The Walking Dead: Episode 6 "TS-19"

As season ending cliffhangers go, not bad. We lost another regular character this week.

So the survivors made it to the CDC, only to find that the CDC is in shutdown mode, with one scientist still at his post.

The big "Andrea is infected" twist everyone was expecting never materialized. Apparently she was sick from drinking too much Nite Train or Val-U-Rite, not sick from infection.

Remember the grenade from Episode 2? It finally reappeared tonight. Not exactly "Deus Ex Machina", but I am wondering what kind of a cop Rick was if he "forgets" losing a freaking hand grenade.

We did get a good flashback to Rick's hospital room on "Bring a Zombie to Work Day", and we see that Shane didn't leave Rick to die on purpose. He just panicked and ran off two steps ahead of the walkers. Remember how some of us were speculating in the comments section about how Rick's room was barricaded, saving him from the zombies? Apparently, Shane was responsible for that.

Of course, Shane showed tonight that he's not exactly OK with going back to "sidekick" status, especially after he's got a few drinks in him. I guess we'll have to wait for Season 2 to see where this goes.

Jacqui and Andrea decide to stay behind with Dr. Jenner while the CDC facility goes through decontamination, via thermobaric explosives. Dale plays the "Well, if you're staying, so am I" card, and convinces Andrea to leave with the others, but Jacqui stays for the BBQ.

Overall, not a bad ending. I did notice that the rerun of last week's episode gives a timeline of 180-some days since "Wildfire was declared", and this week's episode noted that it was approximately 90 days since the worldwide spread of the infection. This means that Rick was in his coma for at least 5 months. Either that, or the original outbreak occured before Rick was shot and the government kept it from the public.

Five months in a coma? Obviously, the hospital didn't fall the week after Rick was shot, but even if he only spent a week or so unattended in the ruins that means that he was comatose longer than an NFL season. Don't tell me that his muscles wouldn't atrophy a bit while he was in that bed.

I'm still watching, but I'm not running out there to buy the episodes on DVD, or even get the Shane & Rick's Whorish Wife Action Figures (with shotgun AND Axe body spray, for those intimate woodland encounters).

posted by Russ from Winterset at 12:15 AM

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