The Walking Dead: Gambler’s Edition – Shane

Good guy turned bad… Shane from The Walking Dead is the classic example of this. What kind of a gambler would he be, though?

Spoiler Alert!
One thing is for sure. Shane would never in a million years become a poker winner. He would also feel too uncomfortable in US poker rooms, so he should just stay at home. Phew. Now that we got that out of the way, we can get back to talking about who Shane is. He used to be Rick’s BFF and a sheriff’s deputy. He tried to save Rick’s life when the zombie apocalypse broke out, but realized that Rick wasn’t going to wake up and left him secured in his hospital room. Shane then decided to take care of his BFF’s family, so he saved Lori and Carl.

• Too insane to play
• Emotionally unstable
• Morally questionable

On the road to Atlanta, Shane started to develop feelings for Lori and they started a relationship. He also started to develop fatherly feelings for Carl, teaching him how to fish and playing with him… he thought that with Rick gone, Lori and Carl were going to be his family. I’ve got to hand it to him, he really stepped up and protected them. And he truly tried to save Rick, so that’s a plus point, too. We can see that he feels guilt for his emotions towards Lori, which is completely understandable; we’re talking about the wife about his best friend who “died” a hero. Shane’s conflict with himself can be felt on many levels.

Too happy for it to be PC

Yes. Being too happy with your dead BFF’s family is everything but politically correct. He knows that, Lori knows that… only Carl is too young to notice. They find a group of people and the soon-to-be “Rick’s group” starts to take form. Shane is also a kind-of leader type, plus everyone knows he used to be a sheriff’s deputy, so everyone follows suite on his ideas. Everything is dandy until Rick shows up with Glenn and the others… from that point on, Shane’s sanity goes downhill. Because of his increasingly psychotic behavior, I wouldn’t let him near people. Mobile betting sites are the solution for him.

From the point he realizes that Rick is alive and Lori and Carl are no longer part of his happy little family fantasyland, Shane starts to act out. He has fits, is angry at everyone and it seems like he starts to enjoy killing Walkers. He becomes a cold, cold man with an iron heart, and he starts being way too pragmatic when it comes to moral decisions. From the moment Rick is back and takes over leadership of the group, we can sense that Shane wants to be group leader, because it’s his holy belief that he would do a much better job at keeping everyone safe. (Not egotistic AT ALL…)

Shane’s end comes way too late…

Tension is growing between Rick and Shane, they are like two alphas fighting for a leading position in the pack. Shane goes ever deeper into insanity when he finds out that Lori is pregnant; he believes that the unborn child is his. This leads him to even more erratic and radical behavior patterns; his only aim is to keep Lori, Carl and the baby safe. He completely goes off the rails. At one point, he even considers shooting Rick. He doesn’t go through with it, maybe because he’s caught by another character. Due to his unstable behavior, I am not sure that gambling is the way to go for Shane (even if it’s on mobile casinos,) because he obviously cannot handle stressful situations.

By the time we get to the episode in which Shane dies, he is so deranged that he actually lures Rick out into a field with the plan to kill him. He pretends that they’re looking for an escaped prisoner. Thankfully, Rick wasn’t born yesterday, so he quickly realizes Shane’s intentions and beats him to the punch: he stabs him in the chest. Of course, Shane reanimates and turns into a Walker. In the end, Carl kills him (this time for good) with a headshot. Somehow, when everyone finds out Shane is dead, we can sense relief flooding over the group; there was too much tension with him around.