The Walking Dead - Season 3 Episode 2 - Recap Video and Review - Sick
The Walking Dead has seemingly changed its approach to a style more in-line with its survivalist necessities of its premise, and episodes like "Sick" help to establish this show in a new context. Or, rather, in a context that forces us to reconsider what we expect from this show, going in. I feel as though, at its simplest level, people expect an entertaining story about survival. Nothing about thriving, and nothing about winning in the end, but simply just surviving in increasingly entertaining fashion. The show seems to be going out of its way to satisfy that particular thirst, not only upping the kill count per episode, but coming up with increasingly inventive, elaborate kills to exhilarate the viewer. It seemed, in a lot of ways, that not much more was expected of The Walking Dead. It told good stories, but it was never held to the same standard of the graphic novel series upon which it's based. So count me among the surprised that here, in the show's third season, these first two episodes have placed The Walking Dead in an entirely different class of storytelling than it once occupied. It was always a good show, but I never thought it would become a better show.
Credit: AMC
The title "Sick" can be taken any number of ways: One of the prisoners already inhabiting the prison gets a scratch from a walker, leading to one of his cellmates bludgeoning him to death for fear that he's sick, and turning into a walker. There's also the issue of Hershel (Scott Wilson), who hasn't turned into a walker yet, although he hasn't died yet either, nor has he even woken up from his shock-induced coma. Beth (Emily Kinney) is still holding out hope for a recovery, but Maggie (Lauren Cohan) has all but given up, attempting to prepare her little sister for their father's inevitable death. Lastly, there's Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the group at large. When one of the remaining two prisoners, by episode's end, argues with Rick that confining them to one cell block of the prison among the bodies of countless walkers is "sick," Rick tells the inmates to count themselves lucky. And they probably should, given that Rick put a machete through their leader's head, and locked one of their cellmates in the courtyard to suffer a death-by-walker. This is a different class of survivor than we've been used to these past two seasons. Rick just doesn't care about preserving life for its own sake. He's interested in preserving his life, and the lives of his people, at whatever cost. Is that sick?
Credit: AMC
Despite the density of the narrative this week, the episode is still incredibly focused, such that the hour flies by pretty quickly. Rick and Lori's marital difficulties aren't growing any easier, with Rick's escalating desperation to keep hold of his tenuous control on every situation. Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) is responsible for the CPR that more or less saves Hershel's life, and she also gives Rick a not-so-peppy pep talk in which she tries to convince herself as much as him that he's still a good man, even if she hasn't been the best wife or mother. You'd think that would merit something from the increasingly distant Rick. However, instead, upon their conversation at the end of the episode, after he's killed several walkers and a handful of the living, he tells her that "We're all grateful for what you did," offering as brusque a dismissal of Lori's contributions as his seeming dismissal of Lori as a person. She's just not really there to him anymore, except as an abstract concept for him to protect. Carl (Chandler Riggs), similarly, is asserting himself and taking responsibilities of his own, wandering through the prison alone, locating the infirmary, and recovering some much-needed medical supplies. Lori is furious, and Beth interferes when Carl shouts back at his mother, causing Carl to storm off, which doesn't bode well for the self-esteem of a boy coming of age in a prison during a zombie apocalypse.
"Sick" is packed with a ton of great little moments around the bigger ones: Lori performing CPR on Hershel when Maggie had simply given him up for dead speaks volumes about Maggie, who gives her father permission to die and even seems to be willing him to just go already, in another understated, excellent scene. It's as if she'd rather have it over with than for him to linger on in a world utterly devoid of hope. It's not terribly unlike Lori's stance last season that perhaps it wouldn't be the best idea to bring a child into a world like this. Which is why it's thematically resonant that Lori is the one to bring Hershel back (his gasp back to life is a great fakeout, making him appear as though he's a newborn walker pulling Lori in for that first bite). There's also the arc in which Carol, frightened that the group might lose its only medical presence in Hershel, decides she needs to learn how to cut people open, and so she employs the services of Glenn (Steven Yeun) to lure a walker into the inner fence for her to experiment upon (although I suppose if she'd known about the cell block littered with walker corpses, she could have saved herself some trouble - but then she wouldn't have been able to get spied on from the bushes by a mysterious, unseen party!). It's not only a fitting bit of character development, it's also practical in its application to the overarching survivalist narrative being told this season (well, not just this season, but I'll continue to assert that it's more pronounced now than it's ever been).
Credit: Gene Page/AMC
The smaller moments also build to some wonderful action setpieces, like the clearing of the walker-infested cell block on the other end of the prison. The prisoners, who've been locked in the prison cafeteria for ten months, have little to no idea of how bad it is outside in the world. They don't seem to understand that they can't call their families to check on how them. There are no phones and there is no internet. Half of the world's population is likely dead, and everyone is already infected, with no cure forthcoming. It's peculiar to see our gang in the role of educators, since it usually happens that everyone they encounter does this whole "surviving in a zombie apocalypse" thing better than they do, leading to Rick and company eventually screwing things up for everyone. So it's nice to see Rick and company be the ones in control, and it's even better watching them function as one solitary, clockwork killing machine, as efficient as they are deadly, dispatching of walkers like exterminators bug-bombing a rent-controlled apartment complex. Gorehounds will lack for nothing with "Sick," and it helps that it tells a really good story about the burden of leadership through Rick's gradual abandonment of maintaining the facade of a good man. Because a good man is a man who keeps his people alive.
If it wasn't apparent before, it's certainly apparent now: Rick has no problem killing people anymore. The man doesn't even flinch. This is all part of his broader plan to keep these people safe, making the hard choices not simply so that no one else has to, but because he wants to be the sole person with the right to make those choices. If he opens the floor to democracy, it will be full-on chaos before long. "Sick" does a tremendous job in making a case for the Ricktatorship. We saw nothing of Andrea (Laurie Holden) or Michonne (Danai Gurira) this week, but I can take a break from those two, as awesome as Michonne is, if it means we get an episode as delicately layered as this.