‘18 Miles Out’ with a discussion of the future on the Walking Dead

The beginning of ’18 Miles Out’ starts with chaos and a glimpse of the future showing a bloody Shane running from Walkers. He makes his way to a school bus and tries to close the door as more and more Walkers try to get in. Then the title sequence starts.

This episode appears to be a few days or maybe a week or two after Triggerfinger. Rick and Shane are on their drive out of town, as they look for a place to dump Randal, the young shooter who is now in the back of their trunk waiting to be released somewhere. Rick drives out on the road the talk to Shane about Otis, Lori, and their brief romance when Rick was still looking for them in Atlanta. He tries to lay out the guidelines if they are to continue a friendship, and thanks Shane for keeping them safe, and Shane say that they kept him alive during the chaos. He also apologizes for leaving Rick in the hospital, and explained how the soldiers there were killing everyone, not just the Walkers. After this conversation, Rick checks on Randal, who is in the trunk bound, gagged, blind-folded, and has earphones on blasting music so he can’t see or hear anything regarding the farm’s location in case he catches up with his group.

After discussing ideas on how to survive in the long run, Rick continues to drive as Shane looks out the window and spots a lone walker walking through a field. They arrive to a town and Rick wants to scavenge up some items so Randal has a fair chance to be on his own.


Back on the farm, Maggie's sister is being delivered food by Lori when she comments on Lori's pregnancy, stating that this world with Walkers isn't a good environment to live in anymore. After not eating anything on the plate she was given, the younger Greene daughter takes a knife from the plate when Lori leaves the room. After returning the plate to the kitchen, Lori notices the knife is gone and goes up to take it back, while also looking for Maggie or Hershel so they can talk to the girl.

She finds Maggie and leads her to confront her sister, then she goes back downstairs and her and Andrea have an interesting conversation about the gender roles and responsibilities around the farm. Lori is upset with Andrea that she doesn't clean or do laundry, where Andrea argues that she is better at keeping watch and protecting the farm. She then tells Lori that she has it better than any other woman because her core family is still intact, whereas everyone else has lost a good amount of people. Andrea then tells her it must be nice to have a "Husband, son, baby on the way and boyfriend" – referring to her time with Shane. They also argue that Maggie's sister should choose herself if she wants to live in this world or not.

When Maggie tires a bit, Andrea relieves her and talks to the younger sister, telling her she should choose on her own. Andrea leaves the room, and Maggie and Lori find the bathroom door locked, with the girl inside with broken glass. Crying and bleeding, but alive, the girl decides to live. Maggie looks for Andrea and is furious – telling her she's no longer allowed inside the house.

After scoping out the area, Rick and Shane drop Randal on the road and begin to walk away. Randal begins pleading to go with them, and says he went to school with Maggie. This alerts both men and they go back to him, and now are conflicted since he may know where the farm is now. Shane wants to ease this problem and tries to shoot him, but is stopped by Rick. Shane says Rick can't protect them, and this ignites the fight we've been waiting for.

After duking it out for a few minutes, Shane throws a wrench at Rick, which hits a window of a building – which contains all the Walkers from the start of the show. They both manage to run from them, and even Randal is able to kill one despite being tied up. Randal meets up with Rick to help, and they both leave while Shane is still trapped, but quickly return to save him.

Important note I noticed about this episode: There were two Walkers they were sheriffs that Rick and Shane kill. Rick wanted to focus on using knifes so ammo could be spared, and after killing them, Shane notices that they weren't bit. They realize that scratches can turn you too. After leaving from that intense moment with the walkers, Shane spots the lone walker once again. What does that mean?

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Walking Dead gets itchy with ‘Triggerfinger’

After the explosive return of the Walking Dead with ‘Nebraska’, you would think things would calm down a bit for the group, but that was certainly not the case. After fending off Dave and Tony, Rick has shown he can do whatever it takes to survive for his family and friends, and as he, Hershel, and Glenn were ready to leave the bar, a group of new men showed up looking for their now dead pals. After attempting to lay low, the three men then hears the group call for their friends. Moments go by as they yell out for them, and then Rick responds to try and part ways.


“Your men fired on us. We defended ourselves. We didn’t want to, but its like that now – you know that.”

Silence comes afterwards, followed by multiple gunshots from both sides. Meanwhile on the farm, the group realizes at dinner that Lori is gone and no one has seen her since the afternoon, so Shane leaves to find her. In ‘Nebraska’, Lori crashed her car driving into town looking for Rick, and awakes at night with a Walker attempting to get into the car, which was on its side after the accident. Lori slowly awakes and is able to kill the Walker, as well as shoot another that was close to getting her that appeared from the woods. Shane catches up to her and she refuses to go back to the farm unless Rick and the others return, so Shane lies to get her back safe.

After returning to the farm, she quickly discovers she’s been deceived and Shane tries to reason with her and explains he did it to protect her and the baby – which Carl overhears and wonders why she didn’t tell him about it. His path towards being the child without fear continued as he stated he wasn’t worried when Lori was out there alone.


Back at the bar, both groups remained cautious about stepping out, but they were forced to withdraw after a large group of Walkers began showing up. Hershel was able to wound one of the men, and the Walkers brutally finished him off. One of the men who was much younger than the others was atop a roof when the men were ready to leave. When he jumped off to leave, he fell on a fence and was impaled in the leg and stuck. The other men left, and Rick, Glenn, and Hershel were ready to leave when they spot the young shooter, and ponder whether to leave him or not.

The Walkers begin to surround them, so they quickly attempt to cut off his leg, but Rick instead pushes his leg off the fence, which saved time and unfortunately causes tremendous pain to the young attacker, but I’m sure its better than being eaten alive. After finally returning to the farm, the group discusses what to do with the young man, and Lori discusses with Rick that Shane may have killed Otis, and that he doesn’t think Rick can protect everyone. She also tells Rick that Shane believes Lori is his in this world, and then leaves Rick with a look of annoyance and anger with his longtime friend.

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Overview of 'Nebraska' (The Walking Dead)

After an almost two-month wait, the Walking Dead made it's return last week with 'Nebraska', the 14th episode of the second season. Things picked up right where the mid-seasons finale left off, with the group right outside the barn, simply observing the pile of walkers they dispatched, with the main focus on the body of Sophia. The pain of losing not only one of their group members but a child will no doubt change the dynamic on the farm, and the questions immediately began towards Herschel and his people.

Did they really not know that Sophia was the little girl in the barn?

Would they have told Rick's group eventually about the infected barn?

Even if they didn't, they surely could have put two and two together based on the fact that Rick and his group were looking for a little girl for days, and despite the fact the barn was full of infect family members, they could have eventually shared this strange secret to give Sophia's mother some closure and eliminate the false hope she had for finding her daughter safe and sound.

Shane was furious about the barn, and many believe he was justified in clearing out the barn. He appears to be more realistic than Rick now, and believes that survival must come first before compassion. He even yelled at Rick in the previous episode.

"Things have changed, Rick! It ain't like it was before!"

Now more people are behind Shane than Rick, so that may create some issues in later episodes, especially Dale since he still has problems with Shane since their intense encounter in the woods.

Carl, who is the son of Rick and Lori, is starting to become more like his character in the comic. When Rick shot the infected Sophia, Carl tells his mom that he understands why he did that, and Carl says he would have done the same thing. You can see the worried expression in Lori's face as her son now talks about killing so calmly. Zombie Apocalypse or not, Lori still wants Carl to be happy and respect the world, but with many of it's inhabitants out to eat living people, its pretty hard to instill the lessons she and Rick went through as a child.

The ending to this episode was great as well. The talk between Herschel and Rick in the barn, to the intense moment with the two strangers created one of the coolest moments in the show since the beginning episodes.

Welcome back, Walking Dead. I missed you!

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