‘The Walking Dead’ Retro Recap: ‘Bloodletting’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Truly, we never feel more helpless than when we receive word that a loved one has been hurt and is in the hospital. Simply because there is nothing we can do at that point and now that they’re in the hands of doctors… all we can do stand by and watch and hope that they will recover. Which thankfully, they tend to do. Because modern medicine is quite amazing, making this particular moment in our lives nothing more than a healthy scare, when we look back upon it. One that taught us the value of the moment and of life and one that makes us quite thankful for the people we have in our lives. Because the only reason we made it through this mess emotionally, is our friends and family.
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Mainly because, without them in our lives, we would have slipped into a waking nightmare. One where our imaginations would have gone to the darkest, worst-case scenario. The kind that breaks a person emotionally with fear. But while our friends and pals help us to avoid those kinds of awful worries, fiction, specifically horror, is always there to look at the darkest recesses of our minds and ponder upon what our worst fears might look like. In order to allow for us to face them in a safe and secure manner and it just so happens, that the next episode in season two of The Walking Dead, opts to explore the worst-case scenario for our loved ones being injured. Specifically, what it would be like for us if the hospital system wasn’t available to us in the moment and we couldn’t get our loved one’s proper care.

A feat that ‘Bloodletting’ accomplishes, by having Rick Grimes tote his son Carl to a nearby farm, because the man that shot Carl, named Otis, believes that Rick can find some kind of help there. For Hershel Greene has some medical know how, and his family’s land is safe and secure from the dead and well, while he is indeed able to get Carl stabilized in the moment, grave concerns hang over his future. For it turns out that dear Carl has multiple bullet fragments in his belly and he needs immediate surgery, and without a respirator and proper medical supplies to help in that, there’s a fair chance he won’t survive long… thanks to the internal bleeding he’s currently experiencing and well, that puts that particular fear on full display. Because not only is Rick helpless, but the incredible care Carl would have received in a hospital simply isn’t there.

Which is… a horrifying reality to face for certain because that brings about a sense of hopelessness that few of us will ever know and kudos to Andrew Lincoln for putting that fear on display and making it palatable through and through. And for making us realize that we would never like to be in that situation, since it clearly would break the right person in the right mindset. But there is some mild semblance of hope in this moment. Simply because Hershel puts together a plan with Oits and Shane, to get the necessary supplies to save Carl’s life. For the nearby high school was converted into a FEMA shelter when the going got rough with the dead, and that shelter would undoubtedly have everything necessary to perform a successful surgery. Provided of course, Shane and Otis can even bring those supplies back, since it was revealed in the closing moments of this tale, that the living dead outnumber Carl and Otis by an unwholesome ratio, forcing them to hide inside the school… thusly delaying Carl’s badly needed surgery.

Which was quite the cliffhanger to endure back in the day since we all wanted little Carl to pull through. But now that we know his fate in season two, what matters more here is what his episode tried to accomplish creatively. In that, this was a good old-fashioned experiment in fear. The kind that genuinely worked to immerse the audience in one of our worst fears and honestly, it was successful in that endeavor. For this is an incredibly intense and unsettling tale, one where you feel as helpless and scared as Rick since you know he’s in a world without resources or support and well, the show definitely deserves a round of applause for pulling this off and for making the start to season two about as intense as it gets and what’s wild, is that it is just getting started. Since the next chapter in this adventure features more trouble and more dark moments, the kind that go full George Romero. Until next time.  

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