The Walking Dead: Beside The Dying Fire

     "Beside The Dying Fire" was everything you could want from a season finale.  It started with tons of action and tons of gore, it moved on to resetting of everything that had occurred this season and then ended with a foreshadow of what is to come next season.  After a horrible fight with a gigantic flock of walking dead that functioned to force our main characters out of their secure surroundings and to kill off a few superfluous characters that we never really knew, we find everyone out in the new wilderness with no fuel, very little supplies, and no security but the guns they carry.  The reset button has been pushed and the survivors find themselves having to start all over again from scratch.
     For those of us comic geeks, this episode delivered in spades.  Though not an exact replica, the first image of Michonne welding her katana and dragging two zombies behind her on chains brought back thoughts of her first appearance in the comic and the cover of issue #19.  It was probably my favorite moment of the episode and made me more than a little giddy.  I still wonder how long the writers are going to spend getting her and Andrea back to the main group, but excited for what she is going to bring to season three. 
     The second tip to the comic geeks was that final image of the season, the jail yard up on the hill.  Not only did it function as a nod to the fanboys and gals, but set up the start of season three.  I'm not sure what the writers have in store for the jail, but you know it will play an important role.  Either it will be the next camp site for the group, like in the comics, or maybe it will be the home of the Governor, who we know has to be somewhere on the horizon.
     All in all, season two delivered everything you could want from a zombie show.  Some may argue that the first half played out to slow, but it had to.  It had to lay down the ground work for the gigantic pay off of the last three episodes.  The world of a zombie apocalypse can't be all wall to wall action or you're left with a tale as preposterous as 24.  As much as I didn't like the death of Dale, the writers have recovered well and as desperate a situation as we find the group in, there is a small hope of a new beginning.  Rick as the bad ass, guiding his people to safety, is filled with new hope and the possibility of new tragedy.  Things look bright for season three.