Nope.
But I did take a break. I decided, that if I went faster than the new episodes came out, I would run out of new material that wouldn't contain spoilers for all but the most dedicated fans.
Next time, I promise I will make a post about it, but I didn't think about it until after the fact, and it was already after the fact so there we go.
As a quick summary, the theory is that Rick actually died in the hospital and returned as a zombie. What we see as zombies are actually humans, and what we see as humans are actually zombies. Basically, the group (which are zombies) are remembering their human lives, and their decaying brains are interpreting their world to help perpetuate the idea that they are, in fact, survivors.
The overall theme last season was that the group was de-humanizing zombies to try and humanize themselves. They were trying to explain humanity. In season two, an overlying theme is that they are trying to find their humanity. Without going to in-depth now: the search for Sophia, meeting Hershel and the "perfection" that is the farm. Before we being I wish to remind you of two things first:
1) At this point, both Rick and Shane know that everyone in the group are zombies. Rick was told by Dr. Jenner; Shane figured it out. Neither are telling the group.
2) This will contain spoilers (in some weird twisted way), so I recommend watching the actual episode first. Without further delay, I present:
What Lies Ahead:
Rick starts by Walkie Talkie-ing Morgan about the groups plan to mobilize. One thing I want to point out, is that the Walkie-Talkie doesn't even work. Zombie Rick just "thinks" it works, this becomes important later and is something that I forgot to mention above. I am going to write as if the zombie theory is correct. I'm not going to say, you see this, but this is happening, I'm just going to say the "this is happening" bit.
Again, Rick talks to Morgan using the broken Walkie-Talkie. He almost reveals the truth about their condition, but he decides it's better to keep that information from people. That would ruin their humanity, and plus he doesn't quite believe it himself yet.
The group makes their way down the highway towards Fort Benning. They come across hundreds (maybe thousands) of cars blocking their path. Despite this obvious road block, they press forwards. Why? The dinner bell is ringing; they smell humans nearby.
Now, they act as if they are in an RV, but there are a few things that disprove this. Glen says they should turn back, but T-Dog says that the can't spare the fuel. I know, right? No fuel in a car graveyard. Once people start to realize what they are doing, the RV all of a sudden breaks down. Thank goodness for the coincidence, or was it really them making an excuse to retain humanity? Back to the theory.
They stop and spread out looking for supplies, when their supplies find them. The group of humans using this car graveyard as a supply depot, heard something and are coming to investigate. The group panics and hides under, in, and around the cars (there are a lot of dead bodies in case you didn't notice).
One of the guys thinks that the RV seems a good place to explore, and goes to investigate; Andrea is torn. She doesn't understand the feeling she has (the hunger for brains). She panics, but Dale gives her enough of an excuse that she can pretend that she was killing a zombie. Then she eats his brains. For a quick recap of how this works:
Both Andrea and Dale see what they presume is a zombie. Andrea has a "broken" gun, and Dale has a "screwdriver" (he was fixing the RV remember).
So, Andrea knows that she can't put the gun back together so she has no ability to hold to humanity AND kill the person investigating the RV. In this action, had she killed the person, she would ultimately be admitting that she was a zombie (this freaks her out). But, when she sees Dale and remembers that he was "fixing" the RV, her brain conjures up this falsity that he gave her a screwdriver. This allows her mind to kill the person in a way that lets her feel human; meanwhile all that's really happening is that she's killing him and eating his brains. Dale was too worried about the moving horde to notice. Let's get back on track.
Once the horde of people pass, Sophia comes out of her hiding place and surprises some stragglers. They all go running into the woods (Rick chases after them). After a while the stragglers realize it's two people to one zombie and they gather their wits enough to chase her. Rick finally catches up to Sophia and hides her. When the two people come across Rick they still see only one zombie and so they decide to chase him as well. Rick gets the better of them, but finds Sophia missing. At this point, Sophia lost herself to the disease. We don't know why, but we have some proof of it later.
Rick gets a small group to look for Sophia, and soon it's just Rick and Daryl tracking Sophia. As Daryl tracks Sophia the entire time they mention that there is only one set of tracks. They also mention that the tracks get lighter. This means that there is no outside force causing Sophia to alter her direction AND that Sophia is either losing weight, or making less defined steps. This is technically speculation, but if they were tracking her, the steps should be getting more defined as they got closer, not less (less time passes to distort the tracks. I'm not a hunter so this could be wrong).
Rick and Daryl stumble upon a hunter and kill him and eat him and his woodchuck.
Once back at the highway the group is torn with a decision. Press onwards, or look for Sophia. Give into their instincts, or retain their humanity. At first, everyone is quite keen on staying; this changes later. They form a group and Andrea and Dale argue about not wanting each other's blood on their hands. Given the stalemate, Shane uses this time set a no guns policy. This will greatly help the group retain their humanity (they need to hear gunshots in order for their brains to justify themselves shooting a gun; see last season the camp raid). Shane also distances himself from Carl and the rest of the group; he is planning on leaving before he accidentally reveals that he knows everyone is already a zombie. This kind of behavior is also evident in the fact that Shane was constantly disagreeing with Rick last season, but now is overly agreeable with him. He wants the group to retain its humanity as much as possible, so he chooses to support decisions that support them having humanity.
As they hunt for Sophia, they hear church bells in the distance. They get really excited for two reasons: they could lead to Sophia; they could be literal dinner bells. They hurry after the noise and find a small group of survivors taking time to pray. The group overwhelms the three soloists, and dines. When they can't wait for Sophia any longer they split up again leaving Shane, Carl and Rick behind.
The group going back to the highway are irritable partly because they left some leftovers for the other three, and partly because they are missing a large piece of their humanity (Sophia, being a child, was important to them).
Meanwhile, Dale explains that he was not exactly fixing the RV, that it's been fixed since yesterday. I don't believe they really spent the night, and thus making this statement false (As a side note, if they did spend the night, they REALLY glossed over it in the show). Where did they all sleep? Who kept watch? Why didn't Andrea look for her gun then? So many questions come up if they actually spent the night.
Finally, Carl got shot and his dad went ballistic (puns, I know).
==xx==
This was a long episode. Things that I question about the episode (that I haven't yet pointed out):
* When Carl was shot, why was there so little blood? Why was Carl so peaceful looking so soon?
* Why did the "zombie" even climb into the RV? If you say it was because it smelled human, then why couldn't it smell human when Andrea was in the bathroom (originally)?
* Why no baby zombies?
I hope you guys are looking forwards to my interpretation of season two, I'm really looking forward to delving into the whole farm scenario, and the final confrontation between Rick and Shane!
