This is a banner episode for Daryl Dixon, who owes a lot to season two. Say what you will about season two, but it’s where we get a better definition of the character and the rigid guidelines he operates by. For a long time he’s been about himself and Merle, and now he realizes he has something else to fight for. He has a goal to strive for, and he’s dead set on finding Sophia. The Daryl from season one would tell everyone to fuck off, but here he’s saving T Dogg from being chomped by a horde of walkers, he’s out bonding with Andrea, he’s giving pep talks to Carol. And now he’s going all Rambo to find a trace of Carol’s daughter.

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This is the episode where Rick begins his transformation from law man to post apocalyptic warrior. Shane has been intimating for a while now that things are just different and there’s no method to the madness anymore. People will die, people will be killed and people have to be sacrificed. Maybe Otis needed to be sacrificed, or maybe not. Shane definitely felt it was worth sacrificing Otis to get to Carl. Would Shane and he have made it out of the school if Shane didn’t kill Otis and leave him behind? Who knows? I’m not saying what he did was justified; it’s just the law of the new land.

When Rick completely stores his sheriff’s uniform and badge in to a drawer, it’s the hint that this is no longer a man following a code. He’s no longer living by normal rational guidelines that we all once lived by.

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