Huh.....
Kinda jumbled... Cutting yourself and spreading the blood... What, do zombies go by smell? Are they making zombie rules here? Can we all say contrived plot device?
Also, I guess becoming a walking corpse makes the bone in your skull soften into something more like pumpkin rind... and yeah, unless they have a secret stash of neosporin hidden off camera, it's incredibly irresponsible... The idea is sound (using knives, not cutting yourself after they've seen you and are already walking towards you) but having the zeds go ape over a smear of blood...
Why the hell aren't they licking the walls and floor of everyplace they find...
Blood as plot device...... Huge fail.
That aside...
I saw what Rick was trying to do, he's offering an olive branch to Shane, trying to set some rules, see if Shane can abide by, trying to reason with him. Force his will on him to say it as it is.
No one elected Rick as leader, it's just something he assumed, so I'm not saying he's right.
But Shane's at least not behind his back anymore... It's out in the open, and Rick giving Shane (for lack of a better description) an opportunity to restart their friendship (I think Rick is the only one who still think it exists, or perhaps they both are simply going thru the motions...)
Going back for Shane should have been enough. Rick has gone as far as he needs to go...
But if I read Shane right, he will see all this as a kind of weakness. And in a way he's right, hell they both are right...
This isn't a black and white choice here...
But Shane couches his obsession in what's good for the group, so it's kind of a hollow argument.
The new kid... He's no coward, sure, but he's also a fair weather type... Path of least resistance... That bullshit about being with the other group for safety seems hollow...
In the previews, I can hope that Daryl has better luck.
In the previews, I can also tell that this episode will be totally redundant, the only thing solved was the girl's suicide attempt and her getting it "out of her system", as it were.
Lori had Andrea right when she told maggie that it was the right idea, wrong way of going about it.
Course, Lori needs to get her head out of her ass.
Yeah, she sees it one way, but Andrea see's it another... Neither is right or wrong... they're both right, and their both wrong in how they go about it...
(Echoes of Tyreese's daughter and her boyfriend in the conversation between Maggie and her sister, I thought.)
I reiterate that I think Shane will be betrayed in some fashion by Andrea, both for the good of the group, and to win back some points for herself... She's as hard as Shane, and while she went about it the wrong way (like Shane) it was her way of trying to help someone else for little personal gain (unlike Shane).
So, Rick seems to be retaining his balls... if not his brain. Shane is and apparently continues to be the King of Douchebags. Andrea is growing into something different, heavily influenced by Shane, and yet, not Shane, 2.0... Lori is arrogant, and acting as if Ricks leadership (implied if not fully followed) some how extends to her...
All in all, lotsa cool zombie action, but the start off with a bang, back up and tell it all up to that point schtick has been done a hundred times before, and the story was 100 percent redundant (suicide attempt aside) as it looks from the preview that with Shane's comment, and their interrogation of the kid (who I feel absolutely no sympathy for, as he did try and kill Hershel, Glenn, and Rick... Sorry bud, but you saddled your horse to the wrong team.)
So, I guess we'll try and move the plot along next week... I hope Carl's absence means that he's been sharpening his shooting ability.
All said... I think this episode was mainly filler...
Still love the show, but tonight was kinda weak... Although a weak Walking Dead episode is still better than the best episode of the other zombie shows.... Wait... oh yeah, this is the ONLY zombie show...
So, yeah... I'll put up with it, there was enough eye candy and some fun moments...
In fact, there were a few moments that I really liked.
Like Shane trying the blood trick, and actually having an Oh Shit it works moment.
Rick thinking ahead, and his conversations with Shane actually showed a level of maturity with Ricks handling of a touchy subject, while showing Shane's lack of maturity, further identifying the differences between the two... Friends as a result of habit, rather than any genuine feeling left.
Andrea, she's showing that while she thinks along the same way as Shane, she is most importantly, not Shane, I dunno, her exchange with Lori was a joy to watch... This is truly a woman who's dispensing with all the niceties and soft pedal approach that this kind of world has no time for anymore.
The exchange between maggie and her sister... So many echoes of Tyreese's daughter and her boyfriend in this, that it seems almost forshadowing, the girl wasn't wrong in her thinking anymore than she was right... Very fuzzy moral issues at play here...
And that moment that Rick looked down at the two officers.... They hadn't been bitten... but they turned... Maybe Jenner told him to expect this, that all people had the virus within them, and would turn upon death... maybe, say, a suicide would settle the issue?
But I think his staring at them also served to remind himself something that Shane has forgotten... They were officer's of the law at not to long ago...
Whether or not they remember it, directly influences their decision skills.
Shane is a survival first guy, while Rick still has a moral compass, and probably is the only thing even resembling law and order left.
He went back to get Shane, not because he wanted to, or even that it was smart...
But because it was the right thing to do...
And the very act, proves to Shane, that Rick is soft, when to Rick, he was obeying a sense of honor...Nothing to do with Shane's life, and everything to do with Ricks.
So... I enjoyed it, enjoyed the little bits, but it was a weak episode...
Even if you don't pick up the Zed disease there are plenty of other nasty infections that could kill you when you lack modern antibiotics. 
