THE WALKING DEAD: “Judge, Jury, Executioner” – Review

If there’s one thing The Walking Dead has consistently gotten right, it’s those cringe worthy moments of death and gore. You can’t help but still love a mediocre episode so long as it has at least one good kill in it, even more so if the kill is a main character. While “Judge, Jury, Executioner” failed to wow me on every level, it still managed to leave me excited for where the final two episodes of the season will go. As much as I would love to talk about the entire episode and get into every little detail, all I can think about is that final scene, and I’m sure the mass of viewers are having a similar issue. So let’s focus, for the most part, on that scene and what it means for the future of series. Let’s talk about Dale.

When The Walking Dead began its first season, it quickly became clear the show wasn’t going to be following the story of the comic books very closely. It would occasionally toss in something from the book, but it wanted to be its own thing, separate yet familiar. The biggest departure the first season took was allowing Shane to live, which changed everything. Suddenly a slew of new possibilities opened up for these characters and we’ve seen many of them pop up in Season 2, but Shane’s non-death also left me worried. The fun of zombie fiction is the death toll, while the fun of a television drama is the characters. How do you have a sizable death toll in a television show that needs solid characters to carry it? It’s a tricky situation and keeping Shane alive made me believe the writers were going to have a ton of mercy for all the characters, meaning nobody major would die. Occasionally they might introduce a guest star to slay, or kill one of the recurring characters, just to add tension to any given episode. But when it came to the main characters no one would believe they could ever die simply because the actors’ names are in the opening credits.

With Sophia’s death, and now Dale’s, it’s becoming quite clear that is not the case. This is zombie fiction and nobody is safe. Sure, some may be safer than others; Rick isn’t about to go anywhere soon, but knowing that anyone can die adds so much more tension than there was before. Now when Daryl or Andrea goes out alone, we can actually fear for their safety because they might die. Killing Dale opened up TWD to that possibility and I think the show will be better for it. And the way it was set up was almost genius. To have Dale, throughout the entire episode, go to people, pleading for them not to execute Randall, citing the loss of their humanity as the big reason for sparing him, only for Dale to be the one who winds up gutted on the ground. Talk about dramatic irony. We were expecting a death the entire episode, we just we thought it would be someone else.

Not only does this mean anyone can die, but also with Dale gone Shane loses his biggest detractor. Rick can only barely see how nuts Shane is, making him unlikely to do much to prevent Shane from doing anything too irrational until it’s too late. So that’s something to look forward.

The only other thing I’d like to bring up, aside from the occasionally awful dialogue, is Carl’s little story. He’s becoming a much harder person, allowing the zombie-filled world to change him, because he thinks that’s what he needs to do. So he takes a gun from Daryl and goes out into the woods, finding himself a walker stuck in some mud. Carl takes his time throwing rocks at the feisty creature before finally pulling out the gun, but by then it’s too late. In its struggles to reach Carl’s tasty flesh, the walker gets one leg loose, giving him enough reach to get to Carl. Luckily, the boy gets away, but the zombie follows him back to the farm. It’s this zombie that winds up killing Dale, and Carl takes notice of it. On top of that, Rick has seen how the ruthless decision to kill Randal has affected Carl, who turns up to watch the execution, prompting Rick to call it off. It seems Carl has a dark side growing inside him, but it hasn’t quite taken over him as seen by his guilt over Dale’s death.

The big question is: where will The Walking Dead go from here? It has managed to set up some compelling directions for it could go, but it’s still bogged down by shoddy dialogue and weak characters. It is without a doubt at the best it has ever been, but it still has a long way to go to reach superstar status.