I'm not so sure they were trying to make him seem 'badass', I actually got exactly what you did, and don't like him as much (although I don't dislike the character); but I thought they were intentionally revealing his darker, true self. Especially with the story of him during war and telling his young child all the gory details. He's clearly very fucked up, and to me that's what they were trying to show, not that he was 'hardened'...I mean, which he is, just in a really bad way. As you said, he went from being stern yet caring to cold and calculating. I like that type of character development though, he's got a really evil side that we didn't see before, and that story as well as the torture scenes brought that to the surface.
I really enjoyed the episode a lot, especially whenever the main dad (I can't remember certain character's names for shit
) was going to shoot the walker and then couldn't simply because of the name-tag and 'realizing' (remembering) that they were once human. I really think that he's the weakest character so far and yet I don't think he'll be one of the initial characters to die. I really loved the ending scene and...again, I'm not so sure that he's going to open the gates; I think he just wanted to confirm if the soldier was lying, or if there was anything to see, etc. But man...if he does, then yeah, the character is full on fucked in every fashion. At this point, he's really messed up and skewed, morally deranged, but he still seems to want to protect his loved ones, albiet in a very violent way with no regard for those he doesn't love. If he does that though, it's all gone. However, I didn't see that at all...he looked scared shitless.
I'm excited for the finale! I think this was a pretty great start and I really enjoyed the slower exposition. People seem to be thinking that things went to shit quicker than expected but I don't think they realize that...we've seen a minute, tiny little portion of not even the state, but the city alone. I'm betting that once they inevitably get the fuck out of there at the end of the finale (nice parallels to the end of the first season), they'll find that there are pockets of areas that haven't felt the impact as much as this area. I'm sure the bigger cities are fucked by now and/or are about to collapse completely, but it'll be interesting to see if they do any time skips, or show areas that are blinded to it, etc. But the scene with the main dad sitting in the army vehicle while listening to the radio was pretty powerful and kind of lifted the veil on the whole 'there's nothing out there' shtick. That was another great scene. I'm excited to see what the finale and season 2 brings us.