And yeah I agree re: Shane. The character arc they're going for is interesting but yeah, the writers just plain didn't do a good job of portraying the moral ambiguity of it. He's just... kind of a douche. But sometimes he has admirable qualities. But they filter through all that douche.
The first episode is just seriously so amazing, it gets the whole tragedy of zombies on such a ridiculously human and dramatic level it blows my mind. That scene when rick first sees a zombie is exactly what it should be, he stumbles away and almost ****s his pants. Then he gets home and his family is gone and the reality of "oh my god zombies" sinks in and he just has a breakdown and tries to "wake up". That's just so legit.
Then the combo scene where Rick goes back to that zombie that's just a torso (god I feel so sorry for the person that zombie must have been, surely she got mauled by a whole pack and just torn alive) while Morgan tries to confront his wife... man. Man. So good. That episode is so damn good.