Did anyone see episode 4 of season 3 of The Walking Dead
last week? America got it one week
before us and I was plagued with tantalising tweets of how shocked everyone
was. Something shocking was coming! How could the writers do that? This is huge!
I couldn’t wait. I
bounced around the house on Saturday, trying to keep myself busy, knowing that
episode 4 was sat on our planner. That
evening we watched it.
Huh.
To be honest, my first prediction was correct and my
second prediction was more shocking than what actually happened. Despite this, the end was incredibly moving
and Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori) brought me to floods of tears.
I’ve never really paid much attention to Lori. I’ve found her mostly irritating
throughout. She’s a bad wife, cheating
on Rick, urging him to kill Shane and then admonishing him when he does, and a
bad mother, seemingly never able to keep one eye on her son, Carl. She’s the matriarch of the group, purely because
she’s Rick’s wife.
On Friday night, I found myself forced into liking her
for ten minutes as she struggled with life and death. Her death reminded me of Star Wars III:
Revenge of the Sith. I’ve only seen this
film once and it was at the cinema. As
Padme gives birth to twins, she ‘loses the will to live’ after learning of
Anakin’s evil deeds and promptly dies.
Surrounded by grown men in fits of tears, I felt physically sick. What woman allows herself to die purely
because the stupid idiot that impregnated her has gone to the dark side? Any woman worth her salt would hear that and
be determined to live, to protect her children, to make sure their father
doesn’t have any influence over them.
Lori’s death was beautiful. Faced with death and taking her baby with her,
or an agonising death as her baby is cut from her, Lori bravely forces Maggie
to slice her open. She then gives an
incredibly emotional speech to her son about how much she loves him, how proud
she is of him, how brave he is and what a wonderful man he’s going to grow
into. I blubbed.
Lori’s passing was not only a message of life and death
and a mother’s sacrifice but will also be the pivotal point for Rick and his
damaged mental state.
Who was Lori? As a
standalone character she was annoying with far too much air time. However, in death she is a key piece in The
Walking Dead. With her passing the
matriarch position is passed on, the group is left with a newborn, Carl is now
a man having had to put down his own mother and Rick’s mind may well be lost.
What a wonderful ending to a character.
Some characters are made to be disliked by some (all
writing is subjective) and some characters exist purely to shape others. Women are often pivotal in this role, they
are the lovers and mothers who can give, build and destroy lives in a way men
can only imagine. Lori may have annoyed a lot of people in life but death she is finally redeemed.
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