The Walking Dead – I Ain’t A Judas

After an excellent first half of a season, The Walking Dead suddenly finds itself in something of a holding pattern as season three comes to an end.  Everyone is waiting for a Rick vs. Phil the Governor Mortal Kombat-style face-to-face fight to the death, but there are still another five episodes of this season to go, so the show has to find other ways to fill the time.  Unfortunately, the writers have decided that the best way to do this is by pushing Andrea, the worst character in the show by a distance, to the forefront, and make ‘I Ain’t A Judas’ a bit of a non-event as an episode.

Andrea finds out that the Governor has gone to the prison and there’s been a battle, and she’s not happy about it.  The Governor claims that the people at the prison have changed since Andrea knew them and that they fired first (which isn’t true, of course), but she wants to go to the prison and speak to them to try and avoid more battles in the future.  But the Governor doesn’t want to hear it, and tells her that if she goes, she should stay there.

I don’t think I’m alone in agreeing with the Governor’s assertion there, as a lot of people would like Andrea to just go away and never come back (or failing that, get munched on by a walker or two….or five), but she’s made her mind up, she’s going to the prison, and she wants Milton to help her.  Milton is another problem character for the show but he’s not annoying so much as he is pointless.  He’s been created for the show, but has already served his purpose (he’s been experimenting on walkers, and basically made no progress), so he just lingers around Woodbury.  He agrees to help Andrea, but is actually following the Governor’s orders.

Out in the wild, Andrea follows Michonne’s lead by capturing one and hacking off its arms before American History X-ing its jaw off, and she gets some help from Tyreese and his group, who are directed to Woodbury by Milton.  Andrea reaches the prison, but Rick doesn’t exactly afford her a warm welcome, and she’s surprised to hear that the Governor fired on them first.  She’s trying to negotiate a truce, but when that doesn’t work, she blames Michonne for ‘poisoning’ the group against the Governor, even though he’s quite clearly a bit of a nutjob.

Andrea leaves the prison by car, with the group making her consider killing the Governor for them, ending the threat of war before it starts, and we’re treated to the bizarre (in the context of The Walking Dead as a show) sight of a naked Andrea (or most likely a butt-double) climbing out of the Governor’s bed and taking a knife, as she considers killing him in his sleep, something she is ultimately unable to do.

I worried last week that the show was in danger of repeating itself and getting stuck in the same routine heading into season four, and this episode is another disappointing one.  Andrea and Merle are annoying characters that don’t really bring anything to the table, and delaying the showdown between Rick and the Governor (something that looks like being delayed further, based on the preview of next week’s episode) is stalling the show’s progress.

The Walking Dead really needs to find more to do with itself than just having the original group moving to a new destination each season, and season 3 seems to be coming to a stuttering end.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Home

One of the biggest problems The Walking Dead has had since it began is the sheer number of annoying, or just badly written characters.  That really became a problem during the second half of season 2, when everything happened on, or just off, Hershel Green’s farm, and the conversations (and arguments) between many of the characters just became a blur and a reason to shout abuse at the television when someone as crushingly dull as Dale was babbling on about morals etc.

So when Glen Mazzara replaced Frank Darabont as show runner, he had problems to deal with, and he did a good job of that in the final episodes of that season, and continued to do so as season 3 began.  So the likes of Dale, Shane, Lori and T-Dog were killed off, because they were either really annoying or crushingly dull (sometimes both), and then the survivors finally got off the farm and back on the road.  And season 3 has been much better, with Rick taking control of the group, and making them into a tighter unit; a more ruthless and self-reliant group of people who found a prison and took control of it, giving themselves a place to stay in relative safety.  It’s also seen the introduction of David Morrissey as the Governor, and Danai Gurira as Michonne, giving the show better characters and, more importantly, different locations to film on.

But everything isn’t rosy in the world of The Walking Dead, and season 3’s 10^th episode (‘Home’) is one that has a lot of problems, although it does have a finale that somewhat makes up for what happens earlier in the episode.  There’s certainly no competition for the worst thing about the episode, and that is Rick’s continued nuttiness, as he wanders off outside the perimeters of the prison following ghost Lori around.  After Lori was (mercifully) killed off, Rick had one episode of madness as he had imagined telephone conversations with Lori and other people who he’d known and lost.  To an extent, that was fine, as no-one is going to argue that losing your wife and gaining a daughter would mess with anyone’s head, even if they weren’t living in a world over-run by flesh-eating zombies.  But to be blunt, Andrew Lincoln’s ‘I’m mad and I’m seeing things’ acting is rubbish, and it’s a relief when his mental stupor is broken by a surprise attack from the Governor and his men at the episode’s end.

With Rick having a breakdown, and Daryl going off with Merle, Glenn puts himself in charge of the prison group, and he’s intent on striking at the Governor before he strikes at them, even though they would be hopelessly outnumbered and ammunition is running low.  He’s unable to convince the others that this is a sound plan, and can’t rely on Maggie to back him up as she’s understandably in shock after everything that happened at Woodbury.  Over at Woodbury, Andrea is asking questions again, and it’s an element of the show that’s really difficult to take to.  Andrea has always been one of those annoying characters The Walking Dead forces upon its audience, and this is a good example of why.  She’s charmed her way into the Governor’s bed, but now seems to think she’s an important member of the community in Woodbury, and it’s no surprise when Milton and others shrug off her questions about where some of the men of the town are.

That’s because even though the Governor has told Andrea that he won’t attack the prison, he’s actually planning to do exactly that (because obviously).

Talking of annoying characters, Merle has resumed his old ways with Daryl (in other words, bullying him and generally being obnoxious) as they head out on their own.  Merle is a very one-dimensional character, and his presence on the show is becoming a chore.  The pair happen upon a group of Mexicans caught in a walker herd, and while Daryl wants to help, Merle prefers to chastise Daryl while also firing off racial epithets and looking for things to steal from the group.  It all leads to Daryl deciding to leave Merle and head back to the prison, and you’re left wondering why he bothered going with his brother in the first place.  There’s just no place for Michael Rooker’s character in the show, and even though he follows Daryl to the prison and helps against the Governor’s assault, the sooner he gets written out of the show the better.

What the episode does do well is the surprise factor of the Governor’s assault.  The surprise comes via a bullet to Axel’s head, as he’s chatting away to Carol, blissfully unaware of an impending threat.  He was also a character that didn’t have much to do, so the show won’t miss him, but it’s still a good way to start a battle that sees Rick snap out of his daze and a new fight for the prison group to face.  It’s a bloody fight that brings some much needed spark to an otherwise poor episode.

The show is inevitably building to a showdown between Rick and the Governor, but that in itself throws up some questions about the long-term future of the show.  I would assume that Team Rick will triumph over the Governor, but if they do, what happens next?  If season 4 continued in the prison, where’s the story?  If the survivors head back out on the road, what makes future episodes different from what’s come before?

With Glen Mazzara stepping down as show-runner, there must be some questions about the show’s future.  It may be time for it to go in a new direction, and instead of focusing on survival, find a way to explore the story from different angles.

I haven’t suddenly fallen out of love with The Walking Dead, but it’s in danger of becoming a show that repeats itself.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – The Suicide King

The Walking Dead returns for the second half of season 3 with a chaotic but solid episode that sees a lot of changes on all sides.  The last episode ended with a new group arriving at the prison, while Daryl was set to fight Merle, with the now one-eyed Governor looking for loyalty from Merle, and that’s where this episode, ‘The Suicide King’ kicks off.

Merle and Daryl have to fight, and it’s not surprising that Merle is the man to land the first blow.  He’s always seemed capable of doing anything to anyone, and it does seem like he’d be willing to kill Daryl in order to stay alive.  But before we can find out for sure, Rick and Maggie return to rescue Daryl, striking hard against the Governor’s people (and one or two walkers) and getting Daryl to safety, although they are reluctantly forced to accept that Merle is coming with them, at least until they are safely clear of Woodbury.

Glenn and Michonne are naturally less than happy to see Merle when they return to the cars, and he wastes no time in being his usual vulgar self, insulting both of them before Rick does the decent thing and cracks him on the back of the head with a gun.  But Rick is adamant that Merle isn’t coming back to the prison with them, which forces Daryl to choose a side.  Despite everything that has happened between them (Merle has always bullied Daryl and is, in general, thoroughly obnoxious) Daryl chooses to go with Merle, while Glenn is angry at Maggie and especially Rick for not killing Merle after everything that he’s done.

While there’s trouble in the prison camp, there’s even more trouble at Woodbury, as a night of chaos has panicked the residents, who no longer feel safe in the town, and want to leave.  A crowd is forming at the gates, with the Governor nowhere to be seen.  It’s up to Andrea to try and calm them down, although it’s not really a role that feels realistic for her.  Andrea hasn’t been in Woodbury for that long, and although she’s become the Governor’s partner in the bedroom department, I’m not sure why anyone in Woodbury would suddenly trust what she had to say.  After she’s somewhat calmed the commotion at the gates, another one starts up as two walkers get a hold of a resident and start having a good chomp on him before Andrea and a guard can kill them.  The Governor re-appears to put the chomped man out of his misery, before stomping back up to his room.

Andrea tries to get him to say something to the people who start gathering outside, but being stabbed in the eye has unsurprisingly led to an attitude change for the Governor, and Andrea is again forced to re-assure the residents herself.  It is again a little bit too easy for her when it comes to convincing them to stay, but she does manage to do it.

Back at the prison, the new group (who seem to be led by Tyreese, played Chad Coleman) are disagreeing over what they should do next.  One of them thinks they could over-power Carol and Carl and then take over the prison before Rick returns, but Tyreese won’t have it.  When Rick does return, he’s reluctant to let them stay, but Herschel appears to have successfully changed his mind when he warns him about the numbers the Governor could muster if (when) he decides to come looking for revenge.

But Rick sees a ghostly apparition of Lori, and he doesn’t handle it well, having a bit of a breakdown and demanding Tyreese and his group leave immediately.  It’s a poor end to a solid episode, as Lori’s appearance and Rick’s reaction to it doesn’t really work very well.  To have Rick suddenly go a bit wrong is an idea that doesn’t immediately work, and Andrew Lincoln’s ‘I’ve got nut-nut’ acting isn’t very convincing.

So as The Walking Dead returns, there are a couple of issues with what’s happening in it.  Season 3 continues to be a massive improvement on the stagnant season 2, and a confrontation between Rick and the Governor seems inevitable, but Rick’s descent into madness could be problematic.  This episode sees Glenn questioning Rick like he never has before, and Rick’s visions could put his ability to lead the prison group under scrutiny.  I hope that ghost Lori doesn’t hang around for too long, not only because she was such a terrible character when she was alive, but also because it doesn’t immediately feel like something that will work.

But I’m not too worried about the show at this point.  This was a good episode and the good things about this season as a whole outweigh the bad.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Made To Suffer

After last week’s episode of The Walking Dead, I expected this mid-season finale to take place purely at the Governor’s town, as Rick, Daryl, Michonne and Oscar came looking for Maggie and Glenn.  So it seems a little strange that the episode begins with the introduction of a new group of characters, led by Tyreese (Chad Coleman, aka Cutty from The Wire).  With the episode appearing to be set up for a confrontation between Rick and the Governor, its pre-credits sequence instead sees Tyreese leading his group (including a freshly bitten woman) into the prison from a previously unseen collapsed part of the building.

It’s not that I’m against the introduction of new characters and an expansion of the world that The Walking Dead currently exists in, but it seems to be an unusual time to bring in a new group of characters who ultimately don’t do very much in an episode that has more important things to be getting on with.  So all we really see from Tyreese and his group is Carl rescuing them as they (expertly, it has to be said) kill off some walkers inside the prison, before Carl locks them in a room separate from his group, albeit with food and water.

That’s basically that for the prison side of the story, although there’s the threat of the Governor sending some of his men (most likely led by Merle) to the prison, while Axel seems to be making unwelcome advances on Beth (and when Carol chastises him for it, he tells her that he thought she was a lesbian, and is delighted, while she’s disgusted, when he finds out she isn’t).  I’m not really sure of the point of this part of the episode, unless it’s hinting that Axel is eventually going to be killed off (most likely by Carl who has taken a liking to Beth).

But the real attraction of this episode is the first clash between Team Rick and Team Governor, as Michonne leads Rick’s group into the town as they attempt to rescue Maggie and Glenn.  They’re making an escape attempt themselves, as Glenn takes advantage of the walker he killed by yanking its arm off, and pulling out the bones to use as weapons (Maggie will later plunge her half into the neck of a no-line Governor hood).  While Rick, Daryl and Oscar continue their rescue of Maggie and Glenn, Michonne has other plans, lying in wait for the Governor in his home.  It’s then that she discovers the Governor’s zombiefied daughter, and she’s about to kill her when he returns.  He begs with Michonne to spare his daughter, but she, in typical Michonne style, sticks her sword through the girl’s face, prompting a furious response from the Governor.  Like Glenn versus the walker last week, it’s a punishing and visceral fight, with each side getting the upper hand before Michonne shoves a shard of glass into one of the Governor’s eyes.

It’s at this point that Andrea returns, with Michonne only just stopping herself from slicing Andrea’s head off.  While Andrea is initially angry with Michonne, that changes when she notices the severed heads from the Governor’s aquarium (which are snapping away on the floor like dying fish).  The Governor doesn’t really offer Andrea a reasonable explanation for his aquatic gallery, but for whatever reason she stays by his side, as Rick’s team is discovered and a shoot out begins.

Rick, Daryl and Oscar have rescued Maggie and Glenn just as Merle was about to execute them (they’ve got a handy supply of smoke grenades from the prison which are used throughout the episode to stop Merle and Daryl from seeing each other) which alerts the town to their presence, and although Rick escapes with Maggie and Glenn, and Michonne also makes it out, Oscar is shot (once by the Governor’s side, and then in the head by Maggie) and Daryl is left behind.

Where the episode ends is not exactly what I was expecting.  Although someone from Rick’s group being left behind on the Governor’s side always seemed likely, it’s not immediately clear what’s going to happen next as the Governor announces to the town that Merle is a traitor, and that he’s been feeding information to Daryl, who is now captive on their side.

So what happens next is a bit of a mystery (not that this is a bad thing).  How will Rick react to the new arrivals at the prison, and will they join forces to try and rescue Daryl?  What is the Governor planning for Daryl and Merle?  Will he make them fight each other?  Will he try to brainwash Daryl into joining his side, or will he send Merle out to the prison as a traitor (or posing as one) to get more information about them or to help launch a sneak attack?

It certainly leaves The Walking Dead in an interesting place, and it’s good for the show that what happens next isn’t necessarily predictable.  It maybe isn’t an explosive cliff-hanger that will leave you desperate for the next episode, but it does give viewers the time to wonder what might happen next before the show returns in February.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – When The Dead Come Knocking

In the new and improved The Walking Dead, the writers have realised that standing still is death for the show.  So gone are the memories of nothing happen on the Green farm, replaced with an ever evolving show where characters are switching sides and splitting up, and there’s something new happening every week.

As I suggested last week, the show is now building towards what is sure to be an extremely annoying cliff-hanger of a mid-season finale (because we’ll have to wait until February for episode 9), with this week’s episode setting up a Team Rick vs. Team Governor showdown, as Michonne tells Rick’s side what happened to Maggie and Glenn, while they tell the Governor about the prison after some harsh treatment and the hands of the Governor (Maggie) and the hand of Merle (Glenn).

And it’s hard to say who gets the worst of it between Maggie and Glenn.  While Glenn is physically abused by Merle, who not only punches him repeatedly in the face, but unleashes a walker on Glenn while he’s still bound to a chair (and the way Glenn handles that is visceral and thrilling to watch), Maggie is humiliated and mentally tortured by the Governor, who acts like he’s going to rape her (after making her take off her shirt and bra), although he stops when he realises that she won’t give him the answers he wants.  So it’s not really a surprise that it’s Maggie who tells him about the prison (and you certainly can’t blame her for doing so), when she and Glenn are finally in the same room together and in real danger of being killed.

While this is happening, Michonne has made her way to the prison, where Rick lets her in instead of watching her die when she passes out after trying to fend off walkers.  Once she’s inside, and Hershel has treated her wound, she tells Rick about the Governor’s town, and how she saw Merle taking Maggie and Glenn.  So Rick leads a team out on a scouting mission, taking Daryl, Michonne and Oscar with him.  What they don’t realise is that they are heading into what the people on the Governor’s side call the Red Zone, an area swarming with walkers, and they are forced to take refuge in what at first appears to be an abandoned cabin.

When they discover the man that apparently lives there, they are forced to sacrifice him (after Michonne sticks her sword through his torso) in order to escape, a stark reminder that the world they now live in doesn’t afford them much time to reason with people.

Elsewhere, when Andrea is having a break from sexy time with the Governor, she’s been tasked with helping Milton with an experiment.  An elderly man is slowly dying, and has agreed to let Milton test a theory he’s developing.  He wants to know if freshly turned walkers have any memories, if they’ll recognise the faces of family members, or certain sounds or music.  It’s a bit too predictable when Milton thinks he sees a response from the freshly turned man, insisting that one of the straps holding him down is removed, only for Andrea to have to step in and stab him in the head when he lunges at Milton, but it is a potentially interesting direction for the show to explore.

Aside from Noah Emmerich’s season 1 character, we’ve yet to see any evidence of anyone trying to discover what is making the dead come back to life, or experiment on walkers to find out how they ‘live’.  These scenes with Milton and Andrea are similar to events in George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead (which you really must watch if you’re a Walking Dead fan), but it’s something I think the show could do more of.  While the two sides of the story currently being covered are interesting enough, I think there’s room to see Milton experimenting, or even someone else experimenting somewhere in the US, and trying to ultimately find a way of stopping, or at least controlling, the zombie apocalypse.

But maybe that’s something for future seasons to explore, because right now we’ve got a fight to look forward to, and a mid-season finale that’s sure to be action packed.  The Walking Dead continues to be a show really worth watching, and it’s going to be a long couple of months before it returns after next week’s episode.

@TheGlassCase

The Walking Dead – Hounded

The biggest improvement in season 3 of The Walking Dead is that it’s now always interesting.  So often in season 2 that was not the case, as things dragged on at Hershel’s farm, and nothing ever really happened.  Now there’s always something happening, even if that something happens to be Rick talking to dead people on a telephone.

And while Rick’s hotline to RIPsville is a significant part of the episode, there’s an awful lot going on elsewhere, and the show is building towards what will inevitably be an extremely annoying (because I’m certain there will be a cliff-hanger to tease viewers until it returns next year) mid-season break with both sides of the story colliding in another strong episode.

But let’s start with Rick.  After getting stab happy in last week’s episode, he’s at least calm enough to talk to the rest of the group, although on his own in the boiler room, he’s also talking to an apparently safe group on the other end of a phone.  He wants to join them, but he has to prove the he and his group are trustworthy.  So he has to confess about killing Shane and the prisoners, and tell them about Lori, Carl and his new baby.  But it soon becomes clear that there’s something not quite right about whoever is calling him; they know his name and wonder how his wife died, and he eventually realises that he’s talking to Lori.  It’s a weird section of the episode (although I believe it’s lifted from the comics) but it stays, just about, on the right side of believable.  Not in the sense that this could actually happen, just that Rick is obviously in a very dark place and you can believe that he would at least temporarily got a bit nutso.

Out in the wild, we’re treated to some more awesome Michonne badass-ery, as she gives two of the Governor’s men (accompanying Merle to hunt her down) a right good seeing to with her sword.  The Governor wants her head to add to his aquarium, but although Merle manages to injure her by shooting her in the leg, he has no desire to chase her into the ‘red zone’ (an area full of walkers) and kills a third man when he threatens to tell the Governor that Merle let her go.  But Merle manages to find something the Governor may be even more interested in; he stumbles across Maggie and Glenn (who are out looking for supplies) and manages to take both of them hostage.  It’s a big moment for the show, and something that will inevitably lead some kind of confrontation between Rick’s side and the Governor’s side, especially as Michonne witnesses Merle taking Glenn and Maggie, before making her way to the prison (she’s able to do this without swinging her sword, as a previous altercation with a walker has left her covered in viscera, which makes other walkers ignore her).The one part of the episode that I’m not particularly keen on (although I have a sense of where it might be going) is the further development of the relationship between Andrea and the Governor (or Philip to his lady friends).  It’s been clear that the Governor certainly has an attraction to Andrea; he wants her to stay while trying to get rid of Michonne, and has trusted her enough to show her some of the more unusual things that happen in his town.  She admits that she did actually enjoy the late night fight club, and wants to help more around the place, hoping he’ll let her work on the wall and keep walkers at bay.

She breaks the rules by jumping over the wall to kill a walker, and the Governor tells her that he’ll find something else for her to do.  While they are drinking alone, he makes some very unsubtle comments about getting her into bed, and that’s where they end up.  It’s a relationship I don’t think is necessary, but it seems likely that it will lead to Andrea having to choose sides when everyone on Rick’s side comes looking for Maggie and Glenn.

So as I said earlier, the best thing about The Walking Dead now is that it’s always interesting, and this episode is a good example of that.  Rick has managed to rescue himself from madness ahead of what looks like a new challenge, and the capture of Glenn and Maggie looks likely to lead to a big confrontation that will dominate the second half of the season.

The Walking Dead is finally a show in which things happen, and it’s all the better for it.

@TheGlassCase

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