Episode Title: Chupacabra
Original Airdate: 11-13-2011
The Group continues the search for Sophia. Lori is confronted by Glenn about her pregnancy, which she wants to keep hidden until she decides what to do, if anything. Daryl becomes injured and stranded in the woods, having hallucinations of his lost brother, Merle. Shane tries to convince Rick to call off the search for Sophia, but Rick sticks to his decision. Hershel becomes frustrated with the Group as they seem to overstep their boundaries and their welcome around his property. Andrea becomes more unbearable. While Glenn is waiting for another nighttime rendezvous with Maggie, he discovers a horrifying secret about their hosts.
This episode was all about Daryl. The character had become much more tolerable entering into the second season. His interest in finding Sophia endeared him to many, especially for a character who seemed to only care about his older brother and himself. It was time to make him not only the likable, gruff redneck, but also a tough-as-nails hero. During his solo searching venture, he is thrown from his horse, down a steep cliff and impaled through the side by one of his own arrows once he reaches the bottom, where he finds Sophia’s doll. He attempts to climb up the cliff with his injury, but he loses his grip and falls once more.
Exhausted and injured, Daryl begins to hallucinate that his older brother, Merle, is there, taunting him to keep moving. When he “sees” Merle pulling on his leg to get up, he realizes a Walker is actually trying to bite him through his shoe. He quickly kills it with a broken tree branch, just as another Walker comes to join in the Daryl buffet. Daryl then pulls the arrow out of side, just in time to load it in his crossbow and shoot the second Walker through the middle of the head. Awesome. He then cuts off their ears, making them into a charm necklace, bandages his wound, grabs the doll, and heads up the side of the cliff one more time. But that’s not all for a our Redneck Avenger.
Andrea has decided she doesn’t want to do “women’s work” anymore and starts camping out on top of Dale’s RV with a shotgun, to “keep them all safe” (despite the fact that she’s proven herself incompetent with a gun so far). Daryl, still injured and exhausted, comes stumbling out of the woods, walking in a way that is reminiscent of the undead. Andrea sees what she believes is a Walker, and despite warnings from Rick and Shane, shoots him in the head. Thankfully, due to her incompetence with a weapon, she just grazes him. But Daryl has had one terrible, awful, no good, very bad day, all of which pushes him to the top of hero totem pole, and skyrocketing his swoon factor for many.
I’ll have more to say on Glenn’s barn-full-of-Walkers discovery next week.
Channel: Superhero 