'The Walking Dead' Season 2, Episode 4 Recap - 'Cherokee Rose'

After last week's zombie and gunfire-filled episode, we were due for a bit of a cooldown for our characters to reflect on their situations without running from something that wants to eat them.

That's exactly what "Cherokee Rose" provided: a chance for a bit of change in five of our major players.

Shane:

Say what you will about the guy's moral compass, but he's clearly feeling what he did to Otis. That opening scene at Otis' makeshift funeral was hard to watch, and with those sharp flashes back to Otis' death, you got the impression that Shane could have broke down at any second.

In fact, Shane still seems fragile, even after that point. Or, he's different at least. Approaching Lori and asking her flat out if she wanted him to stay or not was not something that the old Shane would have done.

Glen:

Go Glen! If Maggie's signals weren't clear enough last episode in that short scene on the porch between her and Glen, they were in this episode. When Glen is assigned to go with her to the pharmacy ("He's our go-to-town expert," says Dale, the ultimate wingman), her rather leading statement is "I heard you're fast on your feet and know how to get in and out." Giggity.

It only gets better for Glen as he covers for picking up a rather personal item for Lori (more on that later) by pretending he was grabbing a box of condoms. That leads, thanks entirely to Maggie's straightforwardness, to some quality Glen and Maggie sexy time in the pharmacy. Again, giggity. Good to see someone in this dystopian future is getting some from someone who isn't her supposedly dead husband's best friend.

Glen even gets his badass moment when he successfully hitches up that amorphous blob of a zombie down in the well. And we get quite possibly the most disgusting zombie moment of the entire show thus far. I think that beat the autopsy, hands down.

Daryl:

Daryl seems to have given up on finding his brother for now: his new priority is finding Sophia. He's quickly becoming one of the more likable and more heroic characters on the show, and his heartfelt gift of the titular Cherokee Rose to Carol only helped the matter.

You have to commend his patience. It's better than mine: I'm about ready for them to give up on it and move on. Yeesh.

Rick:

When not outright lying to his son about Sophia's safety, Rick spent most of this episode having various debates with Herschel. There was the theological debate, in which Rick explained that he's given up on God due to the whole deer incident; there was the fatherhood debate, in which Herschel explained that as compared to his abusive father, Rick was doing a pretty good job; and there was the unwelcome houseguest debate, which had Herschel telling Rick that as soon as they found Sophia or Carl was well enough to travel, they had to make like a tree and leave.

Rick continues to have his leadership doubts, and he gave his hat to Carl in a rather cute scene and shoved his sheriff's badge into a drawer. I guess there's still time to be symbolic in the zombie apocalypse.

Lori:

And then there's Lori, who is pregnant, most likely with Shane's baby. Way to go Lori.

Other notes:

-Interesting how there seems to be a divide between the savage Rick camp and the more peaceful Herschel camp. Maggie was clearly perturbed by the zombie kill, and there was a meaningful glance between Herchel and Maggie when talk of killing Sophia if she's been bitten came up.

-The whole zombie in the well thing seemed a bit forced. The entire thing was just for scares and to try to make us hurl, basically. What did we accomplish? Not that I'm complaining. It was entertaining.

-Shane looks like he belongs in "Deliverance" now.