Rick was Shane's best friend, but when it came down to it all, Rick did not care about Shane's opinion at all.

Rick:

1. Telling Shane Fort Benning would suck as a safe base. I don't care what Rick says, the army base would be safer. Zombies are easier for the army to take down then say, a bunch of terrorists, so the base would be a good point.
2. Asking about Shane's opinion of the search for Sophia and then ignoring it
3. Ignoring Shane when he was talking about the walkers in the barn
4. Ignoring Shane about Randall being a danger to the group
5. ignoring Shane when he said they shouldn't stay on the farm longer than it took for Carl to heal
6. Almost neglecting Carl for the sake of setting free a prisoner after Shane informs him that he needs to talk to his son.
7. Not to mention the time before the total outbreak, where Shane went to the hospital to try and get him out of there. My assumption is he shut the door so the zombies wouldn't eat his friend's body, but trust me if he hadn't closed that door Rick would not be alive.

Carl:

Shane was a surrogate father to Carl in Rick's absence, but when it came to listening to Shane about keeping the gun, Carl pretty much ignored Shane about it. He listened to Rick, even though Rick said pretty much the same thing Shane did.

Lori:
Lori was the biggest influence on Shane. I've watched the first two seasons at least 6 times now, and she is DEFINITELY the main reason for Shane losing it.

1. Shane really did think Rick got shot. We saw it in a flashback, not to mention he was close to crying when he got shot. He really did think that Rick was dead and he took the role of protecting his best friends family... but once Rick got back she did not give Shane a single chance to explain why he thought Rick was toast.
2. Shane saved her on so many occassions. Even after she told him to screw off in the episode "Tell it to The Frogs", he saves her from the zombies that attack the camp in the episode "Vatos", where she's clinging to him like an overgrown puppy screaming "SHANE! SHANE WHAT DO WE DO!"
3. She did nothing but be an asshole to him the entirety of the first two seasons up to his demise, and he STILL took it upon himself to save her.
4. In Season 2 Shane goes to get her back to the farm after she went out to look for Rick. She would have died if she kept going - she didn't have any weapons either, and he did lie to get her back, but if he didn't she would never had made it home.
5. She kept sending him mixed signals. Such as:

"Stay away from Carl Shane"
"Look at him! You crushed him!"
"Stay away from my family Shane"
"You're leaving?" Stay here!" 2x
"This isn't your baby Shane"
In better Angels she basically told him: "Shane, I know you're getting over it. I know this will drive you over the edge. I just wanted to say thank you. I wanted to let you know that this baby might still be yours. And I might still have feelings for you".
Welp, seeya later. Did you notice, before she walks away, the camera does a closeup of her face and she has this look on her face like "I will punish him again".

And after this she gets all ticked at Rick even though back in"Triggerfinger"she basically told him that he had to kill Shane. Not to mention Shane's intention wasn't to kill Rick. He gave Rick the upper hand, if he wanted to kill him when would have shot him before Rick said a word. Even his actions there had Lori and Carl's best interests at heart: He was trying to turn Rick colder so he could protect them better.

 

I just want to point out something about the scene between him and Lori and what SWC said about this.

SWC mentioned that, if they were going to keep Shane around, they would have to do something about it. For one, Shane had been distancing himself from everyone. Lori's first initial intention was to say thank you to him, but the "conversation" got out of hand and she apologised for making a mess of things. Now, I don't agree with Lori on that one - I don't think it was necessary to look for him - but I don't think she intentionally wanted to **** with his head.

Jon Bernthal later said about this scene that when she said this, he realised that he really loved her and would do anything to get her back, thus, killing Rick. This motivated him that he really needed to get rid off Rick no matter what.

I think it's safe to say Lori was the biggest influence on Shane's sanity. She constantly ****ed with his mind, though not always intentionally, but she herself was also conflicted and she dragged both Rick and Shane down with that. From the start she should've just made up her mind and be consequent about it. I think, though, personally that people talk a little too easy about Lori though. They make her out to be the devil and like she's intentionally hurting them, but she's not. Many of us would be just as confusing as her. Lori was conflicted with many things, it wasn't easy on her either. I'm not saying I agree, but that she's just human and that all of us make mistakes like her.

 

I'm merely quoting Jon Bernthal's intake on it for Inside The Walking Dead.

 

I think maybe Shane considered killing Rick, but he obviously decided against it or else he would have shot Rick before he realised (assumed) what was going on.

Also, if Shane had really decided to kill Rick, he wouldn't have wasted his time saying all these vulgar things to Rick:

"Ain't that what you said? Even right here, right now, you ain't gonna fight for 'em? I'm a better father than you, Rick. I'm better for Lori than you, man. It's 'cause I'm a better man than you, Rick. 'Cause I can be here and I'll fight for it, but you, you just come back here and you just destroy everything!"

And this:

"You got a broken woman. You got a weak boy. And you ain't got the first clue on how to fix it."

Glen Mazzara also commented on it:

 

Not to mention after he sacrificed Otis to save Carl, she just harassed him about it.

People who hate him for that scene, like to forget that before Shane shot Otis, he told him to take the bag and run. Otis said no. I think at that point,Shane realised only one of them was getting out alive, or Carl dies. Those were the choices.

He saved Carl's life, but when Lori and Dale found out, they just harassed him about it, instead of asking how he felt about it and giving him the comfort he needed to pull through. They acted like it was something he wanted to do, and Shane still didn't tell Lori to screw off and that he was done with her ****.

 

A popular scene used in Lori's defense is the CDC scene from TS-19.

In the CDC scene, he was drunk and distraught by HER abuse towards him about it all and had been mulling over how he tried his best to save Rick (we saw the flashback). He was wrong to push himself onto her, but he did back down when she scratched him. If it had been in his /entire/ interest to rape her, it would have been very very very easy for him to accomplish. This excuse is used in a big argument in an excuse for her, but forget how nasty she was to him before the CDC. Shane made a mistake and admitted to it. That was also the only scene where he pushed himself onto her, the rest of the time I didn't see him pushing her so he could get her laid. She was in it for herself all the other times.

There was also no excuse for the "don't talk to me, don't talk to my son" rudeness she pulled. Sure Lori was feeling guilty about /betraying/ Rick after finding out he was alive but she should have been clearer about it. Then in Season 2 she's telling him off for "crushing" her son when it was her who told him to stay the hell away from her and her family.

And in the last few episode, she grows this hatred for him, like everything that happened between them was all his fault.

 

Prior to revisiting S2, I had a more negative view of Shane's mental erosion like many others and placing a larger part of the blame on Shane himself. Shane himself upon revisit bears less of a significant portion than the stress he was put in with zero support mechanisms for him.

Quite contrary to support, he received outright psychological abuse for intentionally trying to do the right things at the time, surrounded by total naivety in those early days.

I like the subtle details in S2, they wrote in the complexities of all of these relationships very well.

Indeed. And without knowing the actual circumstances. Operating off of assumption alone at that.

Yep, he didn't go in with the intention of killing Otis and prior to the point of no return, he risked life and limb in teamwork with Otis.

Crunchtime: They both die and Carl dies - 3 deaths. Or Otis dies - 1 death. He made the tough choice and he was deeply hurt by it at that.

Dale's retarded, reactionary and judgmental ass on factors that he was neither prepared for or could comprehend is directly attributable as to why Dale didn't last very long.

Yeah, he was drunk and torn up and didn't know how to handle himself in that instant. But in the end he didn't do anything to her, nor would he have. He scared her, but that little instance is 1/100th of the psychological abuse she put on him.

We also can't forget that everyone's being psychologically ****ed with massively due to the world being overtaken by walking cannibalistic corpses.

Oh that was sickness. Lori was a sick bitch. Psychological abuse is far more damaging than physical abuse and Lori dished it out to ol' Shane in large proportions.

Like I said, everyone in this scenario is being psychologically tweaked due to the stresses of the apocalypse and many people can't handle it. Most people cannot.

I understand some of Lori's issue's and some is forgivable. Basically everything in S1 is understandable, this is just high stress and they don't know what the **** is going on and where they're going and Rick came back and is you really think about that in relation to real life - that's total insanity.

My issue with Lori is she kept going and going and going with him deep into S2 even after he did everything she asked:

- Shane backed off, POS men would not.
- Shane took her hot/cold abuse and still saved her multiple times.
- Shane helped get Carl ready for this world.
- Shane under the stresses of that and being consistently spit on by the group still did his best to help and wise them up
- Shane went with many of their bad decisions, no matter how much it seemed idiotic and hurtful.

Well see that's that old "project your hatred of yourself" onto another via abuse and aggression as a vent. She was his vent and she really did him wrong.

It was his fault also for taking it and being so wrapped up in someone like her.

Regardless, we've seen many instances of the characters having spots of mentally degrading. Rick in S3 after Lori died was a basket case and the group being positive and supportive like a family + a new threat is what brought him out of that.

Shane just got more and more negativity piled onto him and nobody stepped up to try to positively reach him and resolve issue's, he very easily could have been worked through what he was going through by the group's S3 forward approach and mentality after they took their heads out of their ass.

He's an unfortunate casualty and would have been a great ally to have.

 

I also feel the need to add additional commentary on the Otis situation:

We have seen how the group has operated after S2 and we have especially seen how ruthless Rick became post-Governor/Terminus. There is absolutely no way that in a similar scenario now that Rick, Carol and I'll even include some of the nicer members like Michonne(but members who can still pull the trigger when needed)wouldn't have made a similar decision.

In fact I'd go as far to say that if season 5-6 Rick was the Rick in season 2, that Otis would have eaten a bullet for accidentally shooting Carl in the first place. He killed the Grady Cop for merely trying to escape, which could have given away their position and endangered his two people.... I think anybody injuring Carl severely even by accident would be on the receiving end of his Colt python.

S5 Carol wouldn't even blink at it. S6 Maggie and many of the others who are "nicer" have even exhibited "Otis" like moments in decision making scenario's.

The 3 main hit points against Shane's "lack of character" were Otis, the drunken Lori "assault" and then his twisted Randall/Rick deception.

We have discussed the Rick deception in depth, he was fully emotionally and mentally eroded with no friends by that point.

Drunken Lori - Certainly not a good look, but yeah she did far worse to him and he was hammered.

When the Otis thing happened in S2, he was painted as the bad guy and the mouth piece mainly was Dale - a retard.

Hershel was delusional at first, but then evolved into what you could call a "realistic moral compass". Hershel spoke up on moral issues but he was perfectly okay with getting rid of threats that were a danger to his group and himself and that happened as soon as Randall came aboard when Dale tried to reach Hershel and Hershel simply said "they can handle it, I don't want to know anything about it".

Shane gets an unfair wrap.

Then when Morgan apologist/moralists say "Rick turned into Shane/The Governor". Well first of all.... how is Shane in the same category as the Governor? The Governor strapped his ex-Girlfriend to his torture chair and then stabbed his best friend so he'd turn and eat her alive. The Governor was truly one twisted ****.

 

Loving this discussion about Shane's erosion (or "decomposition") in his character. Everything that's been said, I definitely agree with. Shane is a rich and complicated character. He was at a place in S2 where it took characters like Rick and Carol much longer to get there. No one fully understood Shane because they weren't where he was...not yet... He had made many difficult decisions that emotionally tore him apart such as the decision to shoot Otis so that Carl would live, or to even leave Rick at the hospital with the gurney in front of the door, so that if there was a light chance that Rick was alive--that he wouldn't be eaten. Those are excruciating decisions to make, and they haunt Shane. On his own, these decisions torture him, but then when you have Lori adding her .02 without knowing or wanting to even understand the full situation, and then cutting him off from Carl, etc, it makes it that much harder for Shane.

As much as I adore Dale and him wanting to hold onto his humanity....I didn't like how he demeaned and judged Shane over and over again. I really believe Dale and Shane had a good rapport to some extent---until Dale saw Shane aiming his gun at Rick---and from there, whatever trust he may've had in Shane was over. Done. From there, Dale looked at Shane completely different and he really wasn't aware of the full dynamics between Rick and Shane and their friendship, the situation at the hospital, nor was he fully aware of what Shane went through at the school with Otis--that he had tried to help Otis, just as much as Otis helped him--and then he was forced to shoot him so that he could get away with the supplies. I think Dale made a snap judgement on Shane once he saw him with the gun and Rick and that was it.

And I agree that Shane is *nothing* like the Governor. The Governor, definitely had his own psychological issues due to Penny being zombified and losing his family. But he humiliated Maggie, had those collection of heads in the tanks, willing killed his own people after the first failed assault at the prison, manipulated new people into storming the prison again --which haunted Tara a lot -- she felt guilty for what the Governor had done. Killing Milton and leaving him there to kill Andrea was awful.

This wasn't Shane at all. Shane made decisions...painful decisions for the right reasons, but everyone was still in a naïve mode, whereas Shane saw things for what they were and he turned into a hardened survivor. By the time he killed Randall, he was totally alone, at that point, Shane didn't have anything to lose. Honestly, I don't blame him for what he did to Randall, because Randall was a very real potential threat. Yes, he killed Randall to lure out Rick, but in the end, he couldn't kill Rick. Shane himself couldn't live with him anymore.

I believe Shane would've wholeheartedly supported Rick's actions in the S4 Finale when the Claimers tried to kill Daryl, threaten to rape Michonne---and especially do severe harm to Carl--rape and kill him. Rick went all out to protect his son. It's what Shane was trying to bring out of him in S2 and it finally came out then.

Shane Walsh is a character of the emotional toll a ZA can take on a person...especially if they are in a new mode of survival. The whole thing with Lori, Otis, Dale, Rick, Carl....it all adds to the complexity of it. Which is realistic. When you go through a crisis in life, there's other things going on as well. Very rarely do we experience tough crisis' in life in an isolated way. There's others involved, others who you may or may not get along with for whatever reasons, relationships can get strained, people can be making comments or judgements without knowing the full situation. I love TWD and the various parallels it has to real life.

 

Shane was mis-treated by Dale, Lori, Hershel and Rick and the result was tragic. I have never, ever in my entire life encountered a character like Shane played by Jon Bernthal. His death, possibly along with the ouster of Darabont, was a tragedy the show has not recovered from. (Aside from that, I am still mad at TNT over not continuing Mob City,which was incredibly powerful as well, but who in their right mind would start such a show right before Christmas. And you can't get the DVD's or tapes of this remarkable show starring Bernthal as Joe Teague, a guy so much like Shane but in a different era of time, anywhere. ) Every TWD character pales in the wake of Jon Bernthal/Shane-- Rick possibly being an exception because Lincoln has been up to the tortuous path the show set him on. It's four years now and I still miss this character and actor.

Maybe Bernthal could show up in FTWD - it needs some help.

 

Shane Walsh jumped off the screen. Jon Bernthal really brought the character to life. It made up for the very little time Shane Walsh had in the comic book. He was more three dimensional on the show. I agree that he was mistreated (and misunderstood) by several characters.

I think all actors/actresses have done a great job on TWD. Andy Lincoln definitely has his work cut out for him and continues to do amazing.

Why was Mob City canceled? I haven't seen Fear The Walking Dead...do you think Bernthal could show up as Shane Walsh on the show?

 

He was amazing. TWD has not had a character like Shane, played like Bernthal played him, since Shane's death. None of the actors are bad, but few of them have got as into their characters as Bernthal did with Shane, and his and Rick's story remain to be the best and most tragicstory told on TWD, except for Carol's "Look at the flowers,Lizzie" story.

Yeah, it used to be on TNT.. I think you can get the DVDs off Amazon though, if they're still in stock. I haven't seen it, though...

And man, I wish. The characters on FTWD are certainly morally different, but excepting Tobias and maybe Strand (Salazar is debatable, though I'm starting to get a bit warmed up towards his character, they are very hard to relate to and/or understand. Yes, Madison has a good heart but she is also an idiot. Yes Nick is resourceful but he is also a disgusting addict. Chris is just an idiot.

 

Bernthal definitely helped set the stage/pace for the acting in this series. It felt like others had to step up just to keep up/not be shamed by him. Actors who take their roles seriously are always so important in productions. Even if they are playing a silly character in a children's movie, If they take their role seriously, the role/film will shine.

About the Comic Shane story arc vs Television Shane story arc... The deaths were very similar, but in the comic, Rick revisits Shane which ends up being a very powerful panel. I would have liked to see those particular events from the comic filmed for the television series. Would have made a spectacular season 3 mid season finale.

(they would have had to somehow work it out differently, not kill Walker shane in season 2, and somehow work the information Dr Jenner gav e Rick differently)

 

I wish he could but they did a pretty good job of showing Carl blowing his head off after he turned. Maybe a long lost Shane twin brother?

 

imho there was an opportunity to bring Shane/Bernthal back as a memory/ghost haunting Rick in the prison after his psychotic break

 

So, maybe --after the new "big fail" at the hands of Negan, there will be a new opportunity for Shane to haunt Rick and/or Carl?

ecause Rick's arrogance and refusal to listen to opposing view points has certainly brought him and ASZ to where they are -- just as Rick's refusal to listen to Shane (courtesy of Lori, Dale and Hershel) helped lead to where they ended up, at least indirectly. What a travesty -- what could Rick and Shane have accomplished together?

Maybe it's the Adam and Eve story of the apple replayed with variations. Humans cannot overcome inherent jealousy, even when their lives are at stake, even when they love the one who causes their jealousy? The serpent in the Garden of Eden was jealousy, not knowledge?