‘The Walking Dead’ recap: Secrets spill out like zombie entrails

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Sunday night’s episode of ‘The Walking Dead,’the aptly titled ‘Secrets,’ certainly dispensed with almost every hidden truth the survivors have been keeping from one another. Rick (and, oddly, Dale) knows not just about Lori’s pregnancy but also about her affair with Shane, and Hershel knows that his guests are aware of the walkers he’s keeping in the barn. The moral of the story? Don’t tell Glenn anything that shouldn’t be public knowledge.

In fairness, Glenn does tell Maggie that he’s no good at lying, and almost immediately he spills the news about the walkers and Lori’s condition to Dale after a majority of the group heads off to weapons practice with Shane and Rick. Despite Lori’s initial misgivings, Carl’s part of that posse -- Rick insists that the boy needs to learn how to defend himself and that Shane is the best instructor he knows. It’s Andrea, though, who excels at shooting, and she stays behind with Shane for an advanced lesson. The drill instructor routine he employs to motivate her to improve further backfires, though, and an angry Andrea stalks off alone.

At the farm, Dale goes to see Hershel, who’s tending to Nervous Nellie -- the horse that threw Daryl last week. Dale tells Hershel that he heard moans coming from the barn, and Hershel explains his philosophy: simply, that you don’t shoot sick people.

When Dale argues that the walkers are no longer people, Hershel replies that his wife and stepson are in that barn. Dale then softens his stance, suggesting that they should tell Rick and ask him to reinforce the doors so the zombies cannot escape. Hershel agrees that Rick is ‘a man of conscience,’ but wonders if the other members of their party are as trustworthy.

Lori’s interaction with their host is nearly as upsetting. When she thanks Hershel for his continued hospitality, he casually lets it drop that he expects them to be moving on soon to Fort Benning since Carl is continuing on the path to recovery. Lori takes her surprise and frustration to Rick, furious that he never told her that Hershel expected them to leave. Things go from bad to worse when Lori smells what Dale’s cooking and becomes nauseated. Dale calmly mentions to her that his wife was once pregnant -- she miscarried -- but the smell of cooking meat had made her sick. She looks horrified that Glenn told Dale about her pregnancy, and even more beside herself when he asks her about Shane. She becomes distraught, asking if their affair had been obvious to everyone, and Dale assures her that he merely suspected -- until now.

Sputtering, Lori tries to justify her actions, saying she believed Rick was dead, she was looking for comfort and that she hates herself for what she did. She believes the baby is Rick’s, but she doesn’t have the heart to bring a child into a world where it has no chance to have a happy life.

On that note, Lori seeks out Glenn, who apologizes for revealing her secret. She forgives him, but does ask him to go to the pharmacy to pick up something for her. He and Maggie head back to the store, Maggie telling Glenn how upset she is that he didn’t keep her secret, and she chides him for referring to the walkers in the barn as anything other than people. Of course, just then, she’s attacked by a walker, and Glenn has to save her.

She’s still irate and rattled by the time they return to the farm, and she yells at Lori, flinging the morning-after pills she requested at her and telling her to get anything else she might need herself. Glenn goes to see Lori a bit later, bringing her prenatal vitamins and advising her that any choice she makes, she shouldn’t make alone.

Andrea and Shane manage to put their differences aside -- Shane apologizes for upsetting her -- and the two drive into what once was a relatively affluent subdivision to search house to house for the missing girl. (Seriously, can we please find her already?) There’s no Sophia, but plenty of corpses, animated and otherwise. Andrea has some trouble, but digs deep and finds her inner Annie Oakley, taking down a number of her undead assailants. She and Shane escape, and, to celebrate, they make love in his car.

When they turn up at Herhsel’s and see Dale, he discerns almost immediately that’s something happened between them. Out of Andrea’s earshot, Dale tells Shane that perhaps it’s a good time for him to leave the camp as he’d been planning to do, pointing out that he’s been awfully vague about what happened with Otis and reminding Shane that he’s already seen him draw a gun on Rick.

Shane, however, doesn’t take Dale’s suggestion kindly and poses a provocative, threatening question: If he’s willing to put Rick, his best friend, in the sights of his gun, what does Dale think Shane might be willing to do to ‘some guy he doesn’t even like’?

Shane’s sticking around sure could prove tricky for Rick and Lori, though. Lori swallows a number of the pills, then runs to the edge of the farm and forces herself to vomit them up. Rick goes to look for her inside their tent and instead finds the empty packages of medication -- when he locates his wife, he’s beside himself that she never told him about the pregnancy and asks her if there’s anything else he needs to know. It’s then that she confesses to being with Shane.

So, with the air cleared, can we get down to the business of finding Sophia and some dynamic zombie action please?

What did you think? Leave your comments below.

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-- Gina McIntyre