I am still grieving over the death of Hershel in last night’s mid-season finale of The Walking Dead.  Oh, yes, this post does contain spoilers.  The group of friends that I watch the show with, we didn’t start the show until after.  After I arrived from this week’s improv class (new classes are now available through the Syracuse Improv Collective), we hunkered down a little bit before starting the show right off the bat.  Three things happened before watching the episode, and one spoiler slapped me in the face.

First, I would love to thank Edward Norton, who stars in the newest Droid commercial.  As an iPhone owner, without bias, I found the commercial enjoyable.  This was tweet worthy at the time; however, I forgot the episode was playing out in it’s original time slot, and my Twitter community had been tweeting about it.  There is a tweet about Hershel as soon as I click the app.  Damn it, damn myself.  With that, I I say, “Oh, no…” (the dots were definitely there when I spoke, and those two words came out with a squeak).  My friends asked what was wrong, and this story was explained without giving the spoiler away.

Secondly:  as soon as we clicked the television on, we saw Rick (severely bloodied and beaten) walking arm-over-shoulder with Carl, and Judith was nowhere in sight.  In unison, we all screamed and howled at Dan to turn the television off; he reacted timely, appropriately.  The television was turned on to Laura Conrad saying how much fun it was to be on the set.  We howled in frustration again.  If this was a nut house, we patients would have revolted.

However, when Hershel got the axe (or the sword in this case)–despite my already knowing what was bound to happen–I teared up a little bit.  The scene was hard to watch, because it was more heartbreaking than graphically violent, which it was.  The surviving two daughters, Maggie (Laura) and Beth (Emily) showed their being distraught quite well.

The fact that the episode focused on Hershel’s eyes for so long was painful.  Kudos to that.  However, I was anticipating Tyreese getting his head lopped of; it’s safe to say that the graphic novels and television show will never fully align.  However, since everyone is split up, it will be interesting to see how everything pans out.  Ty still has major beef with Carol, who will definitely be back.

As for Judith/Little Ass Kicker?  She’s still alive.  Remember when Daryl was carrying the zombie?  He probably has blood on him.  Judith is safe with Uncle Daryl.

R.I.P. Hershel.

P.S.  Kudos to the kids for their one-shot kills.  I cheered louder at this scene, louder than my cheer after the New York Giants won.