The Walking Dead – Say The Word

Last week’s episode of The Walking Dead was a high point for the show, so it’s something of a disappointment that episode 5, ‘Say The Word’, doesn’t live up to the episode that preceded it, and instead goes off in some extremely weird directions.

It would be an understatement to say that Rick isn’t dealing with Lori’s death particularly well; it would be more accurate to say he’s gone well wrong in the brain box, marching into the prison with an axe to get some bloody (very bloody) retribution.  He spends the entire episode in a wordless rage, splicing and slicing walkers as he marches through the prison to find Lori’s body.  Glenn tries to calm him down, but gets nothing but a hostile response from Rick, and leaves him to get on with whatever it is he’s actually out to achieve.

It gets even weirder at the end of the episode, as Lori’s body has gone, with a suggestion that Carl couldn’t shoot his mother in the head, or that he just missed.  But while Rick does find a live, chubby walker and shoots it through the head before symbolically stabbing it in the stomach, there’s no sign of Lori, dead or re-animated (I’m pretty certain that walker wasn’t Lori, it certainly didn’t look like her).  He ends the episode by answering a phone, but who is it from?  It’s a very strange sequence of events for Rick, and it’s not really clear where this is going.  The first four episodes of the season saw him much more in control and confident in his orders, now he appears to have had a total breakdown, potentially leaving the group under threat unless someone else steps up to lead (which would most likely be Daryl or Glenn).

While Rick is busy going nut-nut, the rest of the group have to find formula for the baby, or it won’t survive.  So Daryl and Maggie head out on the road to try and find what they need, while Glenn digs graves for Lori, T-Dog and Carol.  It’s weird that he’s digging one for Carol, as she just disappeared in the previous episode.  There were no scenes of her being chewed up by walkers, yet the group don’t seem particularly interested in trying to find her, or her body.  Maggie and Daryl do manage to find some formula, but oddly enough, they manage to do it without any kind of difficulty.  They aren’t sidetracked by walkers, and they don’t come across anyone else, they simply find a house with a couple of tubs of formula and head back to the prison.

Meanwhile, we get to see more proof that the governor is a bit of a nutcase himself.  Not content with having Milton experimenting on walkers and keeping their heads in fish tanks, it appears that he’s still got his daughter to look after, even though she’s now a walker and bits of her scalp have an unfortunate tendency to peel off when he brushes her hair.

Michonne continues to be suspicious (and as the last paragraph should clearly illustrate; she should be) of the governor and his little town, and she breaks into his home to retrieve her sword and do some snooping.  She discovers a group of caged walkers and sets them free before stylishly chopping them up.  But someone sent to feed those walkers catches her in the act, and the governor is less than pleased.  He wants her to become part of his community, but she’s not buying it, drawing her sword on him before trying to convince Andrea that they have to leave.  Andrea still wants to stay, despite Michonne telling her that they won’t be allowed to leave; but when they both walk up to the exit, Merle opens the gates without much of a fuss.  Michonne is convinced it’s a trick, but still wants to leave, while Andrea thinks it has proven her wrong.  So Andrea stays and Michonne goes, but it doesn’t seem like it will be too long before Michonne returns.  The governor has been leading a day-long celebration, and that ends with Merle and another man fighting in a ring of walkers.  We’ve seen Merle out rounding them up earlier in the day; they’ve dug a hole to collect walkers in, with Milton picking some for his experiments, while others are used for the fights.  The fights are apparently staged, with walkers having their teeth removed, but Andrea is still disgusted by what she sees.

These things all add up to make a weird and not entirely successful episode of The Walking Dead.  In some ways it feels like a bit of a filler episode, exploring new ideas before future episodes act upon them.  It’s not really a bad episode, just a jarring change of pace and tone after a very strong start to the season.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Killer Within

All hail Glen Mazzara!

Season 2 of The Walking Dead was a season of two halves.  The first part of the season was still Frank Darabont’s show, but his vision was starting to go wrong, and there were apparently clashes between him and the network, with his film background not translating to television as well as had been hoped.

So when the show took a mid-season break, Darabont had been replaced and Glen Mazzara was now the show runner.  He had a big task on his hands too, with the show not really going anywhere (the search for Sophia was far too long and resolved poorly), and some particularly unlikable characters all stuck on Hershel Green’s farm.  But while the second half of the season started slowly, it finished on a high, with characters like Dale (who was incredibly annoying, and played by Darabont favourite Jeffrey DeMunn, which might have also been a factor) and Shane killed off in a frantic final few episodes that saw the group mercifully fleeing the farm after a swarm of walkers left them with no choice.

Abandoning the farm saw Andrea separated from the group, only to be found by Michonne, a popular character from the comic series, while the others eventually found themselves a prison to live in, at least temporarily.  The first two episodes focussed mostly on Rick and the others clearing the prison (with Hershel losing a leg), while the third picked up on Andrea and Michonne’s story, and how they came to meet The Governor (played by David Morrissey and another comic favourite).

Those first three episodes have all been good, but episode 4, ‘Killer Within’ is the best episode yet, and may actually be the best ever episode of The Walking Dead.

The episode opens with someone enticing walkers with deer meat around the prison.  After the credits, Hershel is ready to get back on his feet (well, his foot), and has crutches to help him get around.  Rick wants the cars moved inside the prison, to a position where they can be used to help them escape should they need to.  Oscar and Axel appear to try and convince Rick to let them join the group, but despite T-Dog believing they should help, Rick stands firm; he won’t risk the lives of everyone else to save them.

The group are happy to see Hershel emerge outside the prison, but that joy turns to fear as walkers start to pour out into the prison yard; somehow they’ve gotten out and are getting dangerously close.  This splits the group up; Rick, Daryl and Glenn are down at the fences, Beth and Hershel manage to shut themselves into a caged doorway, T-Dog and Carol are killing off walkers together while Lori, Carl and Maggie hide in a boiler room.

The Walking Dead has never shied away from bloody violence, and there’s a lot more of that in this episode, as Glenn uses a sword to slice the heads of walkers clean off, and the others use guns and crossbows to splatter walker brains all over the prison yard.  But there is blood spilt on the group’s side too, as T-Dog is pounced on from behind, with a walker taking a bite out of his shoulder.  He and Carol get away inside the prison, but he knows he is done for.  He holds off two walkers to allow Carol to get to safety, but they tear him apart.  T-Dog wasn’t exactly an exciting or well-developed character, but he’d had more to do this season, and at least gets a hero’s death.  He won’t really be missed, but it’s a good way to die.

But there’s more to come in this episode, and we come to what many people have been waiting for; the death of Lori.  Lori has been the source of much internet lamentation, especially after an incredibly annoying season 2, and her pregnancy has been something that always seemed likely to be problematic for the show.  The possibility of a zombie baby eating her after being born seemed popular online, but when she starts feeling contractions, while stuck in the boiler room with Maggie and Carl, she knows she is in trouble.

What makes this episode great is that Lori gets a death that really makes you feel something for her character.  She’s bleeding internally, and the baby isn’t ready to come, but she decides that she has to have it.  In some ways, that doesn’t really make a lot of sense; she will need to have a caesarean birth, but knows that without the proper medical equipment, she’s going to bleed out.  But that thought only occurred to me after the episode was over.  It’s a gripping segment of the show, and despite all the flaws Lori has had as a character, it’s a strong way to kill her off, especially as Carl has to shoot her in the head to stop her from returning as a walker.

It’s a devastating moment for Rick when Maggie emerges holding the baby alongside Carl.  He realises what has happened and seems to be a broken man.  It is something that will massively change things for the group, and how Rick handles it will decide their future.

Elsewhere in the episode, it turns out that Andrew (the prisoner Rick had left for dead) is the one who released the walkers and tried to restore power to the prison, and Oscar proves himself by shooting Andrew dead after he’s fought with Rick, before handing Rick his gun.  In the Governor’s town, Andrea wants to stay while Michonne is still suspicious of him, especially after noticing the army vehicles he’s acquired are riddled with bullet holes, and Andrea gives Merle a map showing him where the farm was, and he seeks the permission of the Governor to go looking for Daryl.

It seems like it won’t be long before the Governor and his men come face-to-face with Rick’s group, but how Rick handles himself with a baby to protect and his wife gone could change the show’s dynamic in a big way.

But The Walking Dead is now fully transformed into a great show and Glen Mazzara has done a great job of solving many of the problems it has previously had.  New characters are being introduced, and less popular characters are being killed off.  This is a new Walking Dead, and it’s all the better for it.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Walk With Me

There were a couple of brief glimpses of Andrea and Michonne in the first episode of The Walking Dead’s third season, but they were entirely absent in episode 2.  That wasn’t a problem because those first two episodes have been very good, but their pairing is one that does have potential, and episode 3 seems like the right time to give them their own 40-odd minutes to shine.

The episode begins with them investigating the scene of a helicopter crash.  Other than the cars the group previously had on the farm, this is the first sign of life existing in other places in the show for a while, but the landing hasn’t gone so well for the crew and passengers, as there appears to be only one survivor.  As Michonne investigates, a car pulls up and we get out first glimpse of David Morrissey as The Governor.  He’s a big character from the comic series, but I haven’t read them, so I was able to watch this episode free of expectations about what he is and what he does.

The first thing we see him doing is calmly watching a (sliced in half) soldier waking up as a walker (he calls them biters) before slamming a knife into its head and twisting it to make sure of the job.  Michonne and Andrea are watching this from a distance, so it looks like he’s mercilessly killed someone he could have helped, although he does bring the survivor to his home.

Michonne’s walkers start to draw attention to them, so she casually lops their heads off, but before they can leave, they are interrupted by the returning Merle.  He’s missing a hand, of course, but has a rather helpful knife attachment over the stump that allows him to casually kill a walker through the chin as he re-introduces himself to Andrea.  The pair are then transported to the Governor’s base, which is a surprisingly clean and normal looking part of a small town that he’s fortified and guarded long enough to make it feel like a regular home for the 70 or so people who live there.

While he appears to be a decent and normal man, there’s immediately a sense that the Governor is hiding something, or rather that there’s a side to him that most people don’t get to see.  Of course, it wouldn’t be that dramatically interesting if he was just a good person protecting a small community from a zombie apocalypse, but even so, his actions later in the episode still come as something of a surprise.

The Governor talks to Milton, a scientist experimenting on walkers to try and learn more about what causes them to ‘live’ and if there’s anything left of the person they once were inside them.  They later have breakfast with Michonne and Andrea, and Milton questions Michonne about her relationship to the walkers she roamed the country with, but Michonne is suspicious about the Governor and his town, and isn’t willing to answer Milton’s questions.

The survivor of the helicopter crash tells the Governor what happened to him and the other men, explaining that a group of soldiers are still somewhere nearby.  The Governor promises that he’ll find them and bring them back, if they’re still alive, and heads out to find them.  He seems to come in peace, waving a white rag as he approaches the group, but he then executes the first soldier he speaks to, before his men kill the rest of the soldiers in a hail of bullets.

He brings back their equipment and vehicles, telling the town that they were already dead.  It’s clear that the Governor is a ruthless and probably dangerous man; something confirmed when he opens a door in his home, and sits in front of rows of aquariums, full of the decapitated heads of walkers, including Michonne’s two jawless friends, and the one surviving soldier.

It’s a bizarre and shocking ending to a strong episode.  It’s a very good sign for the show that it can handle two separate storylines so well, and the Governor already looks like he’ll become a big part of the show in many ways.  This is The Walking Dead rebooting itself and finding a new, stronger path for the future, and it’s becoming a great show again.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Sick

I imagine it’s far too easy to say that The Walking Dead is a show that has resurrected itself (it’s come back from the dead, get it?!), but I’m saying it anyway.  There were times during season 2 where it looked like it was going to die a slow and painful death, with the group stuck on Hershel’s boring farm and Rick making ill-advised decisions.  But new show-runner Glenn Mazzara had a lot of work to do to fix the show, and he’s really making a difference now.

The first episode of season 3 was a satisfying blood bath as Rick led the group into a prison, slaughtering walkers with a ruthless aggression, before a shocking finale that saw Hershel lose a calf to a hungry walker (albeit one slumped against a wall) before Rick hacked his entire leg off below the knee in an effort to save him.  There’s no messing around in ‘Sick’ either, as we’re straight back to where we left off, with Daryl pointing his crossbow at a group of prisoners, who are understandably a bit stunned by witnessing one man slicing off another’s leg.

The group don’t have time to waste though, and with Daryl keeping his crossbow firmly on the prisoners, they rush Hershel back to the others, hoping that Carol (who has been getting some basic medical lessons from Hershel) can stop the bleeding and keep him alive.  But the prisoners follow them, and while Carol and Lori attempt to save Hershel, Rick, T-Dog (who again says actual words throughout the episode) and Daryl show the prisoners what the real world is like now.  They’ve been locked up in a canteen area for 10 months while the world has collapsed around them, and can’t believe what they are being told.  But while they eventually accept the situation, they are less than pleased by Rick’s insistence that they find somewhere else to stay.  Their de-facto leader is a man named Tomas, and it’s immediately clear that he’s not someone that can be bargained with very easily.  He claims there is ‘very little’ in the way of supplies left, but he’ll share it in exchange for weapons that will allow them to clear their own cell block.

We’re really seeing a new and improved Rick in the show, and ever since they escaped the farm he’s become far more decisive and, importantly, brutally ruthless.  When he’s helping the prisoners clear another block with T-Dog and Daryl, he sees that Tomas is a man they simply cannot trust.  After their first attempts to slaughter walkers go poorly (despite being told they need to go for the head, they try stabbing and kicking walkers), they start to kill them off more efficiently, but one of them breaks from the group and is clawed by a handless walker (it was handcuffed but pulled its own hand off while trying to break out of them, exposing a bone).  He tries to plead with Rick that he’s okay and should be allowed to live, but Tomas violently attacks him from behind, smashing his head to a bloody pulp.  When they then come up against another herd of walkers, Tomas takes a wild swing at one that barely missed Rick, and he then throws a walker onto Rick, knocking him to the ground.  Daryl rescues him, and when they’ve cleared the room, Rick wants a word with Tomas.  In what might be the best moment EVER in the show, Rick just machetes Tomas in the head, right between the eyes.

He continues this ruthlessness when one of the remaining prisoners runs.  Rick chases him down until he runs into a yard of walkers.  Instead of helping him, Rick calmly shuts the door in his face, leaving him to his fate.  It’s something that the show really needed; Rick was constantly undermined and plotted against during season 2, and it made it very difficult to root for him.  But now it’s clear that Rick is in charge and he’s not afraid to do what needs to be done, even when that means sticking a sword in a person’s head. Even more importantly, he could care less what Lori says or thinks, which is great, because she’s still awful.

And I say that even as she does something good in ‘Sick’.  When Hershel stops breathing, she tries to resuscitate him, and there’s a brilliantly done tease where Hershel suddenly bursts back to life, seemingly ready to bite her face off, but instead he’s just been saved and is still alive.  Having said that, she still tells Carl off when he returns from a trip on his own to find the infirmary (in fairness, he just suddenly reappears in the episode with medical supplies claiming he killed two walkers, with no scenes showing him doing so), and has a couple more ‘I know you hate me’ scenes with Rick, as if the writers of the show have been reading all the forums and reviews online that are screaming ‘WE HATE LORI PLEASE KILL HER!’ and written lines for Sarah Wayne Callies to say that feel like they’re apologising to the viewer for her existence.

So overall, this is an excellent episode of The Walking Dead, and as my terrible opening to the review suggests, it’s a sign of a show that’s getting better and better.  There’s no shying away from the bloody ‘reality’ of a zombie apocalypse, with almost every kill shown on camera in all their splattery glories, and the writing is much better too, making the characters much more likeable (except Lori of course) and easier to root for.  There’s no Michonne or Andrea, or even The Governor yet, but the show being able to focus solely on Rick and the rest of that group without it being boring is a very positive step.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Seed

Before a really very good final episode, season 2 of The Walking Dead was shuffling along like, well, a zombie.  With the group stuck on Hershel’s boring farm (more a product of a tight budget at AMC than good writing), Rick was making a series of questionable decisions that were creating fractions within the group.  But the final episode really shook things up.  After Rick had killed Shane, they were forced to abandon the farm after a mass of walkers over-ran it.  There were some shocking (although not unwelcome in some cases) deaths, and it set up a new season with different locations and a different group dynamic after Rick finally made himself a proper leader.

Season 3 begins a few months on from there (you can tell because Hershel has a jaunty beard, Carl’s hair has grown and Lori is very pregnant), with the group sweeping a house for walkers and food.  Carl has gotten used to firing a gun (he takes out one walker with an impressive headshot), while Daryl bags himself an owl for dinner.  They are travelling around, unable to stay in one place for long, looking for sanctuary, and they still (just slightly improbably) have cars and Daryl’s bike.  When Rick and Daryl go hunting, they find a prison.  Upon further exploration, they realise that the boundary fencing offers them some safety, if they can clear the area of walkers, they’ll have a wide open space to stay in for a while.

That’s not enough for Rick though, and he wants them to explore the prison further.  There could be food, ammunition and medical supplies inside if it’s been abandoned, and it could allow Lori to give birth with at least some of the proper equipment and drugs needed to deliver the baby safely.

Elsewhere, we’re treated to some brief scenes involving Michonne, a popular character from the comic book series (which I confess to knowing nothing about) as she ruthlessly beheads some walkers while searching for medical supplies.  She was first introduced in the final episode of season 2 when she rescued Andrea, who had been separated from the group.  Michonne is basically pretty awesome, keeping two armless and jawless walkers on chains, although when we see Andrea again, she claims to have saved Michonne several times since they met.  Andrea is sick and wants Michonne to move on without her, but she won’t do it.

Back at the prison, Rick is leading Daryl, Maggie, Glenn, Hershel and T-Dog (who amazingly has several lines of dialogue) further inside.  They meet more walkers, including some in body armour and helmets, which they eventually manage to kill, even though it takes them several attempts (Daryl fires bolts from his crossbow, T-Dog jabs at their head with a sharpened pipe) before realising that they can’t penetrate the helmets, instead stabbing upwards through the jaw to stop them.  They are able to spend the night inside part of the prison, and during the night Lori needs Hershel’s help with the baby.  She’s still worrying about having the baby at all, questioning if it could be stillborn, or kill her as she gives birth etc, and it’s a big reminder of just how annoying Lori is.  She spent most of season 2 playing Shane and Rick off against each other, and moaning and bitching like she wasn’t living in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.  It makes any scene with her hugely frustrating to watch, and I (and I imagine many other people who watch the show) find myself hoping that somehow, someway, she gets gobbled up by walkers, or is otherwise killed off, as soon as possible.

The next day, Rick leads the same group deeper into the prison.  They need to clear the whole building, and soon find themselves in the dark, exploring cells and wings that are mostly empty, apart from dead bodies or dried blood on the floors and walls.  When they find a group of walkers, they retreat, but find themselves being surrounded by walkers.  Maggie and Glenn are split from the group, and when the others try to find them, Hershel gets bitten by a walker that had casually being lying against a wall.  Rick takes immediate action by tying his belt around Hershel’s leg, before hacking it off below the knee to stop the infection spreading.  It’s a shocking and brutal moment and the highlight of a good, but not great first episode.

The zombie action in The Walking Dead has always been great, and there’s a lot of brutal action involving the walkers in this episode (my favourite moment is Rick pulling a helmet off of a walker, which takes its face with it).  The Michonne/Andrea strand of the story could be an interesting one, although it seems inevitable that they’ll re-join the main group and the finale of the episode sets up the arrival of The Governor (another big character from the comic books), played by David Morrissey.  It’s a solid enough start to the new season, and the preview of the rest of the season suggests it will be much better than season 2.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Beside The Dying Fire

So, that was season 2 of The Walking Dead.  Overall, I enjoyed it, but it’s been a season with a lot of problems, some of which are dealt with in the season finale, ‘Beside The Dying Fire’.

Shane is dead (twice).  After he killed Randall to get Rick alone and kill him, he’s dead after Rick stabbed him and Carl (rather improbably) shot him right between the eyes.  But Carl’s gunshot has attracted a huge horde of walkers to the farm.  The episode begins with their story.  It begins in Atlanta, and the sound of a helicopter passing overhead attracts some walkers, with their numbers swelling as they leave the city, heading across a field and into a forest near the farm.  This represents something of a problem.  Not only for the group of course, but in writing terms.  How long have they been there?  In the weeks since they arrived at Hershel’s farm, there’s been plenty of gunfire.  Shane taught some people how to shoot properly and there’s been the occasional lone walker to deal with.  Why haven’t they reacted to those noises?

It’s something of a hole in the story, but the important thing is that they’ve been alerted to the presence of some lovely fresh meat, and when Rick and Carl realise they are being followed, and the rest of the group at the house spot them, to quote Bad Boys II, ‘shit just got real’.  It quickly becomes apparent that defending the farm isn’t going to be possible, with Rick and Carl burning the barn to alert the group at the house, and then everyone fleeing the scene.  It’s a welcome relief, as the Green farm has been something of a burden to the show, as although walkers have been present in almost every episode, the lack of real action on the farm has sucked the life out of episodes.

This is a time for the group to fight for their lives, with some of them not being so lucky.  Well, it’s basically two of Hershel’s family, whose names you probably don’t know (Jimmy and Patricia), who get chewed right up, but while their deaths are satisfyingly gruesome, it’s hard to care as they’ve barely been in the show at all anyway.  Before they leave, T-Dog and Andrea, and Glenn and Maggie take to their cars to try and shoot down some walkers.  Shane must have been one hell of a teacher, as Glenn and Andrea seem unusually adept at shooting moving targets in the head from moving vehicles.  As the walkers descend upon the farm, the group becomes split, with Andrea having to save Carol, while T-Dog, Lori and Beth drive away, and Maggie and Glenn do the same.  Rick finally makes it back to the house with Carl, and they leave with Hershel, and Daryl picks up Carol.

They eventually reunite back on the highway, but Andrea is left alone in the woods, running out of ammo while pursued by more walkers.  She’s finally rescued by a hooded figure with a sword (a character from the comic book series called Michonne), and that’s the last we see of her this season.  The remaining members of the group don’t wait for Andrea, keen to move on, but it isn’t long before Rick’s car runs out of gas, forcing them to set up camp for the night.  It’s here where Rick admits to killing Shane, and it’s here that some of the flaws of the show are exposed.

In an earlier episode, Lori was clearly trying to force Rick’s hand, and get him to deal with Shane.  She made it clear to Rick that Shane wanted to be with her and Carl, that he wanted Rick out of the picture.  So when Rick tells her what Shane did and why he killed him, and Lori acts like she is shocked and repulsed by Rick, it makes no sense at all.  And later, when the group is questioning Rick when they hear a noise during the night, and he tells them what he did, they all act like they are shocked; despite them all knowing that Shane was dangerous and reckless.

But while there are some flaws with the show, this is a strong way to end the season.  The farm is lost, and the remaining members of the group are back on the road.  Rick has made it clear that this is no longer a democracy, they can follow him or they can leave, and season 3 will offer a new start and a new direction for them all.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Better Angels

There are two big problems that The Walking Dead has to contend with each week.

1)       Unlikable characters.  In a world of man vs. zombie, so many of the characters in the show make it hard not to root for the walkers to chew their annoying faces off.  Thankfully chief irritant Dale was done in last week, but that still leaves people like Carol, who never does anything, T-Dog, who never speaks, and Lori, who complains about everything and even bizarrely pushes gender politics on Andrea in an earlier episode.

2)      Indecision.  Rick is clearly the leader of the group, but leading is something he rarely does.  In this second run of season two episodes, he’s been unable to make one decision and stick with it.  He’s been unable to decide whether to keep or get rid of Randall, and has stuck by Shane, despite Shane being more than willing to stove Rick’s head in with wrench.

So even though Dale got a zombie fist through his chest last week, these two problems still exist.  Before he died, Dale had said that the group was broken, and that was true, but as this episode begins, it seems his death has drawn them back together.  Hershel has invited the group to come and live inside the house, and the group responds by getting to work on fortifying the house, and checking the perimeter to try and keep walkers out.  But Randall is still in the barn, cuffed, blindfolded and gagged, and a decision has to be made.  It seems like Rick has finally decided to go back to plan A, which is to drive away from the farm to dump Randall in the middle of nowhere (although Carol is getting him some provisions), and hope he doesn’t return to his group and then to the farm to start a war.

But given that Shane tried to kill Rick the last time that happened, and that they both encountered a group of walkers, why take that risk?  Luckily Shane is still around, and he has his own plans.  Lori spots Shane alone as he builds a platform on a windmill to use as a lookout point, and she thanks Shane for what he did when he got Carl and her out of Atlanta, then confesses that she doesn’t know whose baby she is carrying.  It’s safe to say that this news doesn’t exactly make Shane see the error of his ways and become a rational person to be around.

So he pays Randall a little visit, and lets him go, under the pretence of wanting to join Randall’s group.  Randall seems to buy it, but of course, that’s a mistake.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Shane ‘deals with’ Randall, and then tries to create a story about how Randall got away.  When he returns to the farm, Rick enlists Glenn and Daryl to follow Shane with him, and they try and find Randall.  The group split up, with Rick and Shane going off alone as night falls.  Rick is suspicious, which is no shock, considering he knows Shane would love to kill him, and after searching through some woods, they come out into a field where Shane draws his gun on Rick.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know it was coming, and so does Rick.  He still tries to reason with Shane, but as Shane has clearly gone totally wrong by this point, it’s not working.  It leads to another very strong ending to an episode of The Walking Dead, an episode that finally resolves some key (but not necessarily engaging) plot-lines.

The events in episode 12 seem likely to set up a dramatic final episode of season two.  The show will still have problems with its characters and their decision making, but new show runner Glen Mazarra has clearly been working hard to fix what was going wrong under Frank Darabont, and it seems that he is going in the right direction.  Leaving the farm behind may not come in this season, but the final episode may shape season three in a big way.  Episode 1

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Judge, Jury, Executioner

One of the problems The Walking Dead has is that the writers of the show have created a host of very annoying characters.  I’ve never read the comic book series, so I don’t know if they are adapting the show straight from the series or not, but there are a lot of characters that have extremely annoying traits that make it hard for you to root for them over the walkers.

One of the prime candidates for ‘Most Annoying Walking Dead Character 2011-12’ is Dale.  It’s not that Jeffrey DuMunn is a bad actor (He has appeared in all four of Frank Darabont’s movies to date), it’s just that Dale is a pompous ass, who feels that he has to protect the group’s humanity and keep them civilised despite there being an apparently global zombie apocalypse happening around them.  So he’s become the self-appointed voice of reason in The Walking Dead, wary of Shane and angering Andrea by trying to stop her from making her own choices, especially when they are the polar opposite of how Dale feels about them.

In episode 11, a lot of the focus is on Dale, as he can’t believe that Rick has decided that Randall has to be killed to protect the group,  and endeavours to persuade everyone else (even Shane), that Rick is making the wrong choice.  He seems to be fighting a losing battle, as even Hershel wants nothing to do with the decision, preferring to let Rick make the choice.  But while Dale’s humanitarian act is irritating, the truth is that he does have a point about Rick’s choice.  After all, it was Rick who decided to save Randall in the first place, after he fell from a roof and impaled his leg on a fence.  Randall is part of the group from Philadelphia that Rick, Glenn and Hershel encountered two members of in a bar in town, and the concern now is that if he is released from the farm, he will tell that group of people all about it, and lead them back to the farm for an inevitably bloody showdown.

But if that is the worry, then why did Rick save him in the first place?  Randall would have been gobbled up in minutes had Rick left him impaled on that fence, and he and Shane almost got killed when they drove him away from the farm.  To make matters worse, Carl is intrigued by the presence of Randall and what his dad is planning for him, and he sneaks into the barn where Randall is chained up to listen to what he has to say.  After Shane catches him, Carl wanders off by himself, getting a gun from Daryl’s camp (he’s moved away from the house and the rest of the group, but is giving Randall a right good kicking to get information at the start of the episode), and then stumbling across a walker trapped in mud.  He’s scared at first, then gets more confident, eventually pulling the gun on the walker.  But it gets free and lunges at him, and he panics, dropping the gun and fleeing.

Meanwhile, the group has assembled in the house to debate Randall’s future, with Dale still desperately trying to change Rick’s mind, but he can’t get anyone to back him, and the decision is made.

A lot of episode 11 is very frustrating.  The Randall storyline is a confused and illogical one, and the apparent threat of the Philadelphia group is something that the writers aren’t making enough of.  But what saves the episode from mediocrity is a strong and shocking ending that might lead to a huge change in the group dynamic as the season comes to an end.  Let’s hope so, because the show needs a new direction and fast.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – 18 Miles Out

Last week’s episode of The Walking Dead really made it clear that it is a show with some problems.  The writers seem determined to make viewers hate Shane, but to that point he’d always been right, the one member of the group to really wake up to the reality of the world after a zombie uprising.  There’s only one rule now, survival, and Shane seems to be the only person who truly understands that.  The real bad girl is Lori, who was last seen whispering sour nothings in Rick’s ear, trying to make him turn on Shane.

In episode 10, Lori continues to be annoying and bitchy; inexplicably turning on Andrea by telling her she shouldn’t be outside working on her shooting skills when there is laundry and cooking to be done.  Thankfully Andrea fights back, making it clear in no uncertain terms that she knows about Lori’s affair with Shane, and also making sure Lori realises that what she is doing is more important than domestic chores.  Elsewhere on the farm, Beth (the previously catatonic girl) is now more alert and talking, although she’s hardly full of life, talking morosely about life being pointless and suicide.  It should be pointed out that the episode takes place a week or so after the events of last week, which explains why Rick and Shane are out on the road.

They reach a crossroads, and get out of their car to talk about, you know, stuff.  Rick tells Shane he knows about his affair with Lori, as well as what happened to Otis.  Shane doesn’t attempt to lie to Rick; he explains his decision to leave Otis behind, while reminding Rick that he only did it to save Carl’s life.  While there appears to be an uneasy truce between the two, the reason they are out there is because Randall, the kid with the hole in his leg, has apparently healed sufficiently for the group to err, mercilessly dump him in the middle of nowhere instead of taking him in.  It doesn’t really tie in with Rick’s decision to save him before, why bother if he was only going to release an injured young man back into the walker infested wilderness?

But before Rick and Shane can leave Randall alone, they get into a fight after arguing over what to do with him.  It’s a no holds barred fight, one that only ends with Shane wildly launches a wrench at Rick, only to miss, smash a window of a nearby building, and awaken a horde of walkers, eager for some delicious human flesh.  Again, like last week, the action away from the farm is satisfying and exciting; with Rick, Shane and Randall getting decidedly stab happy using knives to off walkers in an attempt to save ammunition.  Rick is forced to improvise though, as he gets trapped under a pile of walkers, and decides the best way to save himself is by shooting a walker in the head through the head of an already dealt with walker.  Yup, you read that right and it’s awesome.

But the problem with this episode is that Rick once again makes it clear that he wants the group to stay at the farm.  You can understand where he is coming from, with the farm providing food and shelter for his family, but the series will get very old, very quickly if season 3 begins at the farm too.  One hope for the show is the idea that Shane and Andrea could be forced to leave the farm by themselves, allowing what seems like the only two characters in the show that actually realise what living in a world after a zombie apocalypse means to have their own adventures on the road.  The show literally needs a new direction, there’s a whole world out there, what is happening in Washington or California or even on other continents?  The Walking Dead can still be a gripping show when it wants to be, the question is, how badly does it want to be?

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Triggerfinger

When reviewing episode 8 of The Walking Dead, I talked about the behind the scenes changes to the show, and the critical reception it has received. Episode 9 is the first episode where I’ve really understood why critics have been negative towards it.

But before I get there, let’s talk about the positives. The first half of the episode is actually very good. It begins with Lori fighting off walkers after her accident, before returning to Rick, Glenn and Hershel at the (now bloody) bar in town. After killing Dave and Tony, the trio are ready to return to the farm when friends of the dead twosome suddenly appear on the scene, looking for them. When they try to enter the bar, Glenn shoves the door closed, which ultimately leads Rick to try and explain what happened to Dave and Tony, why it happened and how best to resolve it.  And let’s just say that the new strangers don’t see things Rick’s way.

It’s a strong scene, as Rick, Glenn and Hershel try to survive this new threat, then the subsequent arrival of walkers, attracted by the gunfire. But while this is good Walking Dead, what comes in the second half of the episode is bad Walking Dead.

After realising that Lori has gone after Rick, Shane heads out to find her. He does so surprisingly quickly, but has to lie to her in order to get her to return to the farm. He tells her that Rick has already returned with Hershel, which literally is the only way he can stop her from trying to get into town to bring Rick home. But when they get to the farm and she realises she has been lied to, she turns on Shane. It’s something that just doesn’t work, as Shane WAS right to lie to Lori. There was no good reason for her to go after Rick, who hadn’t even been away that long when she made her choice.

The writers of the show seem determined to make Shane the bad guy, but in reality, he is always getting things done when he needs to. Yes, he did sacrifice Otis, but he came back with the equipment and medication needed to save Carl. Yes he did lead the slaughter of the walkers in the barn, but he eliminated a threat, and found Sophia at the same time (although slightly less alive than Carol had hoped). It’s difficult to side against Shane when he makes bold decisions that Rick can’t or won’t make, something which is shown again later in the episode when Rick does return to the farm.

Then there is Beth Greene, the seemingly catatonic girl upstairs at the farm. She seemed to appear from nowhere in the show, and to have her thrust into the episodes as an apparently important figure is an odd decision. There’s been no real explanation of who she actually is before this episode, but the viewer is supposed to be concerned about her. It feels like just another reason to keep the show on the farm, when it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s time for everyone to move on. The pairing of Shane and Andrea suggests that it may be those two that do leave, with the others staying behind, but even then Shane is still drawn to Lori, believing that their relationship when they thought Rick was dead was more real than Lori wants to admit.

So The Walking Dead is a show in a state of flux. There needs to be changes, but the writers seem unwilling or unable to make them. But the ‘next time on’ preview at the end of the episode shows what might be those changes. We’ll have to wait and see, but if change doesn’t come soon, The Walking Dead may be in a bit of bother.

@TheGlassCase