The Walking Dead - Episode 1.03 - Tell It To The Frogs - Recap

This weeks episode felt a little slower than last weeks but it was still pretty good and looks like it leads up to a pretty action packed episode next Sunday, written by the creator of the comic, Robert Kirkman. On to the recap!

The episode starts off with Merle Dixon, you know the racist from last week’s episode, handcuffed and screaming as zombies try to get through the chained door. He hysterically talks to himself and tries to remind himself/trick himself into remembering better days but he is snapped back when he tries to move his arm and remembers that he is locked up. He finally gets a second wind and tries to use his belt to grab a gun, but fails. The zombies gnarl and continue to push their way to Merle’s tasty flesh…

Back at the survivor camp Lori is trying to cut Carl’s hair while Shane looks on tries to get him to stop fidgeting by promising if he gets his hair cut he will teach him how to catch frogs. With the cans of beans running out frog legs will start to sound even tastier. Clearly Shane is beginning to see himself as the new husband for Lori since Rick is presumed to be dead and is trying to win over Carl. Unfortunately this new fatherhood doesn’t last, as dale notices Glenn blaring down the road in his challenger, followed closely by Rick and the other department store survivors. Inside Rick’s car he is comforted by one of the survivors who tells him the Merle won’t be missed by anyone at the camp other than his equally bad brother, Daryl. Once they both arrive there are some nice reunions between Andrea and Amy and other family members separated by the department store supply run, but none as emotional as the reunion between Rick and his family. It is also emotional for Shane as he realizes that he is going to have a lot of explaining to do if Rick ever finds out that he and his wife were going at it while he was gone. Also it was emotional for the viewer when they had to listen to the actress who portrays Lori’s awful sometimes-it’s-there-most-of-the-time-it-isn’t southern accent. Aren’t they supposed to be from Kentucky? Why is it that the two racist characters in the show are the ones with the best southern accents? After the reunion and a very awkward camp fire where Rick fills the rest of the group in about how Merle is basically trapped on the roof to starve to death while Lori and Shane share looks of shame. T-dog decides he will be the one to tell Daryl Dixon about what happened as he is the one who left him there and he is not sorry about it. Shane decides he will tell a family of survivors nearby that they need to put out part of their fire because it is attracting too much attention. This does not go over well with the father of this family…

Rick and Lori spend their first night together and Rick tells Lori that he knew she was alive because of the missing family albums in their house, which meant to him that she and Carl were okay and thinking of him. We learn a little more about how Rick got into the hospital when Lori tells him that the hospital told her that they would fly Rick to Atlanta but that those plans must have fallen through once Atlanta fell to the zombies. The two consummate their new reunion while Shane stands watch on top of Dale’s RV and watches as their lantern inside the tent goes dark. He’s probably not happy that his new girlfriend now wants nothing to do with him. In the morning Rick wakes up to find newly washed clothes thanks to fellow survivors and new drinking water for the group, thanks to Shane. The morning bliss is cut short when the survivors soup can alarm goes off, indicating that a zombie has breached their living spaces and tripped one of their many wires with tin cans attached to them. This particular zombie is very mean looking and is feeding upon an already arrow shot deer. A posse including Shane and Rick surrounds the zombie and begins to beat it to second-death, but it is ultimately Dale who kills it by chopping off its head. Soon afterward we are introduced to Daryl Dixon, who as promised, is just as bad as him. He’s dirty, confrontational, and is willing to still eat around where the zombie had already eaten on the deer he had shot. Soon after we learn a very important zombie tip. The zombie that Dale decapitated is actually still alive since Dale didn’t destroy the brain. Daryl Dixon solves this problem by shooting it in the head with an arrow, but write that down for later zombie fighting.

Once they get back to the camp Daryl Dixon starts to call out to him and Rick has the dubious job of informing him that his brother was being a real jerk and that they handcuffed him to a building. But there is good news, as T-bag tells him that he personally locked the door so no zombies could get in, which means Merle is probably alive still. Daryl Dixon does not take this news very well and tries to attack Rick but he is incapacitated quickly by both cops, with Shane putting him in a choke-hold until he agrees to calm down. He does and Rick makes him an offer, he will go back to the city and rescue his brother because he also needs to go and retrieve the big bag of guns that he dropped in the pilot. Lori and Shane voice some major concerns over this since Rick was just reunited and now wants to go back, but Rick tells her that the bag also contained a radio and he needs to get that radio so he can get in contact with Morgan and warn him not to come to the city.

Rick gathers a team to go into the city, which includes himself, Daryl Dixon, Glenn (because he knows the city well and can get in and out quietly), and T-dog (because he feels guilty for leaving Merle up their to die). Before he leaves Rick asks Dale if he can borrow his bolt cutters to cut the chains that T-dog locked the roof with and Dale is pretty reluctant, as T-dog also dropped his tool box on the roof when he dropped the key to Merle’s handcuffs. Rick gets him to say yes by sweetening the deal one last time for Dale and fellow repairman Jim by telling them that he will let him have one of the guns of his choosing from the bag and will let them strip the van they used to escape the city in order to replace some crucial parts on the RV once they return with Merle and the guns. Before they leave Shane gives Rick some bullets for his gun and cryptically tells him that it is 4 bullets, for 4 people. Something tells me Shane wouldn’t mind it if Rick didn’t come back from this rescue mission. The four drive off to some train tracks just outside of the city and stop to continue the rest on foot.

Back at the camp Lori is looking for Carl, who was supposed to stay with Dale but instead went off with Shane to catch some frogs, and is noticeably pissed. I didn’t quite understand why Lori was so overly mad at Shane this episode until this scene clarified their relationship a little bit. While Carl and Shane are trying to catch frogs, Andrea, Amy, and two other women from the camp are helping to wash the clothes and talking about what they miss most post-zombie apocalypse. Amy says she misses her phone and texting, but Andrea gets all of the ladies rolling when she tells them that what she misses most is her vibrator. Another one of the women, who is also the wife of the husband who earlier was upset when Shane asked him to put down some of his fire, looks over at her husband who is not helping to wash and says that she too misses her vibrator. They all laugh. Well except for her husband who comes over and starts to look breathe down their necks. Over at Carl and Shane’s side of the water Lori has finally come down and scolds Carl for not sticking with Dale like she told him too. Shane tries to talk to her and tells her that they need to talk because he is just as upset as she is that their fling can no longer continue but she yells back at him that he told her Rick had died and that he is a son of a bitch. She tells him to leave her family alone and not to talk to her or Carl anymore. So a little more confirmation that Shane is not that great of a guy, but it still doesn’t exactly let Lori off the hook. I mean she shacked up with Rick’s best friend only like a month or even less after he “died” and I suppose you could chalk some of that up to how stressful the zombie apocalypse must have been but still she seemed pretty into their tryst at the beginning of last episode in the woods. This upsets Shane who looks over and sees the angry husband yell at his wife and eventually smack her as Andrea and the others try to stop him. Shane lets out all of his aggression on him as he pulls him away from his wife and punches him to near death, only stopping because there are people around. Shane is not taking his “break-up” very well.

In the city the group decides to get Merle first because he is closet and very quietly make their way into the department store. Once inside they see a single walker and Daryl Dixon quickly shoots it in the head with his arrow. Much quieter than a gunshot to the head. The four head up the stairs to the roof and cut the chains only to face a great surprise. Not only is Merle no longer on the roof but also laying next to his handcuff is a bloody saw and his hand. Looks like Merle wasn’t planning on a rescue and found another way out. Rick and the others better hope that he doesn’t go back to the camp because he is probably very angry. Even more incentive to get the bag of guns that Rick dropped in the pilot!