“You can’t just be the good guy and expect to live. Not anymore.” – Shane
Before I jump into my review proper for “18 Miles Out,” I want to give credit to Glen Mazzara, the showrunner who inherited The Walking Dead from the ousted Frank Darabont.
Since taking over the show for the back half of Season Two, The Walking Dead found a new sense of urgency, which was something sorely lacking during the Darabont dog days on Herchel’s (Scott Wilson) farm. “The Mazzara Episodes” might not be perfect – far from it, actually – but at least they feel like they’re going somewhere, anywhere.
“18 Miles Out” serves as almost meta commentary on how tedious our time on the farm has been. The episode is pretty evenly split between Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Shane (Jon Bernthal) kicking zombie ass, and Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Andrea (Laurie Holden) screeching at one another about death and mortality. The contrast couldn’t be starker. The Walking Dead doesn’t do philosophical or contemplative well. In fact, it’s downright terrible at it. What The Walking Dead does well is kick zombie ass. When we are with Rick and Shane out in the killing fields, I’m attentive and tuned in. When the focus shifts back to the farmhouse, my hand instinctively reaches for the remote.
So let’s dive into “18 Miles Out,” shall we? The episode begins with a cold open as tense and badass as any scene The Walking Dead has done. Rick and Shane are doing battle with a zombie horde, while Randall (Michael Zegen), the poor kid who got his leg stuck in fence spike last week, tries to free himself from arm and leg binds before he becomes a zombie snack.
After the opening credits roll, we flash back to Rick and Shane driving on a desolate stretch of road outside the farm. It’s an interesting scene in the sense that the show had become so claustrophobic on the farm, just seeing two characters in a new setting, with room to breathe and roam around, was a little jarring – in a good way.
We soon find out that Rick and Shane are on their way “18 miles out” from the farm to drop Randall off, with the hope that he won’t be able to find his way back. First though, Rick wants to have a little chat. He wants to make sure Shane understands that Lori, Carl (Chandler Riggs), and the baby are his family. “You don’t love her. You think you do, but you don’t,” Rick says. “I didn’t keep Lori and Carl alive, they kept me alive,” Shane retorts. The conversation ends with Shane remaining more or less noncommittal about agreeing to Rick’s terms regarding who is responsible for his family’s safety.
After their tete-a-tete, Rick and Shane continue on in search of a safe place to drop Randall off. Rick may have tied Randall up and stuffed him the trunk, but he’s too good a man to just leave him for Walker-bait. The Walking Dead isn’t known for it’s stellar dialogue, but Shane gets off a pretty great line when he tells Rick, “You can’t just be the good guy and expect to live. Not anymore.”
Eventually, Rick finds a suitable location for Randall and pulls into an abandoned Public Works station. We recognize the setting from the cold open, we know this doesn’t end well.
<p>Meanwhile, back at the farm, Lori is nursing Beth (Emily Kinney) back to health after her shock-induced coma. Or so Lori thinks. Beth isn’t interested in regaining her strength, she wants to take her own life. Like I mentioned before, these scenes are a stark contrast to the goings on with Rick and Shane outside the farm. They feel like a holdover from the previous regime; a flashback to a former, much less entertaining, iteration of The Walking Dead. We don’t care enough about Lori, or Andrea, much less Beth (who we barely even met prior to her coma), to pay attention to their ruminations of life, death, and their role in this post-apocalyptic society.
It’s a shame that the stuff at the farm is so bad, because the Rick/Shane situation gets really good. Cutting back and forth from the Public Works station to the farm kills whatever momentum the episode builds and keeps “18 Miles Out” from being a truly great hour of TV.
“18 Miles Out” may not be “great” but it certainly is very well structured. The cold open shows us where Shane and Rick will end up, and watching the show work to get to that point is pretty exhilarating. Shane wants to kill Randall, and in pleading for his life, Randall informs his captors that he went to school with Maggie. The significance of this is that Randall knows the location of the farm.
This makes Shane’s desire to kill the kid even stronger. Rick agrees, but wants a chance to think about it before pulling the trigger. Rick’s unwillingness to take the necessary action (or at least what Shane deems necessary) to keep Lori and Carl safe sends Shane into a rage.
Rick and Shane scrap and wrestle around for a while, neither man really gaining the upper hand. While they fight, Randall does his best to escape and eventually frees himself. Eventually, Shane completely loses his shit (it’s totally awesome, by the way!) and hurls a giant wrench at Rick’s head. The wrench whizzes by Rick and through a glass window, stirring up a horde of Walkers. The Walkers pour through the window and chase Shane into a nearby school bus.
In the first truly moving scene since the series premiere last Halloween, Rick grabs Randall and decides to leave Shane to die. Shane watches, heartbroken, as his former best friend makes a run for the car. Just as Shane is about to accept his fate, Rick and Randall ride up to the bus in the car, guns blazing. They distract the Walkers and give Shane enough time to jump into the car.
Things, both at the farm and on the road, end up at about the same place they began. And really, that’s okay. The plot was pushed so far ahead in the past couple of episodes, we didn’t necessarily need a lot of forward motion this week. Generally, all I ask from The Walking Dead is to be entertained and, for the most part, “18 Miles Out” delivers.
Some stats and info about The Walking Dead, “18 Miles Out”
TV SHOW – The Walking Dead
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 10
AIRED ON – February 26th, 2012
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – AMC
GENRE – Horror, Drama, Zombies, Thriller
CREATED BY – Frank Darabont
CAST – Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Lauren Cohan, Christian Serratos, Josh McDermitt, Danai Guria, Seth Gilliam, Andrew Lincoln, Ross Marquand, Chandler Riggs
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.