Originally Posted By: Denis
It seems to me that the safety & security of the farm is blocking him from his desires, whatever they may be.


Maybe this is key. He wants to be Rick, and while Rich was in the coma, he was Rick. Now Shane is discovering that he is just a pale imitation. Staying at the farm is what Rick wants, and this sort of stability is no good for Shane because he won't have a shot at getting Lori back. So there is a personal dimension in addition to the differences in, shall we say, survival strategies.

Originally Posted By: Dagny
Shayne's head-shearing moment of truth/despair:

But for Shayne (and Doctor Hershel, of course), Carl probably would not have survived the gunshot surgery. In the episode where Shayne and Otis (the hunter who accidentally shot Carl) go to the zombie-infested facility to get medical supplies for Carl's surgery, Shayne was certainly being self-interested in disabling Otis to occupy the pursuing zombies. But if I were Rick, Shayne's the one I'd have entrusted to get the supplies back in time for the surgery, too.
...
I think Shayne's being too hard on himself for the decision he made to sacrifice Otis (the guy who, after all, shot little Carl).


I dunno. Otis has turned out to be a noble character. Sure, he shot Carl by accident -- and the episode makes it clear -- but he risked his life to make good. He wasn't in good shape so he couldn't run (a factor that surfaced twice). When he and Shane were trapped on top of the bleachers, he basically sacrificed himself: he jumped off and ran in one direction so Shane would have a chance at getting out in the other. He hurt his leg because he was so big. He miraculously survived, and met up with Shane (also injured) outside in this mad dash to life. Shane shot him. At this point I couldn't help but think that there was just more for the zombies to eat. Then after Shane made it back, all bloodied, he was given Otis' clothes, with the admonition that it wouldn't fit him. So it seems to me the show is defining Otis almost by his weight: he has noble instincts, but he is dragged down by his size.

Like Dagny, most viewers probably assume that Carl is somehow more important than Otis. Sure, Carl is Rick's son, and we are to sympathize with Rick and thus with his family. But, really, his main achievement thus far is getting shot. In a real survival situation, is it better to lose a responsible adult male who has a good record of hunting, or is it better to risk losing a child and the tons of medication that you might use in trying to save him?

As for the barn, no, it doesn't make practical sense to keep a whole bunch of zombies there and to feed them. But this is the show's way of dramatizing the connection of non-zombie humans to zombies. Are they things or are they people? It's very hard to lock up or kill people if you think of them as people. So it was easy for the group to shoot Hershel's zombies, but not so easy to shoot Sophia.