I'm Not Done Talking Dead. Get It?

So, I just posted this response to something Blog-ust said about the Walking Dead in another post, but I didn't want it to get buried because I really want to talk about this show. So here it is, the context being that the show seems to have gooten much better this seaon:

I watched it pretty much for the Videogum recaps up until now. It's a good thing the show is getting good, because Videogum stopped doing the recaps, and without them I'd have stopped watching a while ago.

Sophia coming out of the barn should have been a powerful moment, but to me it just kind of sucked because they dragged that storyline on so long and it was kind of muted because Rick shot a little girl in the face in the very first episode. At some point it makes you wonder if Rick just hates little girls. Clearly, the writers do.

And even after that, characters like Lori, Andrea and Dale were so flip floppy in their actions that it became distracting. And Shane was comically evil sometimes, while at other times seeming like the most rational person in the room. Killing him off was long overdue.

As I said before, the writers have basically come right out and had the surviving characters apologize for being so poorly written up until now, and so far it's been a good thing.

I do, however, have a teensy problem with so completely flipping the switch on Rick. Yes, he always needed to be more of a bad-ass, take charge type, but dropping a machete in the inmates head was so outside the character they established that it really didn't work for me. I mean, basically, it makes his killing Shane seem much worse than it already was. Like, "I'm going to kill the wildcard so I can be the wildcard?" Why not just kill everybody who's a problem like Shane wanted to do all along. I mean, you save the kid who's shooting at you in town, but you then let zombie's eat the inmate who didn't even actively try to kill you? Weird.