you wonder whose laser-guided karma is at work here °-°
9) I don't care much about Lori and Shane having a relationship, truth be told, but what pisses me off big time about him is that he is ready to leave a big chunk of the camp group at the department store, not willing to at least try and help them. I know he had no way of knowing that Rick and Glenn were pulling such a stunt, which gave them a fair chance of survival and then they even made it in the end, but still! Rick would have gone into Atlanta for them.