Because The Walking Dead season 10 finale has been delayed thanks to the real-world virus, I have decided that to fill the void left in the schedule, to start a re-watch of the series. I live tweeted the episode as if it were playing live in the regular 9pm GMT slot on FOX TV UK. You can see all the tweets here or embedded below.

**WARNING – SPOILERS BELOW**

Episode Seven manages to ramp the drama up a little bit here in Season Two with a mighty big payoff at the end of the episode. Before we get there however we have to sit through more of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) pleading with Hershel (Scott Wilson) to let them stay, Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) doing what’s in his best interests not the groups to thwart Shane (Jon Bernthal), and Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Maggie’s (Lauren Cohan) relationship continues to bounce between on and off again.

It’s possible to skip the first half an hour of this episode. There isn’t anything really new here until Hershel enlists Rick’s help to go fishing. This isn’t any normal fishing, some walkers are stuck in the mud. One worked up at the shops and the other was a farmer next door. Hershel wants to add these to his collection and if Rick wants to stay, he needs to help and treat the dead like human beings. Rick goes along with this because he’s an idiot and so blinded by doing what he needs to do to keep his pregnant wife (who he admits is expecting to both Hershel…and SHANE!) near a doctor.

After Shane does a spot of hunting of his own, he comes storming into camp with the guns and demands they need to do what is right. Furious Shane is brilliant. Daryl (Norman Reedus) makes the excellent point that they’re all stood around when they should be looking for Sophia but it is ignored as Shane hands out the weapons. Glenn, Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Maggie all try to talk him out of it when Rick arrives with his undead buddies.

If Shane was angry before he is enraged now. He can’t believe Hershel could be so stupid as to think the walkers are alive. He shoots one in the leg, lungs and heart to show how it can’t be alive because nobody would survive that. After shooting the walker in the head, Shane goes to break down the barn. Rick screams at him, but nobody tries to stop him. Hershel is broken on the floor and won’t take the walker Rick is holding who seems to be the only one wanting to stop Shane.

The barn doors open and shots are fired. Walkers line the farmyard. Glenn gets the OK from Maggie, probably because they’re “on-again” after Glenn gave her the sweet-talk earlier. When the dusk settles, there is one more walker to kill. It’s little Sophia.

Suddenly struck with what Hershel must have been feeling towards his dead friends and family, all the survivors just watch as Sophia comes stumbling towards them. Nobody, not even Shane knows what to do. Until Rick steps up and Sophia is put down.

After all this time, Sophia was right under their noses.

It was a fantastic ending to the episode that rights it of all the wrongs that came before. Not that there were too many this week. The big question remains how they can move on from this massacre and still provide a good pacing without dwelling on the deaths and Hershel being all stubborn again.

Overall Rating: 7.5

S02E07 Pretty Much Dead.. – Curated tweets by Zombie_Scribe