'Walking Dead' postmortem, 'Chupacabra': long-anticipated return of Merle is a total ripoff

walking-dead-daryl.jpgDaryl (front, played by Norman Reedus) was the focus of the "A" plot this week.

This, my friends, is what happens when we get our hopes up. Last week's "The Walking Dead" teaser boasted the long-awaited Return of Merle - Michael Rooker's redneck who notoriously sawed off his own hand last season - and the payoff in this week's episode, "Chupacabra," was a major cheat: He was nothing but Daryl's hallucinatory fever dream.

All I can say about that is: WOTTA RIPOFF.

It's almost on par with the it-was-all-a-dream hacky writing device (see: "Dallas," "Roseanne"), and torpedoed our wish that the colorful character would goose this inconsistent season with some over-the-top colorful gusto. But it was not to be. However, it keeps alive the speculation that Merle might return as The Governor, the villain who has a major role in the comic books.

Otherwise, it's business as usual for "Walking Dead" - another hit-and-miss episode that sometimes seems more ambitious in concept than execution.

One positive is the Daryl character. Last season, he was a stereotype played with annoying mediocrity by Norman Reedus. But now, he's becoming the most fascinating piece of the ensemble, and Reedus succeeds at showing many shades of this character in this episode. I enjoy a harrowing one-man survivalist tale, and this was taut and suspenseful in its simplicity - Daryl had to overcome a serious injury to tough out a climb up a steep hill, fueled by a deliciously bloody meal of raw squirrel. (I like to call this turn of events "The Crossbow Follies.")

He also had to kill a couple of zombies. In gloriously gory, gratuitous fashion. Isn't this one of the reasons we watch this show? For the grotesque kill shots? Would you be tolerating the show's soap-opera drama without it?

Despite my beef about the Merle ripoff, I like how the character was used as a plot device to motivate Daryl and uncover the conflicts within the man - how he's likely always been an outcast loner, which makes it difficult for him to consider the well-being of others, and be part of this ragtag group of survivors, which is becoming a family - and it's implied that it's a more supportive unit than he may be used to. His nobility in his quest to find the missing Sophia may be redefining who he is, and he seems to be forging a friendship with her appreciative mother, Carol.

What doesn't work so well is the brewing Shane-Rick conflict. I've often trumpeted how the show wrangles with morality - and here, Shane offers a harsh, but rational perspective, while Rick tends to err on the side of compassion. The former wants to give up the search for Sophia, citing the entirely reasonable argument that she's likely dead by now. The latter argues on the side of hope, which can't be abandoned, lest the group's morale suffer greatly. (Oddly, Daryl might be represent the moral median between the two.)

Again: concept, good. Execution, not so good. The Rick-Shane arguments, with Lori in the middle, are tired and repetitive. If this season offers one more intently whispered aside between Lori and Shane, and I'll go ballistic. Jon Bernthal continues to be the show's weak link; his portrayal of Shane is still shrill and histrionic.

Interestingly, Hershel is starting to show his true colors - a selfish, survivalist point-of-view that feels increasingly less welcome as the season progresses. He helped Carl survive, but seems reluctant to give Daryl antibiotics for his wound. He also reveals that he's something of a tyrant - he doesn't want to share a meal with Rick and co., and unsettles with his you-control-your-people-and-I'll-control-mine line.

Of course, we know now that Hershel is clearly bonkers, because the cliffhanger reveals that he has a barn full of walkers. It's a compelling twist (notably, also out of the books), and despite my criticisms, it has me looking forward to next week's episode.

Other observations:

  • Anyone else notice how humorless this show is becoming? Last week's zombie-in-the-well is one of few instance of dark comedy this season. Disappointing.
  • Andrea. Ugh. The show's most annoying character. I guess every group of protagonists needs a resident screw-up. The writing here is pretty lazy, too - having Daryl shamble out of the woods like a zombie and only be grazed by her bullet? Cheap and obvious.
  • Did anyone else not like the flashback during the cold open? This sequence, along with the season-one CDC storyline, seems to betray the simplicity of comic-book creator Robert Kirkman's concept of a horror-survivalist saga. When the plot becomes large in scale, it loses the intimacy and intensity of the ground-level story about people coping with what appears to be an apocalypse. The what-happened mystery drives the whole ship, and the more that's revealed, the more our intrigue is compromised.
  • The episode's best human-drama moment? Glenn explaining why he slept with Maggie: "I was thinking that I might be dead tomorrow."

E-mail John Serba: jserba@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/johnserba