The second episode of the bifurcated Second season of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” aired last night, and it’s quite possibly the best episode so far.

“Triggerfinger” expands upon a theme not unique to, though more clearly evident in the prior episode, “Nebraska,” that, as dangerous a threat as the re-emergent dead are, they don’t hold a candle to the living, who are less motivated by the urge to do harm than the desire to survive.

Survival of the fittest doesn’t leave much room for debate, discussion, or seemingly, mercy (which makes Rick’s actions in this episode all the more poignant).

Though what impressed me most was at the end, when Rick is talking to his wife, and she mentions how dangerous she believes that Shane is becoming (Apropos of an earlier post, does anyone else, after watching “Triggerfinger,” get the feeling that Jon Bernthal is not long for the show?)

If anyone else didn’t get a slight ‘Macbeth‘ vibe from that scene, they weren’t paying attention.  By way of clarification, I mean in the sense that Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies), is not only undermining Shane’s position–which he deserves, by the way–but the way that she rests in back of Rick, and almost seems to whisper in his ear.

And the way his face, his expression, slightly changes, sells the moment.

Then there’s also the interesting way it’s dividing the group up into camps: one loyal to Rick, another to Shane, with lots of people not quite sure which way to go.

Good drama isn’t always in the grand gestures–though there’s a particularly innovative zombie attack a the beginning of the episode–but instead found in hints, and whispers of what could possibly be.

That’s one of the many details that makes “The Walking Dead” some of the best drama on television.