the walking dead: triggerfinger

the first time i watched this episode i thought, meh. it didn't pack the punch of the previous installment. then i watched one more time a couple nights ago. now i think, not too bad. pretty good, even. the tension between the survivors is increasing so that the title of this episode refers not only to the events that transpired between rick and the two dudes from philly in the bar [a gun fight ensued where rick killed the dudes from philly] but between the rising hostilities among rick and the rest of his group.

which i think is probably true to the case of real survivors attempting to cope with the wreckage of the world. works of horror are often considered metaphors for the fears we humans face and must cope with. zombies are symbols of our collective species ground into simple working bodies. perhaps our worries of our shaky economy, and the huge gap between the very few haves and the very many have nots, are manifested in these fables of the undead.

for how do we make for our survival? especially when the world seems to have turned to shit. rick and co. are playing out those fears for us on our television [and mobile devices] screens. not that there needs to be a structural analysis of our society and the show for the show to entertain. the show, like most things, don't need to explain itself for it to be.

better yet, i'm hooked. there are some duds in the series and not every moment in the programs are searing. i admire the creators of the series for making a program that examines human relationships in a dead world. sometimes the zombies are the afterthoughts. it's not all action all the time. even in a dead world people must learn the art of being people.