So last night I finally got to watch the mid-season finale of THE WALKING DEAD...

I didn't dare watch it until I went over to my girlfriend's place, 'cuz I've gotten her hooked onto this show and we've taken to enjoying it together. And since she was out of town when "Pretty Much Dead Already" - the last new episode until February - aired on Sunday night, we both held off on catching it until we could hook up again.

So now that I've finally seen it, let me reiterate what I've said all since last night about The Walking Dead's mid-season finale...

JEEBUS CRIPES CRISPIES WITH MILK!!!!!!

Awright, I'll admit that I am not a routine television viewer but even so: if this episode didn't firmly establish The Walking Dead as THE finest show currently being broadcast, then I can't possibly imagine what could be.

The whole heapin' episode was some of the finest television ever scripted and shot. Again, I have to observe that this show is not so much about a "zombie apocalypse" as it is about the intensely and very real human drama. It's what this show does best and "Pretty Much Dead Already" pegged the needle before breaking it off and sending it spinning wildly. Witnessing the tensions rising among Rick's band of survivors and then the clashing with Hershel, culminating in those last five minutes outside the barn where Hershel and his family have been keeping well over a dozen walkers.

If it had stopped with Shane's screaming and ensuing slaughter of the walkers, it would have been a solid point to leave things until February. But then, that one final walker had to come out of the barn...

That might have been the most disturbing and haunting payoff of a lingering plotline that I've seen in a long time. Maybe ever.

It's gonna be a long three months until February. But if the show resumes then with as much high-caliber storytelling, we are gonna be in for something insanely good.

Oh yeah, I couldn't make it out last night but going back on my DVR in high-def: Hershel's Bible study as he eats lunch is Luke 8, beginning with verse 22. That particular selection is about Jesus calming the storm, His healing of the demon-possessed man at Gerasenes, the healing of the woman who had long suffered a bleeding sore and the raising of the dead girl, Jesus sending out the Twelve Disciples, and the feeding of the five thousand. Don't know if that has any bearing on the story but, well... now y'all know :-)