'The Walking Dead' Season 2, Episode 9 Recap - 'Triggerfinger'

This week's episode of "The Walking Dead" was reminder of the stuff that makes the show great, and of the stuff that sometimes makes the show a real snoozer. We had some striking shots and tense moments, but the phrase "I need to talk to you" was used a few too many times.

The good stuff included that opening shot of Lori, post car crash. The way the camera moved around to show the walker and then zoom in as Lori woke up was great, and with the lighting coming mostly from the blinker, it created a very creepy effect. It reminded me a bit of the stairwell scene in the pilot episode, which was one of the best-directed scenes of the series, I think.

There were also some good walker moments, including Lori's attacker (oh god, the face skin), and the impending horde as Rick and Herschel attempted to release their new friend (very painfully) from the fence. But most of the tension came from human-on-human violence, as Rick, Herschel and Glenn attempted to escape from from the bar when their slain attackers' backup came.

But there was bad stuff too, the sort of slow, dragging conversations and heated but usually redundant debates that have dominated the show since the gang got to the farm. There were few really transformative moments; the only one that truly stood out was the scene between Carol and Daryl, which helped Daryl turn some of his anger at himself toward Carol while bringing up Carol's abusive past in an interesting way.

Hearing Shane and Lori argue AGAIN over their feelings, though, or hearing Shane do his "I'm an outcast" thing with Andrea again, made it all feel like we've been here before. And while Glenn and Maggie's conversation was something new and Lori's warning to Rick about shane was as well, the former didn't do much to advance the story or character, and the latter was so unelectric that I tuned it all out.

Thoughts:

- Between Glenn and Rick, they really made up a Stupid Decision Squad at the bar.

- People need to stop yelling at Daryl just because he's not being an idiot and/or doing everything everyone asks of him

- Continued variation of Walker terminology as the latest human group called them "Roamers." Odd, though, as the two dead men in the bar called them "Lamebrains" and were in the same group. Still, a nice detail to the show, even if the logic was a bit off there.

- The Gathering of the Blondes with Andrea and Herschel's wife and daughter was like a black hole of character development. How little do we care about all three of them?

- This Randal thing is just going to spark yet ANOTHER debate between Shane and Rick about being the "good guy" versus doing what you have to in order to survive. In other words, it's the same debate that has been going on this entire season. This must stop. They must leave the farm.

- On that note, when they said that Randal needs a week before he can walk, I yelled "NO!" and then started praying that we could skip the recovery time.

- "You killed the living to protect what's yours? Shane thinks I'm his." So Lori and Rick now think Shane is dangerous (which, let's face it, he is). Will this be quickly resolved, or is Shane out of the group now?