“The Walking Dead” premiered in October of last year with one of the best pilot episodes ever filmed for basic cable.  It then proceeded to get absolutely, off-the-rails stupid with subplots involving gangsters protecting the elderly, a handless Michael Rooker and a psychic hillbilly.  The season finale was the pinnacle of dumb; beginning with a hilariously half-assed statement against using fossil fuels, it concluded with the main character’s escape of the self-destructing Center for Disease Control with a grenade stashed in some chick’s purse for the previous three episodes.

Needless to say, I didn’t have high hopes for the second season, but after I saw that the semi-lucid schizophrenics who wrote season one had been fired and that 7.4 million people had watched the premier, I decided to give “The Walking Dead” another go.