by jellydonut25 » Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:47 pm
While I agree with some of your points (story threads seem to be getting lost and all of a sudden it seems like the dialogue is stilted and awkward, almost like the director has no idea how to handle his non-action time) there are a couple of things:
The talk of Shane and Andrea leaving is obviously done because Shane thinks it's his baby and Laurie told Shane to stick around. He thinks she loves him, wants him, and needs him. Shane is transforming into a power-hungry guy along the lines of Captain Rhodes from Day of the Dead. I don't think this is a flaw or a mistake.
Also, while it doesn't excuse the sudden, random transformation in Daryl's character from "screw you all" to "let's get a search party together", he was saddling up to look for Rick, Hershel and Glen, not Laurie. Admittedly, there still seems to be a missing piece of the puzzle there, but it seems just a touch more likely that Daryl would go out of his way to find Rick. Just a touch.
I'll grant that action for the sake of action isn't necessarily an improvement (it kinda aggravates me that the last 4 people on this show who have been put in harm's way have been outsiders/one-off characters), but some of Darabont's final episodes were BORING. The payoff at the midseason finale was good, but we could have experienced it at the very least one full episode sooner.
I think the best route for this show would be somewhere between Darabont's ultra-slow-burn and the current, action-action-action approaches.