By Bowie Ibarra
The plot thickens, as they say, as 'The Walking Dead' continues to up the ante. This week, we had the episode 'Chupacabra'.
For those who don't know, a Chupacabra is a mythical monster that originated in Puerto Rico. It's some alien/government created chimera/'pick-your-monster' that attacked animals and drained them of their blood. Since it was initially associated with attacking goats, the Puerto Rican's called it the "Chupacabra", which is "Goat Sucker" in English.
At any rate, the show opens with the team's initial journey out of the city, sans Rick. It shows a fleet of helicopters napalming the city and Shane and Lori hanging out with Carol and her jerk husband.
It then moves to the present time period where Carol wants to sponsor a dinner for their hosts as a thank you to them. Rick's coordinating for a search for Sophie, and the farmer's son volunteers, claiming his dad said it was okay.
Daryl decides to borrow one of the farmer's horses to set out on his own.
Meanwhile, Glenn tries to hook up with Maggie again. But Maggie turns him down, at least for now. Their friendship does not go unnoticed by her dad.
Rick and Shane go out into the woods together, and Shane tries to unconsciously defend his murder of Otis by claiming its time to re-evaluate their moral compass at the end of the world. Though the conversation was clearly about the search for Sophie, the subtext was clear.
It was a lot like the them in the story "The Fall of Austin". Noted zombie enthusiast Marshall Popham picked up on the theme of the 'rule change' in the book, the shifting in philosophy from comfort and courtesy to survival. A theme that I feel is a mandatory part of every zombie story.
At any rate, Daryl goes into the woods alone on the horse he borrowed without the farmer's permission. After finding a lead for Sophie, her doll in a bed of water, his horse gets spooked by a snake in the grass and he is tossed off the horse and down an embankment. The fall makes one of his bolts stab right through him, and he starts to hallucinate.
He sees his brother, who talks to him about survival and tries to reinstill the hate and anger that drove their own personal survival in the old world. That hate for his brother pulls him through, even bringing him back to consciousness to just crush two zombies. The brother seems to be the metaphor for the chupacabra, a creature that only he believes he saw in the woods years ago.
Lori's deals with the fact that her pregnancy will be revealed soon, and how she still hasn't told anyone but Glenn about it.
The farmer takes Rick to task about the horse and Jimmy, the boy, and how he wasn't informed. He's courteous, but he's concerned about Rick's fun bunch taking advantage of him. And he's anxious for some reason.
Andrea sets women's liberation back by at least two years by taking it on herself to 'stop doing laundry' and set up a defensive position on top of the winnie to 'help keep the camp safe' with a long range rifle. Glenn tells Dale he thinks the girls are aligning their menstral cycles and that he's banging out Maggie. Also, mentions Lori's issue. But Dale sagely advises for Glenn to just STFU as to not insult the women and the host. But Glenn says he was just living in the moment, as he might be dead soon.
Andrea spots a 'walker' and wants to put her great marksmanship to the test. But Shane, Rick, and T-Dog run out to get it. When its revealed to be Daryl, the men stand down. But to add extra ammunition to zombie apoc male chauvinist arsenal, Andrea takes it on herself to put the walker down, as she can't tell its Daryl.
Somewhere, Susan B. Anthony is rolling in her grave. Or perhaps, rising.
Fortunately, she's a crappy shot, he makes it, and we can now all just point and laugh at her instead of casting colorful chauvinistic metaphors at her as I did as I fast forwarded through the DVR.
Dinner rolls around and the specter of Otis is brought up again. Then Maggie propositions Glenn, letting him pick the place. He picks the mysterious barn a few football fields away from the house.
When she finally gets to the letter, she is horrified at his pick. But she's too late.
Glenn sneaks in to the barn and finds that it is a makeshift prison for walkers. This might explain the dead guy in the well.
Something fishy is going on at the farm.
Until next week....
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Bowie Ibarra is the author of the "Down the Road" zombie horror series from Simon and Schuester and Permuted Press. His upcoming release, "Big Cat", is a horror story about a wild beast on the lose in south Texas, and the friends that are thrust into a dangerous game to find the animal.
You can keep up with Bowie and order his books at his website, http://www.zombiebloodfights.com
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