Hawaii Five-O, American Country Awards, Martha Stewart's Holiday Open House

Hawaii Five-O, 10 p.m., CBS
Here's a new drinking game idea: take a shot every time either McGarrett takes off his shirt or Kono does something in her underpants. Just make sure you have a designated driver, and probably a bucket for later.

American Country Awards, 8 p.m., Fox
"The public votes for country music favorites. Musical performers include Toby Keith, Rascal Flatts, Reba, Blake Shelton, Josh Turner, Easton Corbin, Steel Magnolia and Uncle Kracker; Alan Jackson receives the Greatest Hits Award; Trace Adkins hosts." Uncle Kracker! I thought he was dead.

Martha Stewart's Holiday Open House, 8 p.m., Hallmark
"Martha opens her Maple Avenue home to demonstrate unique Christmas craft, culinary and decorating ideas." Trust me. Don't even try. It only leads to heartache, and quite likely hot-glue-gun burns. I know of what I speak.

 Daily Recap:  The Walking Dead  

When Carol sent the kids to bed in the CDC bunker on The Walking Dead last night, my friend Scott turned to me and asked "There's a bedtime in the apocalypse?"

The survivor's attempts to recreate normalcy have been a recurring theme in the show, but it was front and center last night.  Presented with hot water, the first food in days and far more alcohol than any government research facility should reasonably contain, this is the closest the group has come to experiencing their former lives.

Ultimately it is an illusion.  But the show does a good job of examining the difficulty of returning to the old way of life, first subtly as the characters get used to the comforts of the bunker and then much more bluntly in the face of Edwin Jenner's nihilistic tirade.  As far as the former goes, amenities are not the same thing as civilization; a fact exemplified best when Shane confronts Lori about their affair.  It was hard to watch, but wildly effective and a great showing of why, even safe from zombies, the survivors can't let their guard down.

A scene like that makes you consider that the zombie apocalypse is one of the most stabilizing influences in the society that's been created amongst the survivors.  The ever-present common enemy is even able to force psychopath racists like Merle and Daryl to cooperate with T-Dog and Jacqui.

Jenner's suicidal philosophy is mostly inspired by the fact that society has been torn down, but the earliest scenes of the story suggest that the zombies didn't have as much to do with that as the people.  In the flashback, we see that the human response is to shoot one another and hide.  At the camp, peace meant someone — usually Shane — was about to hit someone else.  Jenner's note about all the viral weapons in the building is another haunting reminder of what people can do in civilizations.

It begs the question: if the survivor's are ultimately able to escape will they ever really be able to settle?

["DAWN OF THE DEAD" SPOILER ALERT]

It also reminds me of one of my favorite aspects of Romero's Dawn of the Dead.  In which the survivors finally clear out the mall and form a comfortable living only to become insanely bored and maybe even depressed.  I've always wondered if Tom Savini's character was a kind of savior, rather than a destroyer.

[END SPOILERS]

There was a lot else going on in this episode though.  We get a few great comparison scenes between Rick and Shane, whose response to Jenner is to fire off a few shotgun shells into a computer.  It makes me wonder, if the roles were reversed and Shane were in the hospital bed, would Rick have abandoned him?

Jenner was a delight to watch, incidentally.  In a short period of time he became significantly more fleshed out that a lot of the supporting characters we've been watching all season.  And there were some great subtle notes about him.  Like the way his computer is anthropomorphized and the fact that he wears a tie and labcoat to his death while he rants about the downfall of humanity.  My favorite part is probably how, even though he's planning on killing himself, he brings a rifle to protect himself against the survivors, who have him outgunned anyway.  It's ironic but a great example of Rick's speech about choices and the nature of survival.

[COMIC BOOK SPOILERS]

It's killing me to see scenes like the one where Carl tries wine and spits it out.  It's so stark when you consider his reaction much later in the comic plots when he is forced to kill one of the twins, almost completely emotionlessly.

I'm a little surprised this season didn't end where the first collection did.  Shane and Rick's conflict was one of the more present tensions on the show and that resolution is a perfect capper.  On the other hand, it's nice to explore their relationship a little more, which didn't get much screen time in the books.