Monthly Archives: February 2012

Quickie Review: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (dir. by Neveldine/Taylor)

Posted on by Arleigh

Ghost Rider has always been a niche character for Marvel Comics. The character was born out of an earlier Marvel character named Night Rider. After Marvel writers Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog had rein-visioned the character into Ghost Rider during the early 70’s it has always remained on the extreme fringes of the Marvel Comics universe. This wouldn’t stop Sony (which owned the film rights to the character) to go ahead and adapt it for the big-screen. 2007’s Ghost Rider by Mark Johnson was the first and failed attempt to turn the character into a film franchise. It still made enough money despite a near-universal panning of the film by critics and audiences alike. This turn of profit is why Sony once again dipped into the Ghost Rider well and come up with 2012’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

This “sort of” sequel ditches Mark Johnson and brings in the dynamic (and I’d say somewhat insane) directing duo of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor to helm the film. It brings back Nicolas Cage for the role of Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider. Working from a script by Scott Gimple, Seth Hoffman and David S. Goyer one would think the film had nowhere else to go but up especially with the wacky and frenetic filming style by Neveldine/Taylor. To say that this sequel failed to do anything but finally give this film franchise a final nail in it coffin would be an understatement.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance ditches pretty much most of what transpired with the first film and tries to retcon things for the sequel. I’d say this would’ve been a good idea seeing the first film was truly awful, but what the sequel ended up doing was confuse things even more. The film tries to turn the Ghost Rider persona from just a spirit of vengeance but an angelic being called the spirit of justice which had become corrupted. We get the Devil in the form of Roarke (played by Irish actor Ciaran Hinds) searching for the young boy Danny who is to be his perfect vessel.  Johnny Blaze comes into the picture after being recruited by a drunk French warrior-monk by the name of Moreau (Idris Elba whose performance was one of the lone highlights of the film) who promises to exorcise the demon from Blaze in exchange for finding and saving Danny.

This would’ve been a good premise if it had several more drafts of it worked on. Though there’s still a chance the film would’ve still sucked in the end. Even the direction from Neveldine/Taylor (Crank, Crank: High Voltage, Gamer) failed to add any heat to the proceedings. They come up with some unique camera angles and action sequences, but gone was the hyper-realistic and frenetic style they’ve become known for. Their previous films were not stuff to write to one’s film critic circles about but they at least had a sense of fun built into them even if their stories defied any sort of logic.

Even the performances by the cast seemed to be something that barely reached the level of one-dimensional. Nicolas Cage tries to channel his inner crazy by way of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, but it’s too little too late to save the film which never found any sort of footing on the side of competent. Really, the only good thing worth of note was my previous mention of Idris Elba as Moreau who chews the scenery every time he shows up on the screen like it was his last meal. This performance alone wasn’t enough to save the film or even make it somewhat entertaining.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance was not worth seeing in the theater (especially in 3D though that part of the film was actually quite well done despite being a post conversion) and I’d be willing to admit that it’s still not worth seeing on video unless it was for free. What could’ve been a restart to the series with the inclusion of Neveldine/Taylor instead gives this franchise it’s death-knell and most likely help Marvel get the rights back from Sony. Here’s to hoping that the flaming skull rider stays on the fringes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for decades to come.

6 Trailers of the Dead

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi and welcome to the latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation trailers!  To be honest, I’m usually way too ADD to come up with (let alone maintain) any sort of theme with my trailer posts but this weekend — almost by pure chance — a theme has emerged!  So, without further hold up, let us consider 6 Trailers of the Dead!

1) Night of the Living Dead (1968)

How have I done nearly a 100 of these posts without featuring the trailer for George Romero’s landmark Night of the Living Dead?

2) The Astro-Zombies (1968)

Apparently, 1968 was a big year for the dead returning to life.

3) The Majorettes (1986)

The Majorettes was directed by the late Bill Hinzman, the guy who played the Cemetary Zombie in Night of the Living Dead.

4) Dawn of the Dead (1978)

To be honest, I think I’ve already featured this trailer in an earlier post.  However, there’s no way that you can start a post with Night of the Living Dead and then end it with Day of the Dead without finding some room for Dawn of the Dead in the middle.

5) Dead Heat (1988)

Wow, this looks really, really, really … not good.  However, according to Wikipedia, it’s about zombies and it’s got the word “dead” in the title so it works theme-wise.

6) Day of the Dead (1985)

I’ve watched this trailer several times and those arms still make me jump every time!

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night: Trader Horn (dir. by W.S. Van Dyke)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, as I attempted to drift off to sleep, I switched over to TCM and watched the 1931 film Trader Horn.

Why Was I Watching It?

I’m on a mission to see every film ever nominated for best picture and Trader Horn was nominated back in 1931.  (It lost to the first western ever to win best picture, Cimarron.)  Trader Horn is a bit of an oddity among Oscar contenders in that it received no other nominations save for best picture and it has never been released on DVD.  When I saw it on TCM’s schedule last night, I figured that might very well be my only chance to see this forgotten best picture nominee.

What’s It About?

So Trader Horn (Harry Carey) is a heroic ivory hunter.  Yes, this film was made a long time ago. He makes his living in Africa where he spends his time killing animals and explaining how, whenever the natives start playing their drums, it means that “every black devil is in the bush.”  Again, this film was made a very loooooooong time ago.

Anyway, at the start of the film, Trader Horn is introducing his apprentice (Duncan Renaldo) to the facts of life in Africa.  Eventually, they meet a missionary (Olive Golden) who is looking for daughter who was kidnapped by a tribe years ago.  When Golden is killed, Trader Horn takes it upon himself to find her daughter (played by Edwina Booth) and bring her back to civilization.

What Worked?

Trader Horn was the first non-documentary to be filmed on location in Africa and, as you watch the movie, it quickly becomes apparent that the film’s plot is really just an excuse to show off all the nature footage that director W.S. Van Dyke managed to capture.  Countless time the film’s story comes to a complete halt while Carey and Renaldo simply stop to watch a grazing giraffe or to watch a leopard hunt a wildebeest.  Normally, this is the sort of thing I would complain about but, in this case, the story was so predictable and silly that I was happy for the interruption.  It helps that the 80 year-old nature footage is still visually impressive and exciting to watch.   According to the research I did on the Internet after seeing the film, Trader Horn’s footage was used as a stock footage in countless “jungle” films over the next three decades in much the same way that the same old distressing mondo footage tends to show up in every single Italian cannibal film.

There’s a scene were Renaldo finds a lion cub and oh my God, it’s just the most adorable little kitty ever!

Trader Horn actually has an interesting production history and I enjoyed reading about it after I watched the movie.  Apparently, Van Dyke spent seven months in Africa making this film and almost the entire crew ended up falling ill.  At least two cameramen were killed while filming the wild animals and Edwina Booth returned so sick that her film career was pretty much ended. 

On one final note, there was apparently a pornographic remake of this film in the late 60s.  Its title?  Trader Hornee.

What Didn’t Work?

Did I mention this film was made a really looooooong time ago?  Because, seriously, it was.  On occasion, I’ve heard an old film described as being “creaky.”  I never really understood what that meant until I saw Trader Horn because, quite frankly, this film is amazingly creaky.   It moves slowly, the performers are rather melodramatic (though Harry Carey does a good job), and. while the cultural attitudes may have been acceptable in 1931, they now come across as extremely racist and its hard not to feel really uncomfortable with scenes where Renaldo ogles the bare-breasted native women and says, “Why, they’re not savages at all!  They’re like little children!”

Bleh.

“Oh My God!  Just Like Me!” Moments:

I would have wanted to adopt that lion cub too.

Lessons Learned:

1931 was a long, long time ago.

Review: The Shawshank Redemption (dir. by Frank Darabont)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” — Andy Dufresne

1994 was the year that men finally got their version of Fried Green Tomatoes and Beaches. We men we’re always perplexed why so many women liked those two films. Even when it was explained to us that the film was about the bond of sisterhood between female friends and how the march of time could never break it we were still scratching out heads. In comes Frank Darabont’s film adaptation of the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

Using a script written by Darabont himself, the film just takes the latter half of the novella’s title and focuses most of the film’s story on the relationship between the lead character of Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) who gets sent to Shawshank Penitentiary for the crime of killing his wife and her lover and that of another inmate played by Morgan Freeman. The film doesn’t try to prove that Andy is innocent even though we hear him tell it to the convicts he ends up hanging around that he is. The relationship between Andy and Red becomes a great example of the very same bond of sisterhood, but this time a brotherhood who are stuck in a situation where their freedom has been taken away and hope itself becomes a rare and dangerous commodity.

Darabont has always been a filmmaker known for his love of Stephen King stories and has adapted several more since The Shawshank Redemption, but it would be this film which has become his signature work. It’s a film that’s almost elegiac in its pacing yet with hints of hope threaded in-between scenes of men clinging to sanity and normalcy in a place that looks to break them down and make them less human. It’s nothing new to see prison guards abusive towards inmates in films set in prisons, but in this film these scenes of abuse have a banality to them that shows how even the hardened criminal lives and breathes upon the mercy and generosity provided by the very people who were suppose to rehabilitate them.

While the film’s pacing could be called slow by some it does allow for the characters in the film, from the leads played by Robbins and Freeman to the large supporting cast to become fully formed characters. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Clancy Brown playing the sadistic Capt. Byron Hadley to James Whitmore as Brooks Hatlen the inmate who has spent most of his life in Shawshank and whose sudden parole begins one of the most heartbreaking sequences in the film. The whole cast did a great job in whatever role they had been chosen to play. Freeman and Robbins as Red and Andy have a chemistry together on-screen that makes their fraternal love for each other very believable that the final scenes in the film doesn’t feel too melodramatic or overly sentimental.

The Shawshank Redemption was a film that lost out to Forrest Gump for Best Picture, but was a film that would’ve been very deserving if it had won the top prize at the Academy Awards. It was a film that spoke of hope even at the most degrading setting and how it’s the very concept of hope and brotherhood that allows for those not free to have a sense of freedom and camaraderie. Darabont’s first feature-length film remains his best work to date and one of the best Stephen King adaptations which is a rarity considering how many of his stories have been adapted. So, while the fairer sex may have their Fried Green Tomatoes, Beaches and the like, we men will have ours in the fine film we call The Shawshank Redemption.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: The Ox-Bow Incident (directed by William A. Wellman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As part of my continuing mission of see every single movie ever nominated for best picture, I’ve been watching a lot of TCM this month.  Last week, I caught the 1943 best picture nominee, The Ox-Bow Incident.

Taking place in Nevada in the 1880s, The Ox-Bow Incident is a western that examines both the mob mentality and takes on the issue of lynching.  (It should be remembered that when the Ox-Bow Incident was first released, lynchings were still a regular occurrence.)  Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan play two prospectors who ride into town one day and discover that everyone is on edge because there are apparently cattle rustlers about.  When it’s reported that a rancher has been murdered, the townspeople form a posse and go searching for the rustlers.  Realizing that until the real rustlers are caught they’ll be considered prime suspects, Fonda and Morgan join the posse.  Led by Major Tetley (Frank Conroy), who falsely claims to be a Confederate veteran, the posse comes across a camp with three men.  Though it quickly becomes obvious that the three men are probably innocent, the posse immediately makes plans to lynch the men.  Fonda and Morgan find themselves forced to either side with the bloodthirsty posse or to stand up to the mob.

To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of Westerns.  On a personal note, Some of that is because whenever anyone from up north finds out that I’m from Texas, they always ask me if I’ve ever ridden a horse.  (For the record, I do not own a horse, I do not ride horses, and I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to them.)  On another note, Westerns often strike me as being predictable.  All of the dark strangers and the old maid school teachers and the tight-lipped gunslingers spitting tobacco all over the place — it all just makes me want to go, “Bleh!” 

However, I was surprised to discover that I really enjoyed The Ox-Bow Incident.  While the film’s well-intentioned message was a bit heavy-handed, director William Wellman emphasizes the psychological aspects of the story and the movie itself was well-acted by a large cast who brought a surprising amount of depth to characters who, in lesser hands, could have easily just been stereotypes.  Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan were both excellent and sympathetic leads while Jane Darwell dominated the film as one of the more bloodthirsty members of the lynching party.  A very young and very suave Anthony Quinn also shows up as one of the accused men.  Five decades before either Quentin Tarantino or the Coen Brothers, Wellman and his cast use the standard tropes of the western genre to comment on some very real issues and the end result is a fast-paced film that succeeds in making a moral debate just as exciting as any gunfight or stampede.

Released in 1943, The Ox-Bow Incident was nominated for best picture but, ultimately, it lost to Casablanca.  It’s hard to complain about any film losing to Casablanca but taken on its own terms, the Ox-Bow Incident remains an entertaining and intelligent film and one that I’m thankful that TCM gave me a chance to discover.

Songs of the Day: Let’s Get It On and Sexual Healing (by Marvin Gaye)

Posted on by Arleigh

Well, finally reach Valentine’s Day and to the finish line of the romance-themed choices for “Song of the Day”. We’ve had quite a list of songs which looks at romance and love from many differing angles. In the end, all of the previous songs were just foreplay and led up to the choices made for today. I couldn’t decide which song from Marvin Gaye to pick so I went with both.

What better way to close out Valentine’s Day and Night but with the two songs which probably led to some exceptional endings to couples’ Valentine’s Day for decades since their release. So, here’s Marvin Gaye with “Let’s Get It On” and “Sexual Healing” and I hope everyone have a safe, exceptional and epic Valentine’s Day.

Let’s Get It On

I’ve been really tryin baby
Tryin to hold back this feeling for so long
And if you feel like I feel baby
Come on, oh come on, ooh

Let’s get it on, ow baby
Let’s get it on, let’s love baby
Let’s get it on, sugar
Let’s get it on, woo

We’re all sensitive people with so much to give
Understand me sugar
Since we got to be, let’s live, I love you
There’s nothin’ wrong with me lovin’ you, baby no no
And givin’ yourself to me can never be wrong
If the love is true, oh baby ooh

Don’t you know how sweet and wonderful life can be, ooh ooh
I’m askin’ you baby to get it on with me, ooh ooh ooh
I ain’t goin’ to worry, I ain’t goin’ to push, won’t push you baby
So come on come on come on come on come on baby
Stop beatin’ round the bush, hey

Let’s get it on, ooh ooh
Let’s get it on, you know what I’m talkin’ about
Come on baby, hey hey, let your love come out
If you believe in love let’s get it on, ooh
Let’s get it on baby, this minute, oh yeah
Let’s get it on, eeeeeeeeee
Please get it on, hey hey

Come on come on come on come on come on darlin’
Stop beatin’ round the bush, oh, gonna get it on
Beggin’ you baby I want to get it on
You don’t have to worry that it’s wrong
If the spirit moves you, let me groove you
Good, let your love come down, oh

Get it on, come on baby, do you know I mean it
I’ve been sanctified, hey hey
Girl you give me good feelings, so good
Somethin’ like summertime

Sexual Healing

Ooh baby, now let’s get down tonight

Baby I’m hot just like an oven
I need some lovin’
And baby, I can’t hold it much longer
It’s getting stronger and stronger

And when I get that feeling
I want Sexual Healing
Sexual Healing, oh baby
Makes me feel so fine
Helps to relieve my mind
Sexual Healing baby, is good for me
Sexual Healing is something that’s good for me

Whenever blue tear drops are falling
And my emotional stability is leaving me
There is something I can do
I can get on the telephone and call you up baby, and
Honey I know you’ll be there to heal me
The love you give to me will free me
If you don’t know the thing you’re dealing
Oh I can tell you, darling, that it’s Sexual Healing

Get up, Get up, Get up, Get up – let’s make love tonight
Wake up, Wake up, Wake up, Wake up – ‘cos you do it right

Baby I got sick this morning
A sea was storming inside of me
Baby I think I’m capsizing
The waves are rising and rising

And when I get that feeling
I want Sexual Healing
Sexual Healing is good for me
Makes me feel so fine, it’s such a rush
Helps to relieve the mind, and it’s good for us
Sexual Healing, baby, it’s good for me
Sexual Healing is something that’s good for me
And it’s good for me and it’s so good to me
My baby ohhh

Come take control, just grab a hold
Of my body and mind soon we’ll be making it
Honey, oh we’re feeling fine
You’re my medicine open up and let me in
Darling, you’re so great
I can’t wait for you to operate

(Heal me my darling)
I can’t wait for you to operate

When I get this feeling,
I need sexual healing
oh when I get this feeling,
I need Sexual Healing,
I gotta have sexual healing, Darling
‘cos I’m all alone
sexual healing, darling,
’till you come back home

Song of the Day: Let’s Stay Together (by Al Green)

Posted on by Arleigh

We’re now at the penultimate choice leading up to Valentine’s Day. With the previous “Song of the Day” speaking of just how difficult staying in love can be it’s only natural that this pick for the latest song deals with a much more hopeful version of “Love Is”.

“Let’s Stay Together” is one of the most iconic soul tracks one can ever be introduced to. It comes from the same named album by soul artist Rev. Al Green and has been a staple in the playlist for pretty much every fan of R&B, soul and gospel music. Even President Obama has been seen and heard belting out a verse or two from the song of recent. It’s the quintessential song about taking a chance and becoming a couple no matter circumstance.

This is definitely a song which would be on my Valentine’s playlist for the night which would lead up to the song which would end the night. A song I shall save for tomorrow which also happens to be Valentine’s Day and the final song in this week-long romance-themed list.

Let’s Stay Together

I, I’m so in love with you
Whatever you want to do
Is all right with me
‘Cause you make me feel so brand new
And I want to spend my life with you

Since, since we’ve been together
Loving you forever
Is what I need
Let me be the one you come running to
I’ll never be untrue

Let’s, let’s stay together
Lovin’ you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad

Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad

Why, why some people break up
Then turn around and make up
I just can’t see
You’d never do that to me (would you, baby)
Staying around you is all I see
(Here’s what I want us to do)

[Repeat to fade:]
Let’s, we oughta stay together
Loving you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad

Song of the Day: Love Is (by Vanessa Williams and Brian McKnight)

Posted on by Arleigh

The latest song as we get closer to Valentine’s Day has Vanessa Williams returning once again with some back-up in the form of R&B star Brian McKnight.

This one song surprised me when I first heard of it all the way back in 1993 when it was first released. What was surprising to me wasn’t how good it was, but that it was part of the Beverly Hills, 90201 soundtrack which came out the same year. That show was like the guilty pleasure for many people and the fact that they brought the show back with new pretty people for a new generation speaks volume toward it’s place in pop-culture history. But I’m not here to talk about that show. Instead I’m here to talk about “Love Is” sung as a duet by Vanessa Williams and Brian McKnight.

“Love Is” is not your typical ballad in that it doesn’t just try to push love and romance as something that’s great and something one cannot live without. On the contrary, this song speaks about love as being something that is hard to keep let alone struggle through. While love is something that’s both beautiful and easy to fall int. That’s the easy part. True love requires constant struggle to keep it from turning into something stale and destructive.

I think everyone who has ever truly fallen in love can understand what this song is talking about.

Love Is

[Vanessa Williams]

They say it’s a river, that circles the earth
A beam of light shining to the edge of the universe
it conquers all, it changes everything

They say it’s a blessing, they say it’s a gift
they say it’s a miracle
and I believe that it is
it conquers all, but it’s a mystery

Love breaks your heart
Love takes no less than everything
Love makes it hard
and it fades away so easily

[Brian McKnight]

In this world we’ve created
in this place that we live
in the blink of an eye the darkness slips in
love lights the world
unites the lovers for eternity

Love breaks the chains
Love aches for everyone of us
Love takes the tears and the pain, and it turns it in-
to the beauty that remains

[Vanessa Williams]

Look at this place
it was paradise, but now it’s dying
I’ll pray forlove

[Brian McKnight]

I’ll take my chances that it’s not too late

[piano solo bridge]

[Vanessa Williams/Brian McKnight]

Love breaks your heart
Love takes no less than everything
Love makes it hard
and fades away so easily

Oh oh oh

Love breaks the chains
Love aches for everyone of us
Love takes the tears and the pain, and it turns it in-
to the beauty that remains

Review: The Walking Dead S2E8 “Nebraska”

Posted on by Arleigh

“Ain’t nobody’s hands are clean with what’s left of this world. We’re all the same.” — Dave

[some spoilers]

After almost three months in hiatus The Walking Dead returns with a brand new episode which brings us back to how we left the show after episode 7.

It’s a cold opening with us, the audience, looking up the barrel of Rick’s pistol with smoke still billowing out from him having to use it to put down Sophia. The awkward silence is only broken up by the sobbing by the youngest Greene daughter which soon turns into screams of horror and panic as not all of the walkers the group had massacred was fully and truly dead. But it’s a burst of adrenaline that doesn’t last long. We see the cracks opened up by Shane’s “live or die” outburst from the previous episode now out in the open as the revelation that Sophia was always in the barn and all the searching for her by the group has been for naught and has put many in the group in danger.

Whether Herschel and his family really knew that Sophia was already turned didn’t matter to some in the group who now look at the Greene’s with suspicious eyes. Some still cling to the hope that it was all a mistake and that the only person who knew Sophia was inside had died days before. We once again see that these two differing thoughts have come down between Rick and Shane. It’s a conflict that has been brewing since Rick’s return to the group all the way back in episode 3 of the first season. While its been quite a surprise and a treat to see the TV-version of Shane survive far longer than the one from the comic book source I do think that this conflict between the two alpha dogs will soon come to a head by season’s end. To continue having these two be at loggerheads beyond this season would be unnecessary and take away from any dramatic payoff this subplot has.

The center section of the episode is probably where some viewers will once again harp and complain about the show returning to it’s habit of being talky and spinning it wheels in place. I won’t say that I haven’t worried about this show when it came to it’s quieter and slower moments. There’s been times this season when the show has spun it’s wheels in place instead of moving forward, but as we saw with the Sophia reveal which ended the mid-season of season 2 there’s a crazy logic to what’s been going on even if we can’t see it when it first occurs.

This is not to say that the writers and new showrunner Glen Mazzara don’t have some work to do in improving the show’s pacing and quality. With the start of the second half of season 2 Mazzara and his crew have the opportunity to take what Kirkman and Darabont had laid down with the first 13 episodes of the series and create something that goes beyond the show just being a good show. While the middle section of the episode wasn’t a step in that direction I thought the final twenty minutes of the episode was something the show has been hit or miss with throughout this season. Maybe it’s the change of showrunners from Frank Darabont who’s experience has been mostly with film work while Mazzara has been a veteran of some very dialogue-heavy shows such as The Shield.

In the past episodes with Daradont in charge the scenes between Rick and Herschel in the town bar would’ve been a mixture of great writing but not something easily translated into spoken dialogue. This time around with Mazzara in charge the scene moved at a pace which didn’t equate to a scene being talky, but helped establish the changes in how two men used to a leadership role realizing that they’ve made mistakes which has led them to the growing tension back in the farm and within the two groups. Adding to this great scene was the arrival of two new characters which would ratchet up the tension in the bar from 1 to 11 with just a few lines of dialogue heavy with hidden meanings and agendas.

It’s this final scene with Tony and Dave of Philadelphia that gives me hope that the writers and Mazzara have seen some of the complaints from fans and realize that slowing down a scene with dialogue interactions between characters doesn’t have to be useless and an exercise in exposition dumps. Watching Andrew Lincoln (in his best performance to date) and Michael Raymond-James (Terriers, True Blood) interact with each other like it was some sort of verbal chess match was the highlight of the show. The tension created by the dialogue between the group of Rick, Glenn and Herschel with the two newcomers in Dave and Tony was so thick that it became palpable and like a powder keg just needing the merest of sparks to set off.

The final sequence with Rick finally making the hard decision to protect his group (now Herschel Greene and his brood included) over trusting the potential of other newcomers to either be a boon or a danger felt like the character making a turn from being a white hat of the show to one who now must travel this zombie apocalypse looking at things through shades of grey. Rick has always borne the brunt of fan criticism as being too noble and/or wishy-washy when it comes to making the tough choices. If this episode’s final moments was any indication Rick looks to be capable of making decisions without any hesitation if it comes to the safety of the group. He’s just not roided out in his execution of said decisions as his former deputy, Shane Walsh. Here’s to hoping this greying out of Rick is part of the new change in show leadership. If that is the case then the show may have finally found it’s stable footing for seasons to come.

Notes

  • I loved how quickly Shane tries to reassert himself as the “correct” leader for the group after he failed to put down Sophia and watches Rick make that tough choice. With each passing minute with this episode Shane comes off even more sociopathic, delusional and unpredictable
  • Another great scene is Rick pretty much telling Lori to shut up in no uncertain terms when she tries to argue that he should stay and not go off running to town to bring Herschel back. The look on her face as Rick tells her he’s doing this not just to save Herschel but their unborn baby was some good writing and acting.
  • For a moment during that scene one could almost see why Rick was so frustrated with Lori and their relationship before the zombie apocalypse interrupted the world’s routine.
  • Once again T-Dog has been relegated to being the one character on the show to say one or two lines and still not have any of it show any insight into his character. I still believe his days are numbered and won’t last this season into season 3.
  • The ‘ship growing between Glenn and Maggie continues with Glenn starting to show some doubts as to whether he should stay with Rick and the rest of the group. He seems to genuinely like Maggie, probably even loves her, though he still seems surprised that Maggie feels the same and actually mean it. In the comic book the relationship between the two seemed more like survivors clinging to something humane with love being an afterthought. This is why the tv version of this relationship has actually made these two characters even better than their comic boo counterparts.
  • I’m not sure if it was just me, but Glenn telling Rick in their drive into town about how the only people to say that they loved him was his mom and sisters made for a sad moment. Glenn has never mentioned anything about his life prior to the zombie apocalypse other than he was a pizza delivery guy. Knowing that he has no idea what has happened to his mother and sister or whether they’re still alive or turned into walkers was a very downbeat note in what was a quaint little scene.
  • Carol and Daryl look to be handling the revelation of Sophia from the previous episode in different ways. Carol trashing the Cherokee roses out in the field was very appropriate as was Daryl pulling back once again from the group as his hopes of Sophia being found alive has been dashed. It will be interesting to see whether the two will become assets to the group or more of a liability moving forward.
  • It was nice to see Michael Raymond-James from Terriers and True Blood appear on this episode. His verbal jousting with Rick at the bar was one of the best scenes of this series that didn’t include zombies or a roided out Shane. His performance in what turned out to be a cameo was so good that one couldn’t outright say that he was someone bad looking to waylay Rick and his group. He seemed like someone who was probably like Rick in the beginning of his own group’s travels, but has been weighed down by what he has seen and done to survive and protect his own that desperation has made him to do things that the regular world wouldn’t look well on.
  • All those who think Rick was a paper tiger of a leader and that Shane was the one who would best protect the group should think twice about that criticism. He showed backbone, initiative and some guile in trying to convince the two newcomers from Philadelphia that they need to look somewhere else for shelter. He definitely showed his inner-Raylan Givens with his final act of the episode.
  • I’m going to go all the way back to the beginning of Season 1, episode 5. Rick declared to everyone that they are not to kill the living. The fact that he has broken his own self-imposed rule on the group (already broken by Shane though unknown to most except a suspicious Dale) with what he did in the end of the episode should prove telling in how he behaves as he and his group of survivors continue to meet up with others on the road (hopefully) and with those within the group looking to supplant him as leader.
  • Finally, it’s been awhile since the show used a song to end an episode. It’s been a nice return to hear a particular song used this time and “Regulator” by The Clutch was an inspired choice to end “Nebraska” especially after such having such a down and dirty Old West showdown to end things: