This was the Biggest Moral Decision in The Walking Dead Season 2

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]What's the biggest moral conundrum in season 2 of The Walking Dead? Welcome back to Lost in Games Unscripted, the series where I talk about pretty much whatever comes to mind at any given time. And today, we are talking about season 2 and the moral issues that come up in season 2 of The Walking Dead. Uh last week we talked about the season 1 and the moral situations that come up there, and there was only a few because season 1 was more about the characters, but season 2 expands on those and has some really good ones. And I think that the the one that I think is probably the biggest one might surprise you just a little bit. So, let's [music] get into it. So, when talking about moral moral conundrums uh for season 2, the biggest couple that come forward in your mind probably are whether or not to continue searching for Sophia, uh which we did a video talking about that recently.

[00:00:46]Um and then also, there's all the the debate between Shane and Rick, and then Dale's in there until he dies, talking about what to do with Randall, right? And those two moral decisions are definitely the the the the standouts of the season. They're the biggest ones I think that most people, especially with Sophia because eventually they wind up finding her in the barn, and it turns out that like Carl getting shot and uh Otis dying, right? Because Shane had to kill him on the way back. Like, all of that stuff and then the people being spread thin and Daryl getting hurt, all of that was a waste of time because Sophia had basically died probably on the first day uh when they were trying to find her.

[00:01:28]Realistically, if you look at the timing uh from the time that Otis shoots Carl, which is like the day the day two I think of the search, uh until they find Sophia, you know, there there is only a day there that Otis could have had, technically speaking, to find her wandering around, which means she would have had to have been at some point, right?

[00:01:47]So, that that's a big moral situation and something that that pops up big time.

[00:01:53]The Randall situation is also a good one because at the end of the day, the question is how do we handle this prisoner? He has He was shooting at us before, but like he had He's not technically a direct threat, so how do we handle those kind of things? Um so that that is a good one.

[00:02:07]The fight about the walkers in the barn is one that doesn't get talked about nearly as much because realistically that more that is a moral question of How do you handle the situation of You're on somebody else's land, right? They are visitors. They are staying there temporarily. Hershel has allowed them to stay on the farm while they search for Sophia. Uh so you're on somebody else's land, do you get to tell them what they can and can't do with it? The walkers in the barn are in the barn, right? They've been in the barn for a while. There's a There's a large group of them there.

[00:02:42]And while the safety aspect can come into play, realistically it's not just the the safety's not that big of a deal, right?

[00:02:51]Keep a watch on it, make sure they don't get out.

[00:02:53]>> [music] >> Uh respect Hershel's wishes.

[00:02:55]The flip side of that is that they aren't people, they're zombies, that there's no reason to keep them alive. Uh specifically they're feeding them. We see at one at one point that I think it's Patricia that goes and feeds uh chickens. She breaks chickens' legs and toss them in there. So they're they're feeding them as if they're trying to keep them alive, as if they think they need food, right?

[00:03:15]So it is a waste of resources on that on that aspect as well.

[00:03:19]So it's how do you handle this? Do we come in here? Do we take out the barn uh open up the barn like like Shane winds up eventually doing?

[00:03:27]How do we handle that situation? So all of that is kind of together, right?

[00:03:32]But to me, the biggest moral conundrum of season 2 I I don't want to say it's by a wide margin, but it might be a little bit close, but it is Rick's decision to pull Randall's leg off of the fence post.

[00:03:47]So it's uh I think it's a little after midway through the season. It's getting close to the end of the season.

[00:03:53]Uh where they Rick and Glenn go to rescue Hershel from the barn, you know.

[00:03:57]He's gone. He's the barn has been opened up. Everybody's been shot and killed. He's he's kind of like lost himself and he goes on a wants to be on a binge basically.

[00:04:07]And so Rick and Glenn show up then they had the two guys that show up and they're dealing with them and then they wind up shooting getting a shootout. At the end of the day Randall is one of the guys in that group [music] and he goes it to jump off the roof to the other building across the street to go join his buddy and get the pickup truck and leave, right?

[00:04:28]But he falls.

[00:04:29]And his leg gets caught on the fence.

[00:04:32]And there's walkers starting to close in all around. They're trying to decide what to do. Hershel's trying to find a way to like put a tourniquet on his leg so that he can cut the guy's leg off, you know.

[00:04:43]They're they're they're trying they're panicking. At the end of the day Hershel's like, "We can't do this. The best thing we could do, the most merciful thing we could do would be to put him out of his misery."

[00:04:53]And Rick can't bring himself to do that.

[00:04:56]Rick says, "No." [music] He grabs his leg, pushes it up and that's it. It goes, you know. We know that the later they go back they're heading back to the barn and they have to stop to fix him up a little bit and then they take him back and to figure out what to do with him, right?

[00:05:11]That that one decision spirals into so many things.

[00:05:17]If you think about it, if they don't bring Randall back, if they shoot Randall and they come back to the farm with Hershel, everything's fine. They haven't lost anybody. Now they know that there is another group out there somewhere.

[00:05:30]They know that Randall and his buddies that they've killed have to come from somewhere. And those guys might be looking for them. So maybe they raise their guard a little bit, right?

[00:05:38]They were already going to start moving into the farm into the house after after everything went down. Hershel's like, "Hey, let's get everybody in the house.

[00:05:45]It's going to start getting colder. We want to be safe, right?

[00:05:48]So, that would have happened regardless.

[00:05:52]With Randall, though, if he with him there, we know that there's the big back and forth with how to handle him, what to do. At [music] the end of the day, Rick decides well, we're going to take him 18 mi out. We're going to take him and we're going to drop him off.

[00:06:04]And that is the time where him and Shane have the falling out.

[00:06:08]Not only do they yell, you know, Rick kind of gives Shane the what for in the middle of the intersection, but then they get to the place and they have an all-out fistfight, you know, getting into it and and then they they do wind up leaving and coming back.

[00:06:22]Um but at the end of the day, none of that would have happened if it weren't for having Randall there. They might have stayed on the farm. They might not have gone They wouldn't have had a reason to leave, right?

[00:06:32]Dale.

[00:06:33]Dale probably wouldn't have been killed because he got mad at what was happening at the fact that they were going to kill Randall, and he walked off and went out into the field to be by himself to have some alone time cuz he was frustrated.

[00:06:46]If he doesn't go out to have the alone time, he doesn't die.

[00:06:50]Shane eventually winds up killing Randall and then leading Rick out into the into the forest cuz he wants to kill Rick.

[00:06:58]Um and of course, he doesn't go through with it, but Shane might still be alive.

[00:07:02]And their relationship would probably still be a little bit rocky cuz Shane was Shane was still frustrated with everything that was going on, but if Randall's not brought back and brought into the picture, maybe that relationship doesn't get quite as rocky and maybe Shane continues to live on.

[00:07:15]You know, maybe he leaves with Andrea.

[00:07:17]You know, they decided that they're they're going to go ahead and kick it out because everybody else is staying at the farmhouse and they don't want to.

[00:07:22]Or maybe Lori decides that she really does like Shane and wants to be with him more. She, you know, there's a whole lot of things that could have happened if they only hadn't brought Randall back.

[00:07:34]And so, that makes it the one of the the biggest moral decision in the entire season because of the implications of what happens when you when you bring him back. And [music] it's just one decision that Rick had to make. Realistically, if we're looking at it, you know, as we often do, we talk about deontology and utilitarianism in a broad sense and with these things in general.

[00:07:55]And if we're looking at it from a deontological standpoint, it it gets difficult because with that, your idea is, you know, do no harm. You don't want to hurt anybody.

[00:08:07]Realistically, if you're bringing him back, you're causing him more pain.

[00:08:12]Uh there's a good chance he could get infected. You know, if his leg gets infected and he and he could wind up dying from that infection, which is a long, slow, painful death. So, realistically, even from a deontological standpoint, it might be best to put him out of his misery, right?

[00:08:27]Don't take the chance. You don't know what how deep that thing or what it's torn within his leg. So, why take the chance of that?

[00:08:34]You know, you could also argue that, well, we have to do everything we can to save his life, right? It depends on on which piece of deontology you're going with and where you get your duty from.

[00:08:45]Utilitarianism is a lot simpler. You from a utilitarian standpoint, shooting him is the right call.

[00:08:54]Don't take him back. You don't save his life. First of all, he was shooting at you. But second of all, you're then using medical supplies that could be used on one of your own on this complete and total stranger that was just shooting at you, right? Because you're going to have to use antibiotics on him. You're going to have to use medical bandages and all that kind of stuff on him. You're going to have to monitor him. You're going to have to take care of him, feed him, make sure he has shelter and food. Like, you have all this other stuff that goes along with it.

[00:09:22]So, from both deontology and utilitarianism, what Rick did, morally speaking, [music] to save his life, could be argued that was the the the wrong call by both of those standards.

[00:09:32]And Shane, I think if it had been Shane, swap swap places with those two, I think Shane would have left him.

[00:09:39]He might have shot him, but he might not have wanted to waste a bullet. He might have said, "Well, too bad. You were shooting at us. We're leaving you."

[00:09:45]Right? I think that would have been an interesting thing to see between him and and Rick being there together or separate, you know, how Shane would have made that call differently. But, he tends to be a little bit more group oriented, whereas Rick is more individual.

[00:09:59]>> [music] >> Right? Rick looks at, "I want to help every single person."

[00:10:04]Shane is like, "I want to help the group in general. What's the best thing for the group overall?"

[00:10:09]So, that that that right there I want to know what you guys think.

[00:10:14]Uh first of all, was there any moral situations in season 2 that that you thought would have been more impactful or bigger than that one?

[00:10:22]Um I'm planning on covering seasons 3, 4, 5. I'm currently rewatching season 4.

[00:10:26]I'm I'm rewatching the series as as a whole. So, I'm currently rewatching season 4 right now.

[00:10:31]Uh and then I'm going to be covering the moral conundrum from each season as we go along. So, let me know if there's any of that you're looking forward to hearing or if there's any of them in season 2 you think that are are more impactful than what happened with Randall. Uh drop all that in the comments down below.

[00:10:46]Um like I said, I am covering I'm I'm currently rewatching the seasons and I've got the channel memberships and patrons. I'd like to shout those out.

[00:10:52]I'm going to do a little extra this time because uh last year and a half, you guys have been amazing. Everybody that has been there um whether you've been for a month or two, a couple people have jumped in and out. Uh there's been people that have been there since the beginning on the Patreon uh or on the channel memberships.

[00:11:08]The the Patreon's been up, you know, back and forth different people. Anybody that has supported me over the past year and a half, um I want to thank you for all of that because that goes a long way. And when it comes to something like The Walking Dead, it's a great way to show how that how that helps because um Patreon, I was able to pull some money out of Patreon to help get the seasons to be able to access the the seasons like I need to to be able to talk about them and rewatch them and all that kind of stuff. So, the those things actually do help fund the channel and help me continue to [music] to drive forward and do more stuff in the future.

[00:11:39]So, I want to thank all of you for all of that. Uh if you got this far in the video, make sure you hit like and subscribe to the channel. If you aren't already subscribed, why not? It takes it takes 2 seconds. Press the button. You can subscribe to Austin Games.

[00:11:51]Um but otherwise, that's all I've got for this one. I want to thank you all for watching. Everybody have a great rest of your day and I'll see you in the next one.