Starting off the season the group of survivors from the Season 1 explosion find themselves stuck on the highway. When one of them is lost they decide to reside on a farm in the neighborhood so they can continue looking.
There you have it, that's the premise of Season 2 and it hardly gets any better than that. As far as zombie apocalypses go The Walking Dead is unique in slowing down the story so much it hardly even leaves a place. Whereas Season 1 was a road trip through zombie nation encountering several diverse groups of people trying to survive, Season 2 is about a farm with a barn and how no one should have kids ever in case zombies take over the world.
The season, however, isn't a complete waist of time. From the extra long season premiere to the extra boring season finale there are a lot of twists that keep the story interesting. But they are all solely based on your relation with the characters. As the group is a little bit smaller it's easier to establish some of the background characters and have the group be as diverse and dynamic as it could be. Most of these characters don't owe each other a thing and that's kind of a great story to build from. Especially since most of the season's slowed down storytelling comes from the idea that some of these characters could (and often should) leave but decide not to.
As far as new characters go the season offers very little. The owner of the farm, Hershel, is by far the most interesting. While he often saves the day, he's also an implied villain. Much of which is done by the talented Scott Wilson. Every other character thrown into the fold leaves room for imagination, making them disposable. The core cast pretty much stays the same though Daryl quickly becomes the season's scene stealer. Aside from him it's hard to care for any of the others. The writer's, apparently, seem to have no trouble with getting everybody shot or attacked. It allows some action in the otherwise surprisingly quiet setting of Season 2 but it also makes you not care.
The story of Season 2 just doesn't seem worth it. When slowly building up a story like the season does for six episodes, the pay-off has to be worth it. And in case of 'Pretty Much Dead Already' it certainly wasn't. The final scenes of the season offered such uninteresting and predictable twists that it felt like you were robbed of seven hours of your life. Looking back, a lot of the filler stories aren't worth watching either. They have so little to do with the zombie apocalypse you feel like you're watching just another soap opera. The penultimate 'Secrets' for instance is exactly about that, everyone has cliche secrets and it's extremely hard to keep them, since you have nothing else to do but shoot zombies and lie.
Nothing is left from the promising Season 1 as Season 2 slows down the game without making you care for characters and offering twists and cliffhangers that ultimately were all irrelevant for the story. I was never a fan of zombies since they are slow, very stupid and more hilarious than scary. The second season of The Walking Dead, unfortunately, is exactly that.
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