While watching the survivors on AMC's "The Walking Dead" hole up in Hatlands — the local party headquarters — in recent episodes, I often thought to myself: "Man, I would love to get after it in that bar! It's just missing one thing..."
Well, in Sunday night's installment (entitled "Triggerfinger") my wish was fulfilled. While dealing with a few hostiles who are swooping in to play wingmen for the already murdered barcrawlers from last week's episode — Dave and Tony — Glenn looks for the bar's backdoor (always a valuable piece of information) and brushes up against a 1980's stand-up arcade cabinet.
This bar already had stools, fermented beverages, a place to rest your elbows, a flat screen TV, a dart board and now video games!? Throw in a deep frier, juke box and Megatouch machine with erotic content unlocked and I see no reason why they would ever want to return to the farm.
(Note: I'm in hot pursuit of the identity of that arcade game, but if you think you've got it let me know. It had a steer skull and a pair of six shooters, but I don't think it was "Gun.Smoke" Update! Upon closer inspection, the game is called "Shoot Up" I couldn't find this game on the International Arcade Museum web site, so I'm guessing it was just a mock-up. This game looks pretty radical though.)
But I digress.
The episode itself was very good. I thought that the standoff at the bar would last a little longer, maybe even extending out over a few episodes. But after Hershel coldly gunned down the young man in the sweet Sambas, leaving him to weap and moan before having his face bitten off by z-boys, and new character Randall auditioned for "Tosh.0"by leaping from his crow's nest onto a spiky fence, our banditos made a surprisingly smooth exit from their Mexican standoff. (Whatever a Mexican standoff really is I don't care so much, so save your breath all of you Quentin Tarantino fanatics.)
I liked when the faceless searchers approached Hatlands and said "We're looking for Dave and Tony and no one checked the damn bar?" That reinforced what I learned in the last episode: Dave and Tony were just a couple of blokes from Philly who liked to work hard and play hard.
Many folks might have been very concerned about the plight of pregger Lori, who went speeding off in a very modest town car in last week's episode and wrecked it pretty bad after running down a pedestrian. But I knew she'd be OK, and that's just what happened. It was neat when a geek woke her up by trying to eat her head through the broken window, and his cheek started to tear off because he was shoving his face through jagged safety glass. That reminds me of when I'm really hungry and I open up my box of Royal Farms fried chicken. I think I would probably rub up against abrasive things to get to my meal at that point, too. I'm glad that last time I ate RoFo chicken someone didn't tear off a turn signal lever and jab it through my eyeball though, because that's what Lori did to this guy.
(P.S. I'm no lackey for Royal Farms. In fact, it disgusts me that they charge $1.69 for an Arizona Iced Tea tall boy that costs .99 cents everywhere else in town. I just enjoy their fried chicken.)
Considering how the episode started, with mad amounts of danger (Hershel, Glenn and Rick stuck in the bar, Lori in dire need of Triple A), things got cozy again pretty quickly. Everyone from town made it back to the farm safe, with prisoner of war Randall in tow, and Shane rescued Lori by jetting off in a very nifty Hyundai midsize SUV.
If you ask me, though, this episode was one big set up for much more static down the line.
Only a fool would believe that we've heard the last of the boys from Philly. Shane's rescue mission of Lori indicates that he'll go to great lengths to protect what he considers his property. And Daryl is starting to exhibit behavior that would warrant a one-on-one chat with the school guidance counselor.