Last weeks The Walking Dead episode "Save The Last One" was probably the best episode this season, giving us action, suspense and a crazy twist of Shane sacrificing Otis for himself. Does this week continue the epicness?
This weeks episode "Cherokee Rose" starts off with Dale, Andrea and Daryl coming to Hershel's farm to regroup. The group comes together to mourn Otis in a nice ceremony. Shane is then called to say a few words for him and I will say Jon Bernthal did a very good job during this scene.
After the mourning is over its time to get down to business and continue the search for Sophia. Because Shane is injured and Rick gave Carl too much blood, its up to Daryl to look for her by himself.
As the group settles into the ranch they find that something is wrong with the well, rather something is IN the well. A nice plump water mutated zombie. Their plan to get rid of it is to lower Glenn (Steven Yeun) into the well so that he can wrap a rope around the zombie to bring him up. As expected things don't go to well as part of the well breaks almost putting Glenn in the clutches of the mutated zombie. They save him and Glenn still gets the job done, tying the rope around the zombie.
Daryl finds an abandoned house near the woods as he continues the search for Sophia. He does not find Sophia however he finds the closet where she has been hiding out.
Back on the ranch the gang is still dealing with the well zombie and as they pull him out he splits in halve with his guts and intestines falling into the well. Tdog (Irone Singleton), full of rage, beats the living crap out of its brains with a pipe providing a sweet sweet camera shot that definitely satisfied my bloodthirst.
After the whole well zombie fiasco, Glenn and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) head into a small part of town to look for medical supplies. This scene brings some romance into the show, something we haven't seen much of this season so it added a nice change of pace. Maggie spots Glenn looking at condoms and soon after the love making begins. Maggie says "It's not like our options are vast these days". I love this line, it tells us that the writers still understand that this show is about the zombie apocalypse and that people will change and make different choices because of the circumstances.
We are also shown this in a nice scene when Rick asks Hershel (Scott Wilson) if the group can live on the farm with him and his family. Andrew Lincoln delivers a nice speech which leads to a nice heart to heart between the two and eventually gets Hershel to consider Rick's proposal.
Another great heart to heart scene is when Daryl returns to the farm. He goes into the RV and sees Carol (Melissa Suzanne McBride) inside. He gives her a cherokee rose (what the episode is named after) that he found while searching for Sophia. It was a nice moment seeing Daryl's sweet side, and it also gave Norman Reedus some well deserved screen time to show off how good of an actor he really is.
Our last scene is Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) sneaking off to take a pregnancy test that she asked Glenn to grab from the pharmacy and surprise surprise it turns out positive.
This episode seemed like plain old filler to me. It seems like the jump from 6 episodes to 12 has given the writers too much open space and not enough content to fill it. Even episode times have shortened from last season. The well zombie was just added for a gore/shocker factor and the little scare of Glenn almost falling in was just too obvious. Sophia is still missing after four episodes which keeps the story from progressing in any big way and its starting to become a major problem. If season 2 is going to be as good as season 1 the writers better change up the pace soon.
The cinematography and acting is still great but the story and action still don't deliver and that's what most viewers are looking for in a show about zombies taking over the world. This episode wasn't necessarily bad but it wasn't what I was expecting especially after last weeks great episode. Still good and still worth a watch.
8.1/10
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