The Walking Dead - Guts, S01E02

Compassion. When the world has gone to Hell, and the dead are coming back to life to try and eat us, survival becomes the primary focus. We must continue to live, not as individuals, but as a species. The good of the whole becomes so much more important than the good of one man, but to be human, truly human, means that we still value each and every one of those individuals. Even those who are now are enemy were once our friends, and we cannot forget that, or there is no point in us surviving.

Rick (Andrew Lincoln) is a good, compassionate, and loving man. Yes, he ended up chopping up the corpse of a zombie so that he could cover himself and his new friend, Glenn (Steven Yeun), in the rotting guts and cover the smell of living meat, but before he could compel himself to dismember the body of what was once a man, he had to give tribute. Reading the information on the wallet, knowing who the man was before he died, and that he was loved and that his memory should be treasured, these are things which allow us to believe that we, as a species, actually deserve to survive an apocalypse it is likely we brought on ourselves.

But the need to survive sometimes has to overrule compassion. Merle (Michael Rooker) is clearly quite insane. His hatred of black people has clearly not been stopped by the presence of zombies, his desire to keep the whole safe does not even feature. And yet, when T-Dog (IronE Singleton) dropped the key to the handcuffs Rick had put on Merle to protect the group, and Merle was left behind, with only a locked door between him and zombies, T-Dog certainly felt a whole lot of guilt for leaving the man behind. Should he have? Would staying behind himself have saved Merle? Would both their deaths have been worth anything? And if Merle had survived, what could his contributions be, if not to bring more danger to the other survivors.

In the encampment, Shane (Jon Bernthal) seems to be a real ass, and yet he is truly focused on the goal of keeping his group alive. No unnecessary risks, no trying to help those who cannot be helped. He may seem heartless, and perhaps he is, but those who are with him are far more likely to survive because of his vigilance and his refusal to compromise safety for anything and anyone. We'll see how he behaves when Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) is the one who is in unknown danger, but, much as I am compelled to dislike him, I cannot blame him for his attitude.

And it looks like Rick will soon be reunited with his wife and son, as well as his former partner. How the drama of that will play out when there are zombies who might interrupt any moment, I cannot say, but I can't wait to find out.