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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I call this episode the “Breaking Dead” episode. It starts out much like “Breaking Bad” where massive events have happened, and we have to catch up. That’s not a bad thing, I just like that the episode practices the aforementioned show’s methods, and it does it well. We see Shane, we see him with a shaved head, and we know some heinous shit has gone down.

I say this again, though, Chandler Riggs really is at his top in this episode. Riggs, Bernthal, and Melissa McBride own this season without a doubt. Their performances vary wildly, but they take command of every episode they’re allowed to have a spotlight in. I really wanted to see more of Carl’s plight, and I was terrified for him from the moment he was shot.

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It’s funny to watch T-Dog’s fever soaked rant about being the only black man in a group of Southerners and how little he’s contributing because the writers seem to be going somewhere with this. Mid-way when the changing of the guard drastically transforms the second half of season two, there seems to be a hint at something going on with T-Dog.

We just don’t know what, yet. We know that T Dog is kind of an outcast, and definitely the only African American in the group. So what was going on here?

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When I first saw the previews to this episode, I was kind of at a loss. I didn’t know if I was angry or excited, but one thing was for sure: the producers ensured audiences that this series would only take what it needed from the comics and carve its own path. If at any point the show lost a portion of their audience, this episode would be the one that pulled them out.

It’s still a controversial episode, even with the producers jumping back in to the comics in recent episodes. “TS-19” is not a bad episode it’s just not a very necessary one. It’s both a season and series finale that leaves the characters on the road to an uncertain path; just in case AMC didn’t pull in enough ratings to justify a second season, or simply couldn’t afford another season.

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