'The Walking Dead' Season 2, Episode 5 Recap - 'Chupacabra'

For the second week in a row, the episode is titled as according to Daryl's storyline. Hardly surprising, though, as Daryl is turning out to be one of the more interesting characters in the group this season... and he gets even more interesting in "Chupacabra."

Sadly, there were no goat-sucking zombie dogs in the episode, rather the title refers to a chupacabra that Daryl claims he saw. Everybody else in the group chuckles at the idea, and Daryl seems unusually put-off by it. Later we learn why. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The search party is on in full force, with the gang dividing up into zones. Shane and Rick take one area and have a very long conversation about sexual conquests in high school before getting to the real matter: Shane disagrees with Rick's leadership. It looks like the differing viewpoints of the two are coming to a head, with Shane on the pragmatic side (let's ditch Sophia and call off the search) and Rick on the emotional side (no child left behind).

Daryl, who takes one of Herschel's horses without permission and heads out to look for Sophia on his own... as we learned last week, he has pretty much made this his personal mission. But the search turns into more of a spirit quest for Daryl after his horse (Nervous Nellie, as we learn from Herschel later) tosses him off and sends him tumbling into a ravine, puncturing himself with one of his arrows.

Thus begins the wince-worthy trials of Daryl, as he attempts (twice!) to climb out of the steep ravine with a nasty puncture wound in his side. It doesn't help matters that a couple of walkers show up (lucky that one started with his shoes, eh?) and Daryl starts hallucinating and seeing his brother Merle, who is rather antagonistic.

Of course, the Merle thing is all in Daryl's head (aided perhaps by some special mushrooms), so what we're really getting is Daryl's own conscience yelling at him. That reveals that Daryl is worried that the group mistrusts him and is laughing at him behind his back, and that he's feeling pretty guilty about not looking for Merle, although he still blames Rick for Merle's disappearance to an extent.

Still, after a healthy lunch of raw squirrel and sporting a brand-new necklace of zombie ears (ew), Daryl climbs out of the literal and metaphorical ravines he has been tossed into... only to get back to the farm and be shot in the head by Andrea. Luckily, she's not that good a shot yet and she just grazes him, but that ought to get her to shut up about wanting to carry a gun all the time.

For a second there, I thought that TWD had spent the last four episodes making us love Daryl, only to kill him off. Thankfully, they're not that cruel... and I think they also know that they need a hero that fits somewhere on the morality scale between Rick and Shane. Daryl notes himself that he "didn't do anything Rick or Shane wouldn't have done," and Carol tells him "you're every bit as good as them."

Is he? Will Daryl be our new hero, or at least our Lawful Neutral to Rick's Lawful Good and Shane's Chaotic Good?

One thing is certain, though: if the zombie apocalypse ever happens, the rednecks will thrive. Daryl really knows what he's doing out there.

Last week, we saw a bit of conflict between the Rick camp and the Herschel camp. It's pretty clear that the two like to run things a little differently, and that divide got even clearer this episode. "I'll control my people, you control yours," Herschel tells Rick. Neither of them do a very good job at it.

Glenn, meanwhile, has officially become Awkward Glenn as he attempt to hit on Maggie and gets shot down, starts talking about menstrual cycles to Dale, and asks everyone at dinner whether anyone plays guitar, to which he gets the response "Otis did." Ouch.

But Glenn has also become an accidental accomplice in a mess of secrets, including Lori's pregnancy and, in a reveal at the end of the episode, the fact that the Herschel clan has a small herd of live walkers penned up in the barn.

Why would they be keeping live walkers? I have a theory, and it starts with a note I made last week:

"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."