Walking Dead Recap: Nebraska

The midseason premiere of The Walking Dead has finally come and gone, and it began in an interesting and somewhat strange way—with the network urging viewers to visit an AMC website to enjoy a “two-screen experience” by allowing viewers to participate in an interactive online experience played in concert with the episode’s story and in realtime as you watch the show.Interacting with other fans, answering trivia and watching videos available only on the site allow viewers sitting alone at home on a Sunday night to enjoy the experience of a viewing party. The degree to which it worked will be judged, more likely than not, simply by how long the network stands by the practice—but the network likely felt it needed a little something extra for fans of The Walking Dead who had grown accustomed over the first half of this season to more bang for their buck than jus t a one-hour TV show.Picking up literally from the moment the midseason finale left off, with Rick holding his revolver over zombie-Sophia, viewers were dropped this week into the shattered wreckage of life on the Greene farm, with mothers mourning their daughters and daughters mourning their mothers. Before the psychological horror of what just unfolded could begin to take too much hold of the group, though, Beth is attacked by the her reanimated mother, a walker the group had thought killed but who apparently had only collapsed during the melee. She escapes physically unharmed, but the trauma of seeing her mother–and, remember, the Greene family thought these were people who may one day be cured–gunned down was followed in short order not only by a confrontation with what her mother had become but by being forced to watch as this band of roving strangers kill her yet again, this time in a more brutal, gruesome and permanent fashion. While she’s being comforted by her family, and Carol is spirited away by Daryl Dixon, Shane takes after Hershel like a man possessed.Accusing Hershel of having hidden the truth about Sophia from the group, Shane refuses to back down in spite of Hershel’s denials and Rick’s attempts to keep the peace. He’s finally brought either to his senses or to a moment of stunned silence by a slap from Maggie before Hershel demands the survivors leave his land and his family disappears into the farmhouse.  Glenn follows them in, leaving Rick and Shane to debate whether Rick was right to feed into Hershel’s delusions or whether Shane was right to cull the barn.Glenn and Maggie, sitting in the farmhouse, discuss the prospect of moving on–literally and spiritually–from the losses they’re facing. Maggie, faced with the prospect of losing Glenn when his party moves on, quizzes him on his plans for the future. Carl and his mother commiserate over the loss of Sophia, with Carl revealing that while he had hoped to find her personally he admires his father for having done the right thing in putting her down.Agreeing to bury the three corpses closest to their group (Sophia, as well as Hershel’s wife and stepson), the survivors opt to burn the rest; when the party breaks up, Rick and Lori briefly discuss Rick’s leadership of the group while Shane starts an argument with Dale back at the campsite. He accuses Dale of being useless, mocking his inability to kill Shane in the previous episode, and then joins the rest of the survivors in digging graves for the loved ones.

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