The Worst Decisions from AMC’s The Walking Dead – Part I

Season 2: Shane tries to murder Rick.

Yeah, I know, trying to murder your best friend is never a good decision to begin with, but, even if we were to, somehow, take that away…this would still have been dumb as toast.

Let me set the scene: Shane, after months of having a torrid affair with Lori (And possibly impregnating her), having her immediately drop it the moment Rick returned, and becoming ever more jealous and frustrated with being usurped by Rick both in terms of his relationship with Lori and the group at-large, finally decides that the only way to set his world right is to kill Rick, blame it on Randall (Whom he’d already killed) and try to bluff his way back into leadership of the group.

This would have been a great plan…if it wasn’t such a stupid one.

Firstly, because of a fight-to-the-death he’d had with Shane a day or two earlier, Rick was already very suspicious of Shane, meaning he was prepared for the possibility eventuality of his friend trying to murder him. This resulted in Rick killing Shane rather than the other way around.

Secondly, because of this, Shane turned and was gunned down by Carl, which resulted in a passing herd hearing the shot, and descending upon Hershel’s farm, causing Jimmy and Patricia to get killed in the escape. This wouldn’t have happened had Shane not had the brilliant idea to try to murder Rick in the first place.

And third…his plan NEVER would have worked out how he wanted it to. I’ve discussed this before in my “The Best ‘What Ifs’ Of The Walking Dead” article some time ago, but, long-story-short: Having already killed Randall, the moment Shane tried to blame Randall for Rick’s death, Daryl and Glenn (Who’d found Randall’s walker) would have immediately known Shane was lying, and Daryl probably would have killed him on the spot.

Not that I’m encouraging this sort of thing, but…when you’ve got a nefarious scheme going, it pays to actually think about it for more than a few seconds before you hatch it.