'The Walking Dead' recap: Episode 203, 'Save the Last One'

Things have started getting pretty heavy in "The Walking Dead," not that it was a game of Candy Land before this week's episode, titled "Save the Last One" (referring to a bullet, in case the zombies catch you, so you can go out on your own terms and not theirs!)

If you haven't watched the episode yet, you might not want to read any further because I'm about to discuss some fairly significant plot developments.

Lori Grimes, a.k.a Debbie Downer, strongly considered letting her firstborn son perish so he could stop enduring the endless nightmare, and Shane Walsh took a serious heel turn, capping poor, fat Otis and letting him get devoured by walkers. Not cool, bro, not cool at all.

As if all that existentialism and nihilism wasn't enough to digest, Glenn and Maggie discuss the existence of God on the porch of Greene Manor, where characters really like to stage philosophical debates, it seems.

The action picked up in this week's episode after a pretty slow showing last week, when only one zombie was eradicated. In "Save the Last One," there were around 10 zombies popped before the first commercial break. Shane and Otis were getting after it at the high school, home of the Fighting Cougars, accounting for about 90 percent of the zombie murders. At one point those zombies were really piling up against that chain link fence. It was like teenagers clamoring to get into a Spin Doctors concert in 1992.

I can't quite figure out why exactly Shane did Otis like that, other than that Otis was slowing them down. Or maybe it was a strategic move, using Otis like a big pile of hot dogs to distract the zombies. Either way, Shane was looking at himself pretty long and hard in the mirror when he got back to the farmhouse.

For the record, he did say "I'm sorry" before shooting Otis, and Otis saved a lock of Shane's hair to remember him by.

The maneuver did pay off, allowing Shane to get back to the farmhouse with the medical equipment just in time for Hershel to successfully operate on Carl. Things got worse for Carl before they got better though, as he went through a pretty wicked seizure after reminiscing about the time he almost touched a deer.

Meanwhile, back at the highway, the relationship between Dale and Andrea continues to play out like that of an overbearing father and his icy teenage daughter. To get a little space, Andrea goes off on a little ghost walk with Daryl, leading to one of the coolest scenes of the season so far.

Out in the woods, Daryl and Andrea find a lonely fellow who decided to "quit" by hanging himself. Now he's a zombie and stuck there like a pinata. To add insult to injury, other zombies came along and ate his slacks and leg meat, leaving a pair of skinny, fleshless stilts dangling there for all to see. Nice...

Alas, Daryl and Andrea's search for Sophia turns up empty. So one child saved, one to go. "Save the Last One," get it?