Spoiler Alert: Everything below will spoil this episode if you continue reading...
This week's episode, Save The Last One, was the most gripping and chilling episode since Vatos, when the walker pack tears through camp and kills Amy. Vatos taught us that anyone in the group can die at any moment, and Save The Last One teaches us that anyone can be ambivalent about survival; even if it's the survival of your own son.
The episode's structure and theme were excellent. Bookended by Shane's steamy-mirror crazy face, the episode explores the fine balance between having a genuine will to survive and living as a "habit." Up until now, the question of life and death is mostly surpressed by the frantic effort to find the authorities. With the exception of Andrea, everyone in Season Two seems to have the opinion that being alive is good. Asking this question of Shane, Rick, and Lori ratchets up the dramatic tension to a stomach twisting degree.
The show does a nice job of explaining Lori's reversal in opinion. By asking "what changed," Rick speaks for us when Lori says dying is better than living. In too many shows, characters reverse their positions without a satisfying explaination (I'm looking at you Rita Morgan from Dexter). The Walking Dead, while perhaps dramatically long winded, works to explain Lori's ambivalence.
Exploring Andrea's and Daryl's characters was done well, too. Andrea seems to be the resentful voice of high drama despair for the show. When the two of them go searching at night for Sophia, we got a chance to see Daryl's sensitive-but-tough-guy side. Asking Andrea point blank "so, do you wanna live?" was refreshingly direct. Andrea's answer of "I don't know if I want to live" was titilatingly ambiguous. Resolving this ambivalence will be very fun to watch.
And now, to discuss Shane's shocking decision, we can use Andrea's "I don't know" to explain a lot. Throughout Otis' tenure in the show, he's proved himself to be nothing if not kind, loyal, and brave. As an audience we almost instantly forgive him for shooting Carl because of his sweet-hearted nature. Are we going to be able to do the same for Shane? Shane certainly has fewer redeeming personality traits, although he is decidedly bad-ass when slaying walkers. I expect we're going to hate to need him.
Before we confirm our suspicions about Otis' death, we see Shane give up. He falls to the ground, winded and hurt, and tells Otis to go on. Otis refuses and helps him up. When finally, the bullets run out save the last one, Shane does what it takes to survive. Depressingly, he does a little more than it takes to survive by maiming Otis instead of killing him. We know that a person can be food for walkers after they die because of the hanging camper, however, Shane did not witness that and maybe we can hope he didn't know. Nevertheless, Shane is already a haunted character and now he has one more demon to chase him. Shane's decision does not answer the question of whether living is better than dying. Obviously, Shane wanted to live, but is the life he is choosing better than dying? Certainly for Carl it is, but for Otis it is not. So, to quote Andrea, "I don't know" if living is better than dying.
The best thing about a mystery story is not knowing, and the best thing about a horror story is shock, dread, and regret. In Save The Last One we get both.
