The Walking Dead (2011) – Season Two, Episode Six

Jan 1, 2012
Hari Navarro

The Walking Dead (Secrets) – Steven Yeun as Glenn - © AMC

AMC's second season of reanimated walking death continues with revelations, intimidation and confrontations in "Secrets".

Now six episodes into the latest season of The Walking Dead and secrets, both old and new, are set to be revealed and brought into the light.

The Walking Dead (Synopsis) – Season 2, Episode 6: "Secrets" (Spoilers Ahead)

Carl (Chandler Riggs), is now well on the mend following his near fatal gunshot wound and helps his mother, Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies), feed the hens and tend to chores. They, and the rest of the group, are still based at the farm of their increasingly reluctant host Hershel Greene (Scott Wilson).

As revealed in the previous episode a group of ‘walkers’ are secretly being held and cared for in a barn. Patricia (Dianne McNeill) supports their blood lust by snapping the legs of several ill-fated chickens and providing easy game for the walking dead that toil relentlessly in blank eyed stupor.

Secrets – David Boyd (Firefly) Directs

Hershel again makes it very clear that he expects that Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his people will leave the farm as soon as the wounded have healed and are able to travel. An intention that Rick is yet to convey to the rest of the group, knowing all too well their reluctance to again have to venture back into a world infected and dying.

Glenn (Steven Yeun), wades deep into the story-lines titular secrets as he juggles both his knowledge of the walkers existence and the fact of Lori's undisclosed pregnancy. His fledgling relationship with Maggie (Lauren Cohan) is further tested as she implores him not to tell anyone of the undead that shuffle within their midst. Though, unable to contain himself, Glenn opens up and tells Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn), about both Lori’s condition and the barns somewhat underfed inhabitants.

Confronting Hershel directly Dale discovers that he views the undead not as monsters but that they are ‘sick’, that they are still human beings at their core and deserve to be treated as such. Dale counters this by detailing how dangerous and uncontrollably deadly they are, revelations that fall very much on deaf ears. Hershel’s wife and stepson are numbered among the reanimated dead and, for him at least, theirs is a plight not an abomination.

Glenn is again called on to travel into the nearby township in search of additional medical supplies. Lori, having already previously had him retrieve for her a pregnancy test kit now has him get medication to aid in the terminating of her pregnancy. Maggie accompanies him and is viciously attacked and very nearly infected by a walker. Furious that both she and Glenn were unnecessarily placed in harm’s way she urges him to see that the group are only using him. That it is he that is always called on to risk everything for the good of all, that he is little more than 'walker bait’ to them and that he is simply taken for granted.

Glenn reluctantly gives Lori the medication she requested but implores her to reconsider and tell Rick about the pregnancy. Despite this she proceeds to take the pills, but is unable to keep them down, deciding instead to confide in her husband and tell him everything. She also confesses to her affair with Shane (Jon Bernthal), this an underlying subplot that has simmered since the very beginning of the first season.

Tensions are Twisted and Jealousy Ignited

Gun training is ramped up as all members of the group are taught how to protect themselves within what is a rapidly disintegrating environment, one were a well-aimed bullet can be all that stands between life and death. Andrea (Laurie Holden) prove to have a particular affinity with firearms, but shows difficulty in hitting a moving target. Both she and Shane (Jon Bernthal) travel to a nearby housing development to resume the search for the still completely vanished Sophia. They are all but overrun by a horde of walkers but manage to survive as both of them expertly unleash a hail of precision gunfire.

Buoyed by the adrenalin of their near death escape and infused with a new focus Andrea throws herself at a more than willing Shane. Upon return to the farm, Dale realizes what something has happened between the two and warns Shane to respect Andrea. His protective manner only just masking the true feelings he has for Andrea.

He berates Shane telling him that he knows just what sort of dangerous man he really is. To which a smug and progressively volatile Shane warns that should he in fact be the man Dale purports him to be then it would be very foolish and dangerous to antagonize him further.

Stay tuned for coverage of the sixth episode in this series of thirteen, “Pretty Much Dead Already".