page_title: Pretty Much Dead Already
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Pretty Much Dead Already / Production
caption_attribution_description: Madison Lintz ("Sophia") from "The Walking Dead" at Spooky Empire's Ultimate Horror Weekend 2014 held in Orlando, Florida.
context_page_description: "Pretty Much Dead Already" is the seventh episode and mid-season finale of the second season of the post-apocalyptic horror television series The Walking Dead. It originally aired on AMC in the United States on November 27, 2011. In the episode, Glenn reveals to the group that there are walkers in the Greenes' barn, dividing the group on what to do. Hershel Greene sets a deadline for the group to leave, unless Rick Grimes does a difficult task. Meanwhile, Shane Walsh slowly loses his sanity after many secrets around him are revealed and Carol Peletier begins to question whether her daughter, Sophia will be found.
  The episode was written by Scott M. Gimple and directed by Michelle MacLaren. The death of Sophia Peletier is a prominent theme in "Pretty Much Dead Already"; she was killed by Grimes following her conversion into a walker. Robert Kirkman felt that killing Sophia off would add more dimension to the show, and create more flexibility in regards to the progression of the storylines, as well as leading to very different storylines from the comic series, with Carol outliving her daughter, as opposed to the other way around.
context_section_description: "Pretty Much Dead Already" was written by Scott M. Gimple and directed by Michelle MacLaren. It features recurring appearances from Lauren Cohan, Scott Wilson, IronE Singleton, Madison Lintz, Emily Kinney, Jane McNeill, James Allen McCune, and Amber Chaney. Following the initial broadcast of the previous installment, "Secrets", writer Robert Kirkman teased the following episode "Pretty Much Dead Already". He stated: "There's a lot of big stuff out there that we will be wrapping up to a certain extent. In the writers' room we were fully aware that we were coming up on this hiatus, so we definitely wrote to it. I think people are going to be a little shocked."
  The death of Sophia Peletier is a major incident in "Pretty Much Dead Already", largely affecting the themes of the episode. After the group has shot the walkers housed in Hershel Greene's barn, Sophia appears from the barn as a walker, much to the groups' dismay. A disturbed and distraught Rick Grimes pulls out his weapon and makes the decision to shoot her. Despite being initially surprised about her character's being killed off, Madison Lintz concluded that she understood its aftermath for the show. Lintz affirmed that portraying a walker was a welcoming experience for her, and stated that she was "going to look back on and say that was amazing." Robert Kirkman felt that killing Sophia would add more dimension to the show, as well as add more flexibility to its storyline progression. "When a good idea comes up, you have to go with it," he articulated. "Sophia is a character who is still alive in the comic book series and who has contributed quite a bit to the overall narrative and informed a lot of story lines for a lot of different characters. Having Carol [...] survive her daughter as opposed to the other way around as it is in the comics is going to lead to interesting but different stories." Although Kirkman was not on set during production of the sequence, Gimple retrieved shell casings from the blanks that were fired on set. Referred to as "Barnageddon" by the writers, Kirkman asserted that he emphasized unpredictability while creating the scene.
  It's good to know people didn't see it coming. That's a big concern when you have this kind of story line and you are leading to that kind of reveal. You don't want people to be expecting it, especially in the Walking Dead. I pride myself in the fact that, when you pick up an issue of the comic, you don't know what's going to happen at any time. So any time we can work that into the show and maintain that in a television environment, it's very exciting for me. I’m glad people are being caught off guard.
  Other themes prevalent in the episode include Lori's pregnancy. After getting into a heated argument, Rick reveals to Shane about her pregnancy. Although he didn't question who the biological father was, Robert Kirkman felt that Rick was "smart enough to know that the kid's either his or Shane's and there may not be any way of ever finding out that definitively." He continued: "Bringing that up to his wife, who he loves, is only going to be painful for her. I think that’s him being a good husband and him showing his tremendous leadership ability in that he can put his self aside for the betterment of someone else."
caption: This episode marks the departure of Sophia Peletier, portrayed by Madison Lintz.
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