He's clearly done a lot better than whoever was showrunner for season 3, but what I rly like is how he's brought the entire SERIES ARC into focus again. The MESSAGE if you will is that Dale and Herschel are wrong, Shane and Carol are right. And Rick's JOURNEY has been from the former to the latter. You can't have democracy and a simple, sustainable lifestyle. It would be a TRANSGRESSIVE message (it's anti-peace, anti-humanist, pro-violence) except it only rly applies within the fictional world of zombie apocalypse