The Walking Dead: "Infected"

In its finest moments, The Walking Dead is a show with a stark, brutal grace. The action, intensity, atmosphere and narrative come together to produce something that has a cold, morbid logic to it. Too often -- okay most of time -- the show doesn't earn this and that's why it, in part, can seem like the show is dragging its heels. But, for the most part, "Infected" was an hour of television that shows The Walking Dead at it's most clear-sighted -- give or take a few moments that dragged. It's somewhat exciting to have some action take place -- especially when it's frequently as inventive and propulsive as this -- but the further the show considers the consequences of what occurred the more disturbing it becomes.

That subplot with Carole and the two kids is not always well-executed -- it's not entirely clear what the point is and the child actors aren't always up to snuff -- but it gets to the heart of what makes the show so appealing. There is a constant sense of foreboding hanging over the show. Awful things seem to happen on this show just to remind us that, yep, this is an awful world. It's been argued that death is its own character in the show and perhaps Death is what haunts the show constantly and gives it dark, haunted quality. But it's also something more -- something, at times, the show is too glib about. The title of the first chapter of the comic book series that the show is based on -- as well as the name given to the pilot -- is "Days Gone By". And I kept considering that as I watched "Infected". The episode begins with Tyreese telling Karen about how he misses what life was like before the zombie apocalypse, and he's essentially saying what's got to be at the back of every character's mind constantly in this universe.

When characters aren't mourning life as it was when civilization was still around, they must be mourning the terrible, dreadful things they have had to struggle through in their time as survivors of a zombie world. Rick's actions so far this season -- whether we buy them or not -- are informed by the many awful things he experienced last season, which have since driven him to be a mild-mannered farmer.

A minor point I noticed that bugged me, and was well-stated by Alan Sepinwall last season, is how the show treats Rick as a character. Sepinwall noted, "'The Walking Dead' operates from the default that Rick is and always should be the one everyone else takes their cues from. And, certainly, he has a good track record, especially with the way they cleared out and claimed the prison. But other than Andrew Lincoln having top billing, there's nothing magical about Rick. He's a good man with good tactical ideas, but he has flaws ... I think it would be interesting to get a stretch of episodes where Glen really was in charge - or Carol (who's much more up to the job than we would have imagined even last season) or Maggie or Daryl". And Sepinwall was discussing this back when Rick had completely gone bonkers and was seeing weird visions of Laurie, and when it might have made logical sense for someone to be taken seriously as a new candidate for running things. The show keeps trying to force Rick back into a leadership position as if it both makes sense and is an interesting narrative direction, which I don't think in either cases it is.

What the show does get right are the moments where it embraces the brutality of this world. The girls watching their father die is heartbreaking and difficult to sit through. The moment where Rick cuts the legs of the pigs to give them up as zombie chow, and the camera briefly lingers on Rick's deeply pained face, is one of the better scenes the show has done in recent memory as well as a perfect encapsulation of how this world takes and takes until there's nothing left. Rick's expression is one of him having to give up one more damn thing -- and right after he thought things were actually looking up. The sacrifices of the world of The Walking Dead are excruciating, whether it's giving up piglets you were just giving names to yesterday or suspiciously burning bodies.

This brutality isn't enough to carry the show, but it'll do for now.

Grade: B