Woah, Andy ... what's with the Dale hatred? I really dig Dale's character ... but I wouldn't call him a 'spineless liberal', he doesn't strike me as being one way or another politically. He strikes me as the 'old sage' of the group who has many of life's experiences and regrets under his belt and it's from that well of life that he draws his views on things. He's a very reliable counter-balance to the over-wraught emotion of many of the other group. You need a counter-balance like that - Shane very easily flies off the handle, while Dale is very hard to push over the edge.
...
Anyway - my thoughts:
1) Wooooo! TWD IS BACK, BABY! 
2) Mazzara had said how he wanted to bring in more wide shots to return a sense of open scale to the episodes - and he's succeeded here. I could tell right away there was a shift in the photography, from staging a tight conversation between Rick and Shane with a far off background in it, to some excellent wide shots - one in particular, from up on high at the barn looking over at the house, you suddenly see how far one is from the other (thus lending more credence to them not hearing shuffling walkers in the barn).
3) Good to see Shane's nicer side - when he's washing Carol's arms. He's seen what his actions have led to, and he partially regrets how it went down, but naturally he stills believes what he did was right. However it's good to swing his character back a bit so he doesn't become a mustache twirler.
4) Likewise, good to see Rick's dark side come through. I think it was right and wise of them to have Rick resist as long as he could to no go 'over the edge' - that's a very important thing for his character - he's really resisted (whereas Shane was quick to let his morals slip) until pushed to the nth degree - and the bar scene was excellent. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to go down, and you kind of ease into these two characters as Dave was kind of a funny guy, but then suddenly he says something and you can feel the palpable sense of potential threat. So it felt like a little cat & mouse game and there was some great tension there - then quick draw Rick comes out and he takes names. Obviously it's going to be a decision that leads to trouble (I'd wager that those guys really do have others in their group, and that's who Rick was defending against in some of those clips we saw in the teaser trailers a couple of weeks ago) - but this is the point where we now get the Rick from the comics (as he became - he did resist for a good while in the comics too, lest we forget, it's true to his character) who has is pushed into situations where he is forced to act defensively with extreme prejudice for the good of the group. So it's a nice shifting of the moral ground around Shane and Rick in this episode, bringing them closer, but also here shifting them to each other's sides ... the line is no longer defined - excellent.
5) Andrea taking a scythe to the zombie's head - noiiice.
6) A nice little scene with Glenn and Rick in the car regarding Maggie. It was also nice to hear more about Glenn's background (he has a mother and sisters) ... I wonder if we'll get a more personal moment between Glenn and Maggie where he opens up to her about who he has lost. We've never really seen that from him with the group - he seems to be handling the loss of his former life quite easily, but it would be interesting to see a more wounded side of his character that he's been keeping locked away for personal reasons, a side that he's only willing to share with Maggie.
7) Lori in the car - I felt the car wreck could have been staged a little bit better (e.g. driving faster to make the roll a little more likely to happen), but ah well ... ... and women drivers, am I right, guys?  ... ... j/k - just messing. 
8) Interesting to see the fallout from the events of the barn massacre - Carol revealing she'd said goodbye to Sophia long ago, Daryl totally disheartened by what he sees as his failure, Dale extremely concerned about Shane's dark side (and Lori not wanting to believe that), Carl's numbing to these horrors where he's beginning to see the cold hard truth of dealing with certain situations (getting that from watching his father have to step forward and take down 'Zophia') ... yes, interesting. They still need to do a little more with T-Dog, mind.
9) Interesting to see, now that Herschel has realised he was wrong about the walkers, that when those two guys entered the barn it positioned Rick, Glenn and Herschel on the same side - I think that scene will bring the two groups together as one from now on. It was nicely staged, that scene. 
So anyway - excellent episode - and the first without any Darabont involvement at all (2x07 had some, but not a lot, so it seems) - and so I think we can safely trust Mazzara to shephard this show onwards.
Really looking forward to the rest of the season ... speaking of which, if anyone has read those spoilers going around on the internet regarding the rest of the season (and indeed the season finale) which Bassman alerted us to the other day, can I strongly advise that if you know how things ultimately go down in future episodes - SAY NOTHING - not even suggestive statements ... such statements can lead we viewers to then theorise according to the context of the episodes we've seen and come up with possible events, and then when one of those events unfolds, the surprise is gone - that's exactly what happened to me with Shane shooting Otis when I saw (elsewhere on the net) a suggestive statement that didn't out-right say what happened, but clearly something happened regarding specific characters, and knowing the context of 2x02 I was easily able to figure out what happened ... so as I've said - if you know any of the spoilers out there on TV gossip sites regarding how the rest of the episodes go down, PLEASE SAY ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT THEM ON HPOTD. Spoilers suck ... same goes for suggestive spoilers.
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Originally Posted by White_Zombie
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