The Walking Dead S04E16 – Review

Original air date: March 30, 2014

SPOILER ALERT

That was a largely decent finale for a show that missed badly at the end of Season 3. While I guess I am slightly disappointed that we didn’t get more of the story of Terminus this season, that’s more regret about what the show has stumbled around during this spring than any real misgivings about this episode.  It wasn’t perfect – and we’ll talk about the saggy parts – but it left us with a very nice sense of mystery for next season.  I’m really looking forward to Season 5 and that’s pretty amazing given how mediocre this show has been at times.

Let’s just get the bad parts out of the way first.  It seems fair since I generally liked the episode and it would be appropriate to end on a positive note…

Where this show keeps stepping in dog poop is when it gets into this whole issue of GOOD versus BAD.  It’s just highly insulting to have a show keep punching you in the face with this attitude about how Herschel was GOOD and he DIED.  Rick tried to be GOOD like Herschel, but he realized sometimes you have to be BAD to survive.  The little kid who plays with legos was GOOD and he DIED, whereas Carl is field-stripping weapons and he LIVES.  It’s just so in the face and clumsy that it’s insulting.  Any adult knows that the world is more simple than GOOD/BAD, BLACK/WHITE… Eespecially in an era of television where we have debated the morality of Tony Soprano, Don Draper, Walter White, Jack Bauer, etc.  There was a moment early in the episode when Rick and Gang were walking down the tracks and Carl asks, “Are we going to tell the people in Terminus what we did?  I mean, all of it?”  And my first thought was, “Did what?  When?”  I honestly couldn’t think of anything truly wretched that Rick and Gang had done.

The Walking Dead S04E15 – Review

Original air date: March 23, 2014

Review (with SPOILERS): Geez! What a flat episode…  There wasn’t much great, but there wasn’t much to really hate on either.  I almost feel like I could end the review right now, by giving the episode a “B.”

Probably the best thing about this episode was the sense of forward momentum.  It reminded me of a car that is stuck in the mud that begins to inch forward before launching itself back onto the road.  Mind you, we didn’t get the full LAUNCH in this episode, but a story that had been swirling for weeks/months with everyone separated is finally headed in the right direction.  Things just started to snap together when Glen saw the touching notes Maggie had written in zombie goop.  Next thing you know, Glen’s group is united with Maggie’s group and they’re wandering into Terminus.  Ditto for Darryl’s band of rednecks as they are clearly right behind Rick/Carl/Michonne on the road to Terminus.  All roads lead to Rome– or Terminus.

This is important because the story has been a little stuck.  While I’m not exactly eager to see this entire band back in a fixed set for a half-season, the Terminus story has lingered a week or two longer than necessary.  Let’s just get there already!  It’s time to move onto whatever is next and this episode was a nice step in that direction.

Also interesting was the whole dynamic between Darryl and Joe the Redneck.  That’s mostly because both Norman Reedus and (especially) Joe Kober are both pretty charismatic actors.  They both have a presence about them where you just want to see what they’re doing next.  So, even if Joe rattled on a little more than was necessary about their stupid “CLAIMED!” system and the nature of man, it was at least entertaining.  That “claimed” system was a little stupid.  It wasn’t a very good way to show Darryl’s rejection or their methods; just because he won’t “claim” a place to sleep.  Or at the end when he “claimed” the roadside radishes?  I mean, was that the dumb guy who picked them up and forgot to say “claimed!” just the dumbest of the group?  Suddenly, Darryl is the fastest one to the magic word?  Or was it some joke where one of the guys ran ahead and peed on the radishes and they all let Darryl “claim” them?  But, here I am analyzing that silliness more than when I actually watched the episode.  It was only marginally dumb, so I’ll stop and move on since I generally enjoyed Darryl and the Rednecks.

There was a lot of “meh” in this episode too.  Probably the biggest downer was listening to Eugene talk.  This show just has a thing about getting actors to fake ridiculous southern accents.  We’ve already had the terrible accents from Shane and the Governor and the strange accents from Maggie and Rick, now we have this preposterous crap coming out of Eugene’s mouth.  I just don’t understand the fixation on forcing actors to affect these accents.  I mean, a southern accent isn’t important to the Eugene character in the comics and I doubt it is important to the TV version.  So why not just let the actor speak normally?  Furthermore, why would anyone believe that a guy who sounds like that (and looks like that) would have the solution to the zombie problem?

The Walking Dead S04E14 – Review

Original air date: March 16, 2014

The Review (with SPOILERS): For a show that is generally bumbling when it tries to have BIG moments, The Walking Dead has had a few that stick with me.  The biggest was probably that moment when little Sophia came shambling out of that barn back in Season 2.  It was unexpected until that instant before she appeared, we got to see her and appreciate what happened… And then Rick shot her.  Thank goodness Rick didn’t talk, because that would have ruined that very cinematic scene.  I still remember it vividly all this time later.

So, in an episode that had a lot of other iffy stuff, the creators again pulled out a really special moment when Carol had to shoot crazy Lizzie in the back of the head.  It wasn’t quite Fredo going out in the boat, but it was effective, especially after all the build up over the season and this episode.  We’ve seen Carol trying to take care of these girls, trying to teach them how to live in the apocalypse, striving to protect them…  And then to see one of them murder the other and have to kill the crazy one.  Yeesh…  It was rough and Melissa McBride really powerhoused it through the episode as Carol.  Again, a lot of these moments work so much better when the actor has less to say.  Any decent person knows what she’s feeling. She found these girls, wanted to protect them because all life is precious in the apocalypse… Especially children; and then to realize that something is wrong with one of those girls and only you think you can fix her… Bbut you ignored the signs and not only did she not get better, she killed the other kid, the normal one.  Ugh!  That’s a pretty tough pill to swallow.  Given that Carol is the one who “does what needs to be done” (as show when she killed Karen and what’s-his-hame). It is a bitter irony that the time she didn’t act decisively, it came back on her in a big way.

I was also really glad that they just went ahead and dealt with the whole “Who killed Karen thing?” thing.  I’m not sure what the point of that whole exercise was with the exiling and the Tyreese rage and all that… So, let’s just put that behind us and move on.

The Walking Dead S04E13 – Review

Original air date: March 9, 2013

The Review (with SPOILERS): Other than the first episode back, The Walking Dead has been entirely acceptable.  Within episodes, it has blips into the good and dips into the bad, but it has mostly been just fine.  I like sports analogies and TWD right now reminds me of a team that opened the season with a bunch of losses and has taken a very conservative approach just to steady the ship.  They’re not trying to hit home runs or make a spectacular pass, they’re just getting on base right now.

This episode was interesting in how it bounced back and forth between Darryl & Beth and Sasha/Bob/Maggie.  We’ve seen the show jump from segment to segment among the diaspora from the prison, but this was different.  This was alternating short scenes.  It was quick and snappy and gave this episode the feeling of more forward momentum than the story alone dictated.

The title for the episode was “Alone,” but I think it just as well could have been “Why can’t I have anything nice?”  I think I now understand why we had to watch Darryl retread his journey from nihilistic “white trash” (his words) to a nice guy who sees that there are still decent people in the world.  They had to show us that story again just so they could set-up what happened at the end of this episode when Darryl meets the rednecks who bothered Rick a few episodes ago (showing that my theory of them being hallucinations was dead wrong).  However, they are shoveling the story on us pretty thick here. Darryl and Beth find this nice mortician’s home, it has food, it’s clean, Darryl is carrying Beth around like a new bride, he likes her singing and he almost admitted that sweet, pure Beth had made him believe in humanity again.  They were totally going to kiss…  Then the white doggie of hope gets eaten by raging zombies, ruining any hope of sanctuary for Darryl and Beth.

Darryl is engaged in claustrophobic combat with the walkers, while Beth escapes and is eventually kidnapped by the mortician who you thought might be a nice guy based on his dusting skills.  God, does the works SUCK!  Then Darryl chases after Beth, before sitting down at a literal CROSSROADS with the reappearance of the redneck guys that Rick encountered in a previous episode… So the whole point of last episode was to make damn sure that the densest member of the audience understood where Darryl was as a character so they could appear to make him a bad guy again; or at least show Darryl struggle NOT to be the guy he used to be.  I’d rather see Darryl move onto something new since we’ve already seen Darryl tempted by Merle, but it seems like the creators enjoy this story a lot.

The Walking Dead S03E12 – Review

Original air date: March 2, 2014

SPOILER ALERT

This episode of The Walking Dead was a blend of good, mediocre and acceptable.  That may sound like a back-handed compliment, but given some of the dreck that TWD has shoveled over the years, anything that isn’t “suck ass” – to steal a phrase from Beth – is a small victory.

Once again, the best parts of the episode are the horror elements.  I mean, that wordless opening with Beth and Darryl having to hide in the trunk of a Lincoln (just try to do this in a foreign car) was pretty tense stuff. The thumping of the zombies, the crack of light across their eyes, the need to be absolutely silent…  I was halfway excited at the prospect of them being trapped in there for the entire episode just to give us a different type of story.  But, that was not to be.  Eventually, they climbed out of the trunk, remarkably unstiff, and the episode began a steady decline into “acceptable.”

There were some other high notes as the duo scrounged the country club so that Beth could check “drinking” off her bucket list. There were also even a few good moments where the show used misdirection – like in the gift shop with the manikins.  I mean, if you see manikins in a horror movie, your sphincters immediately tighten… But the director just let the moment hang there and then dissipate…  That takes a lot of self-restraint and I love that they have enough horror ideas that they don’t feel the need to milk everything.

Where the show wasn’t as strong was with Darryl’s emotional journey.  All this speculation about Darryl’s past and it turns out he was just a derelict redneck up to no good, amounting to nothing with a lousy brother for his only companion: Trailer Trash.  The whole idea that Darryl has become someone better because of the apocalypse is very interesting and it would be affecting too, if it were not so clumsily and hastily handled.  The symbolism of Darryl pummeling a cashmere-clad golfer with a golf club was just a little too heavy-handed.  That zombie was basically Judge Smails from Caddyshack.  And it didn’t stop there.  The locker room where Darryl splattered those zombies is STILL nicer than anything that he lived in growing up… And the peach schnapps that Beth finds isn’t ironic just because it sucks, it’s ironic that the country clubbers camped out in their clubhouse and drank all the good booze.  They killed themselves because they’re not survivors like Darryl. Before even bothering to drink the schnapps, Darryl is left to get the mere scraps from a more affluent society that he was never a part of.  Even in death, they taunt him with discarded liquor and white cardigan sweaters and fine, wood-paneled locker rooms.  The only way the symbolism would have been stronger is if Darryl had gone out into the parking lot and started vandalizing the Porsches.

Of course, all along, Darryl is kinda being a jerk to Beth, which is way out of left-field because he wasn’t remotely upset with her until this episode.  Heck, it even seemed like you could see the two of them hooking up a few weeks ago.  Then Darryl goes on the worst and fakest angry drunk binge, before revealing his inner shame at being a loser and having let the group down with the Governor. Then they symbolically burn Old Darryl down (with stupid musical overlay)… Kinda like how Rick burned down his pig farming supplies.  Yeesh, I think I’d rather see what Tyreese was up to.

The Walking Dead S04E11 – Review

Original air date: February 23, 2014

The Review (with SPOILERS): Not bad…  This wasn’t a great episode by any stretch, but with TWD, it’s nice to see mere competence rather than this weird oscillation between good and terrible.

Once again, we didn’t get to see all of our characters this week with the action being split between Rick/Carl/Michonne and Glen/Tara/New People.  At some point, the storytelling technique needs to stop because they have too many storylines going on at once.  I say they have one more week to see how Darryl/Beth and Tyreese/Carol/Girls are doing, and then they need to tighten things up a little bit.

• Third wheel: A big problem for TWD writers is how horribly Rick and Carl interact.  They have NO chemistry.  It’s almost like when they read for the roles, they picked an 8 year old and then stuck with him.  Obviously, for people who follow TWD lore, the Rick/Carl dynamic is pretty important, so a TV-solution must be found.  They can’t just keep flinging Carl and Rick into these two-hander scenes and expect the results to improve.  Enter Michonne.  She proved last season in “Clear” that she could fix this troublesome dynamic and she fills that same role here.  Part of the problem with Carl is that he just sounds like a stupid kid when he’s talking about anything important.  So, why not play him off Michonne and her whole “missing her son” thing?  You have to love children to be interested in their stories of barfing when their friend brought soy milk to school, because honestly, it’s kind of a crummy story.  If you love the little kid, you sit there and humor them and know that telling stupid stories is part of growing up.  If you don’t love that child,  you have to be very kind to listen to the story, much less make the television viewers watch it instead of switching channels to whatever Darryl is doing.  Putting Michonne in the same room with Carl allows us to see him more as kid and less of this proto-MAN that the show has been obsessing over.
• Michonne’s family: So, she had a little kid named Andre.  I can’t say that I’m too affected by this because I’m not that interested in the pasts of these characters.  The cool thing about apocalypse fiction– and probably why we love it so much, is that amidst all the horror and carnage, you get a chance to be someone new.  It’s like a reset button for everyone.  So, past = boring.  But, if Michonne’s lost son is the motivation to keeping her around Carl, then Bravo! Carl isn’t going anywhere, so we need him to be as tolerable as possible and that only happens when Michonne is in the room.

The Walking Dead, S04E10 – Review

Original air date: February 16, 2014

The Review (with SPOILERS): This show is so damn bizarre.  Last week it comes back from winter hiatus and craps the bed.  Then this week, we get what is not only one of the best episodes of the series, but an episode that would be right at home with some of the finer programs on TV currently.  This was a really, really good episode.  The high points were very high and the lows were pretty minor.  When readers complain in the comment thread about the poor grades I give this show, they often say, “What do you want from this show?”  Well, I want more of THIS.  Last week was crap, this week was excellent!

The first thing that made this episode stand apart was just some novelty to the storytelling.  After starting out with the story of Darryl and Beth, we came back from commercial break to the tale of Tyreese and the girls.  Only, the story of Tyreese happened BEFORE the story of Darryl/Beth.  As soon as I saw it, I thought, “Wow, non-linear storytelling on The Walking Dead?  I’ll be damned…”  We have have seen non-linear storytelling on TWD before (see – S04E04 also directed by Tricia Block), but it is not common.  The theme continued with the stories of Maggie/Bob/Sasha and finally with Glen.  We actually picked up with Glen right in the aftermath of the Governor’s attack on the prison.  One of the things I’ve found so frustrating about TWD is the sheer repetitiveness of the episodes.  Everything is strictly linear and it gets a little old.  I don’t want non-linear storytelling all the time, but it’s nice to see them mix it up a little bit and try something new.  Not everything has to be a straight path from A to B.

There were other clever storytelling items in this episode.  The ambiguity about whether or not Maggie had killed a Zombie Glen was wonderful.  Before the commercial, we just saw her crying.  At first it looked like tears of sadness, like she had just killed her zombified husband.  Then it seemed to shift to tears of joy, Glen wasn’t on the bus, so he must have survived.  But, they never showed us the body.  They just sent us to commercial not really knowing what happened, but actually having a scene to interpret and discuss.  Holy crap!  This was so much more refined than Carl screaming at Rick, “I’d be okay if you died.”  Then we come back from commercial break to see Glen’s head with what looks like a stab wound in his forehead.  His eyes opened up and we realized he was really alive, but for a split second, we all thought that was dead, zombie Glen; “killed” by his beloved wife.  Isn’t it amazing how quickly your brain can churn through a complex situation in a tenth of a second?  Amazing thing, the human brain…  Very, very clever.  The fact that the whole scene with Maggie was so ambiguous was very out-of-character for TWD.  Usually, in a scene like this, someone like Rick shows up to tell us viewers exactly what is going on.  It was nice to have a chance to use my imagination a little with TWD.  Later, during Glen’s scene, we had a similar opportunity as he laid there on his cot.  There was no talking.  No Rick telling him to “Get up and fight to carry on!  Maggie would want you to carry on!” No Herschel or Dale giving old-man advice… Just Glen laying there with his thoughts with the viewer left to figure it out.

The Walking Dead S04E09 – Review

Original air date: February 9, 2014

The Story: After the fall of the Prison, the remnants of Rick’s party scatter and try to survive…

The Review (with SPOILERS): Funny how the human mind works.  We are incredibly adept at forgetting bad things like how horrible babies are.  I’ve even heard scientists hypothesize that it is an evolutionary trait that we forget some of the pain, agony, sleepless nights and dirty diapers lest every child be an only child – and the species die out for lack of offspring.

The run-up to The Walking Dead’s 2014 Spring Season was a little like waiting for that second baby to arrive. We’re excited, we hope for the best and we hope that all those bad things don’t happen again, because if we really dwell on the past 3.5 seasons we can still remember the pain.  

It really is time to stop hoping for better.  There was probably some plausible reason for hope.  Perhaps new Season 4 showrunner Scott Gimple would have clear highway now that he’d flushed Glen Mazzara’s Season 3 floater.  But, Gimple & Co. have eschewed that clear highway in favor of the familiar ditch.  As they say in BSG, it has happened before and it will happen again.

This was just more of the same for The Walking Dead.  The zombie scenes with Carl were really well done, especially the prolonged scene in the house.  I loved how the camera lingered on the stack of books as Carl and the zombie struggled from room to room, only for those books to come back into play at a key moment.  The prior zombie scene of Carl luring the walkers away, heavily hinting that he would trip and fall, when he never did…  There is nothing careless or accidental within the seconds of these horror scenes.  The talent on this show are true masters of horror and suspense.  They just know how to dance the dance and make us really uncomfortable.  Even when you KNOW that Michonne is not going to be eaten by zombies, you cringe a little every time one walks past her.  They just know how to dial the tension up to about an 8, and leave it there for 5 seconds longer than one would normally be comfortable with.  It’s all the camera angles, amount of zoom, sound, cuts… Simply Brilliant.

The Walking Dead, S04E08 – Review

Original air date: December 1, 2013

[SPOILER ALERT]

Let’s approach this episode from a “glass half-full” perspective first.  There was a lot wrong with the episode as it relates to the entirety of Season 4– and we’ll talk about that a little bit, but for now let’s keep it positive.

Back when TWD first started on TV, you could hear fans of the comic hyperventilating, “Wait until they get to the prison…” anytime there was a complaint about anything in Season 1 or Season 2.  There was also a lot of collective “what-the-hell-are-they-doing” when the show visited the Centers for Disease Control and Herschel’s Farm before finally showing the prison at the very end of Season 2.  We comic fans remember the prison fondly because there were some great comic moments that happened there.  I won’t spoil them, because most of them didn’t appear in the TV show.

The thing that we forget about the prison is that it overstayed its welcome in the comics too.  They first arrived at the prison in issue #13 (October 2004) and didn’t leave until issue #48 (April 2008).  That’s 3.5 years in one setting and the comic fans did complain at the time.  Terms like “stuck” and “mired” were getting tossed around.

So, is it any real surprise that the TV show made some similar mistakes in terms of lingering on the prison?  In all ways, the TV show has been a pale imitation of the comic, so you wouldn’t really expect anything more from the show.  Perhaps the concept of two flawed men of the apocalypse leading their warring tribes into battle is just too sexy for fiction writers?  They just lose their minds and get lost in the moment.

But, the prison is gone now.  We have reason to look forward and be optimistic.  At the very least, the status quo is gone.  Rick’s gang is scattered hither and yon in the wake of The Governor’s attack and it will be entertaining to see how/if they survive and reconvene.  Let’s do a quick group inventory: (a) Darryl & Beth, (b) Rick & Carl, (c) The Bus of Redshirts and Glen, (d) Sasha, Bob, and Maggie, and (e) Tyreese & Carol’s daughters.  I didn’t catch Michonne’s direction, but I’m thinking she’s on her own again.  Basically, the gang is split up all over the place.  Furthermore, Carol is still out there somewhere and I’ll bet that we haven’t seen the last of Lilly and Fist-Bump Tara.

The Walking Dead S04E07 – Review

Original air date: November 24, 2013

Review (with SPOILERS): Yeesh… What an episode… Last week’s installment showed us a possibly reformed Governor who was going to try to start a new life with a new family and a new name.  Even if it wasn’t a very good episode, the creators deserved some credit for realizing that if they were going to keep the Governor on the show, he needed a total character makeover.

I take back any faint praise I gave this show last week.  By the end of this episode, the show’s creators had circled the Governor right back to where he was at the end of Season 3.  These creators must have watched David Morrissey ham it up as the psycho-violent Governor and said, “We need more of THAT!”  But instead of just having the Governor show up, guns-blazing, they decided that he was such an interesting character that they wanted to give him his own saga.

In a vacuum, there is nothing wrong with a tale of reverse-redemption.  One of the interesting things in apocalypse fiction is that it provides for storytelling opportunities where real-life morality goes out the window.  In a story like TWD, you can show how people may have to behave horribly to ensure the survival of the group.  You can’t do it forever because nobody enjoys a story about totally miserable people, but it isn’t a totally horrid idea to show a man trying his best to be decent, and then getting pulled back into the darkness.  The apocalypse sucks, you know?

But we’re not interested in seeing this story about the Governor now.  Perhaps there would have been a place for it before Season 3, but the Governor has already had his story arc.  He started out as the odd leader of Woodbury who did some weird things (zombie daughter, zombie aquariums, zombie gladiator matches, torture rooms), but basically seemed to be harmless.  That all changed when Michonne killed zombie daughter and the Governor went nuts.  He lashed out at Rick & Gang, murdered his own people and generally screwed everything up.  THAT was his story arc.  It wasn’t a great story arc, but it was his.

Now the show’s creators want to show us how he rediscovered his humanity just because he met a girl who looked like his daughter and slept with her mother?  He even tried to get away, but found his path blocked by zombies stuck in quicksand.  And then he descends from there until he’s right back where he was at the end of Season 3.  Sigh… What’s the point of it all?

The Walking Dead S04E06 – Review

Original air date: November 17, 2013

Review (with SPOILERS): The Governor was such a cartoonish villain by the end of Season 3 that “they” had to do something to rehabilitate the character if they wanted to use him again this season.  It simply won’t work for a show that aspires to “prestige drama” status to simply allow the Governor to lurk in the forest, messing with the residents of the prison– driving trucks through the gate, luring in zombies, ringing the doorbell and then running away…  That would just be a continuation of Season 3 and we’ve already seen that. So, a change was in order…

Whether the New Governor (NG) is more interesting than the Old Governor remains to be seen, but I’m more optimistic about the guy than I was last week.  Last week, I viewed the Governor with dread, but now there is at least a chance the NG will offer something different than OG. I’m mildly curious to see how he gets along with his old thugs now that they’re reunited after trying to start a new life.  That’s reason enough to applaud the episode a little bit.

The rest of the show is typical of TWD, with snippets of excellence mixed with really horrible judgement…

The Walking Dead S04E05 – Review

Original air date: November 10, 2013

Review (with SPOILERS): I may have to change my tune on this show.  This season, I’ve been reviewing some pretty good episodes! But I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop.  The show has truly earned that skeptical attitude, but it’s at least worth considering that it may have turned over a new leaf (at least until it changes show-runners again).

The recipe for this episode’s success was pretty simple: a) allow the stronger actors on the show to carry the dramatic weight and (b) allow the behind-the-camera team to do a white-knuckle zombie scene.

• Herschel’s watch: It’s hard not to admire Herschel as a man, after watching him take care of that entire sick ward.  He just kept going and kept going, even after helpers Sasha and Glen dropped away, he managed to tend to the sick until Darryl’s crew returned with the medicine.  We’ve often heard characters on this show talking about doing “anything” to keep the group together and alive.  Usually that talk is just to justify killing someone or leaving someone behind because the audience needed to be reminded – again – of that deadest horse of a trope: the needs of the group outweigh the needs of the individual.  Well, in this case, there wasn’t a lot of high-minded talk. We just got to see Herschel doing something brave and hard.  There were little nods to how tired he looked, but for the most part, the writing crew trusted actor Scott Wilson to demonstrate the task without a lot of exposition.  Nicely done…  Even the bits where Herschel refused to do the nasty deed in front of everyone were worthwhile.  I mean, I personally thought he was being a bit tedious, but it did seem like something that would be important to Herschel, so I’m willing to humor him.
• Tense zombie scenes: Man… Dhat scene just went on and on and on!  As viewers, we’ve known this was coming for a few weeks and we’ve already seen one internal zombie outbreak this season.  What made this scene effective was how slowly it rolled out.  When Herschel stopped locking people up in their cells to tend a fallen Sasha and the lady in the next cell reanimated, she didn’t immediately come lurching around the corner after him.  And even after the zombies were rampaging in the sick ward, everything happened so slowly, Herschel was able to organize a plan and execute it.  Of course, while this is going on, Rick comes back to find the fence collapsing and he has to deputize Carl for what seemed like a challenge level of a zombie video game: Kill all 200 zombies coming through the gap in the fence!  The whole combined sequence created the feeling that life at the Prison was coming apart at the seams.

The Walking Dead, S04E04 – Review

Original air date: November 3, 2013

Review (with SPOILERS): Perhaps the creative talents behind The Walking Dead took a moment to smell themselves because this was a pretty good episode that did away with lots of the weak elements from last week’s episode.

The things that impressed me the most weren’t even things that happened with “the story.”  It was a couple of little things with how the story was presented.

• Some non-linear storytelling: That opening montage was sharp.  We saw Carol talking to to the sick little girl (Lizzie?) while Rick went around imagining the mechanics of how Carol killed the sick folks.  It may seem like a small thing, but it’s rare for TWD to show us anything other than a strictly linear dramatization of the zombie apocalypse.  Usually this show just straps you into the roller coaster and you just chug along from scene to scene.  It isn’t that this opening scene was “awesome” (it was “fine”), but it was nice to see that someone on the creative team remembered, “Oh yeah! You can also tell stories like this.”
• Herschel, Glenn, Maggie, Carl, Beth, et al: None of these folks show up.  Some of these characters are bothersome, and some of them are pretty good.  But, by winnowing the cast for a week, the show was able to do some more complex stuff.  I’m usually hard on the show and think it is incapable of doing complex storytelling, but maybe it can… But to do it they just need to lessen the distractions of a big cast.  Also a bonus to not watch everyone hacking and coughing.  Lizzie told us that nobody had died (yet).  That’s all we need until the flu resolves itself– one person approach the glass and give us an update.

So, neither of those two items are what put this episode over the top, but I like to see some promise that the storytelling can be changed up.  One of the problems with TWD is that it becomes very monotonous: You turn on your TV and you know basically what the show will be like.  You may not know the actual events that will unfold, but you know the method of presentation.  Thinking back over the years, a lot of the show’s better episodes have occurred when they changed things up: the episode 18 Miles out where Rick and Shane drove out into the country to deal with Randall, the episode where Darryl stabs himself with a bolt and hallucinates Merle or last season’s episode where Rick/Carl/Michonne go to see Crazy Morgan.  What’s interesting about tracking down the links to those episodes is that I see that I gave each one a “B+.”  It’s odd because I think the show has gotten into the A-territory before, but the memorable episodes and moments came from these B+ episodes.

The Walking Dead, S04E03 – Review

Original air date: October 27, 2013

Review (with SPOILERS): This was a pretty mixed episode.  It had strong elements, but also showed signs of being sucked into a rut with the prolonged Flu Story.

The bad stuff… Let’s just get it out of the way…

A little slow: Unfortunately, the main take-away from this episode is how slow things are.  Suddenly things feel very “Season 2” again.  They’re not stuck on Herschel’s farm anymore chopping vegetables; they’re stuck in the Prison doing things like collecting rain water and unclogging the mud from the hose that brings them water from the creek – the creek that zombies walk in… Yuck!  They’re not looking for Sophia anymore, they’re all worried about getting the flu.  It isn’t that a “slow burn” can’t be a good story, but neither the writing nor the acting on this show are good enough to slow down the action.  It’s almost like the talent behind TWD thinks that because the show gets excellent ratings that it can do the same things that the truly A-list shows can do.  TWD is at its best when the action hops along briskly and viewers don’t have time to fixate on boring plotlines or troublesome characters.

• Carol’s turn for the worse: Even though we’ve seen a new Carol this season – more capable and confident, this episode’s plot development with her didn’t quite turn out right.  The bad thing is that I see what the writers were trying to do. The writers KNEW in advance that Carol had killed Karen and the other sick guy, so they wanted to show in this episode how she was frustrated that her decision to murder two people still didn’t keep the group safe.  But, it didn’t totally come off.  The scene where Carol tries to comfort the little sick girl, but won’t tuck her into bed in the sick ward…THAT scene worked out pretty well.  At the time, we kinda think that she doesn’t want to tuck the little girl in because Carol doesn’t want to be infected herself.  But, in hindsight, she is probably upset that (a) her murdering Karen didn’t keep the little girl from getting sick and (b) she might have to kill the little girl to keep the REST of the group safe.  See, that bit of character development was good.  Now, what fell on its face was the part where Carol got angry and threw the water barrels over.  Either the director didn’t know how to shoot that scene properly or the actress didn’t know how to play angry.  Just leave that scene out and let us have the more subtle scene with Carol and the little girl.  The show’s creative talent has troublesome judgement…
• Dumb new characters: The episode wastes too much time on characters we don’t really know and care about.  When Karen died last week, it hit home a little bit because we at least remembered Karen as Andrea’s kinda-friend from Season 3 and the sole survivor of The Governor’s rampage.  But, this week, who cares about the new sick Doctor when Herschel gives him a pep talk?  I don’t even know the guy’s name.  Likewise, it’s hard to get too upset about the little girl that Carol is so worked up about because we only met her a few episodes ago.  Nobody cares about the little girl yet.  It’s amazing how this show has no patience for development of minor characters, yet Beth is still around and getting speaking lines.  “I know… it would be awesome if we have TWO scenes with Beth talking to someone through a closed door…”

The Walking Dead S04E02 – Review

Original air date: October 20, 2013

Review (with SPOILERS): Don’t look now, but The Walking Dead has strung together two decent episodes to start Season 4.  Of course, Season 3 also started with two solid episodes (here and here) before descending into a pile of mess.  Even Season 2 had its moments…  So, let’s not get too excited.  After all, the Governor hasn’t shown up yet.  Going through my notes, there are a lot of discussable parts of the episode.  That’s a good thing…

• Great horror instincts: That initial scene with Karen going to the showers where we knew lurked a zombie was so nicely done from a horror standpoint.  This is probably more detail than anyone wants, but I honestly think this show has A-list horror talent (and C-list dramatic talent), so I often wish they’d just play to their strengths.  (1) It started with Karen telling Tyrese that she wasn’t ready to have sex with him just yet and that they should sleep apart.  You immediately started thinking, “Oh no… You can’t tell your lover that you’ll do ____ with them later” in a horror movie.  (2) Then she wanders off alone into the dark and we get nervous.  (3) Then the director shows us a framing shot of the sinks and white tile telling us that she is in the showers… And we KNOW that the Nerd Zombie is in there with her.  (4) Of course, it’s dark and she hears sounds coming from behind all those shower curtains.  Shower curtains and dripping water.  Horror movies staples for decades.  And then the director does the most clever thing…  There are two big beats where you expect the zombie to appear.  (5) The first is when the camera is behind Karen’s shoulder and she yanks the shower curtain away.  You’re primed for a ZOMBIE.  But, no– no zombie.  (6) Then the camera shifts in front of Karen and shows her do that classic horror movie turn where the character starts walking off camera without looking where they’re going.  (7) There’s always that moment when the camera rapidly pans to get behind the character again. And that’s when you’re expecting a ZOMBIE again.  But, no; it was another fake-out.  I loved it.  Great use of that classic horror movie technique to build tension.

The Walking Dead S04E01 – Review

Original Air Date: October 13, 2013

Review (with SPOILERS): You know what, this was a pretty good episode.  It wasn’t excellent and I really don’t think this indicates that the series has turned the corner creatively; not with a 30+ episode track record of mediocrity… But we’ll take it when we can get it.

A lot of the success of this episode is due to what DIDN’T happen.  There was no Governor yahooing around with his thugs and eyepatch.  There was no Andrea being Andrea.  There was no Michonne glowering at people.  There was no Dale moaning about everyone’s humanity.  There was no Maggie wringing her hands about having to take her top down in front of the bad guys.  There was no Rick acting like a dick.  And best of all, there was no Beth campfire singalong.

Honestly, if the creators of this TV show can just focus on removing the annoying elements of the show, the path to success is pretty easy: A few zombie set-pieces and forward-momentum on the plotlines.

Let’s rattle off a few of the noteworthy events from this episode:

The Walking Dead S03E16 – Review

Original air date: March 31, 2013

The Review (with SPOILERS):

1. You forgot to flush – What a failure!  They completely failed to close the Governor’s story by killing him.  Now his character is just running around in a pickup truck like a turd that someone didn’t have the decency to dispose of properly.

This show really wants to be something that it is not.  I kinda get it. The point of last night’s episode was to demonstrate how two different leaders have ended up in different places.  The Governor has lost his mind as he has killed most of “his people.”  Rick saves those people and thereby regains his sanity and stops seeing visions of his dead wife.  On a better written or better acted show, that might be a good story.  But on TWD with David Morrissey and Andrew Lincoln, this episode really fell flat.  This show needed to close this story.Not save it for later.

All of the Governor’s typical problems were on full display again.  It comes down to charisma.  David Morrissey’s Governor just doesn’t have “it.” I just don’t believe that he has the charisma to rally a bunch of frightened zombie survivors to go outside the walls and engage in a gunfight at the prison.  General Patton could probably do it. The Governor cannot.  He could probably get them to double the number of guards on the walls, but not to clear out the basement of the Prison.  Then, after the failure at the Prison, why in the world doesn’t Martinez just kill him?  As we’ve gotten to know Martinez over the season, he doesn’t seem like a mindless henchman, he’s got more of a common sense than the Governor, and seems pretty aware of things.  Why would he think that getting back in the truck with the Governor was a good idea? So, now we’ve seen the entirety of the Governor’s “descent into madness,” I suspect the show’s writers wanted us to see this moving example of what could happen to a “good man” during difficult times.

There was a really good review of last week’s episode over at Grantland where Bill Simmons very eloquently summed up the problems with Rick and the Governor. Both of them would be like the 39th most interesting character on Lost.  This show suffers from a massive charisma-gap and until that is remedied, stories like the finale’s will not work very well.

2. Andrea, you need to focus. – The character really did need to die.  Not just from all the annoying behavior over three seasons, but because of her incompetence at the end.  Think about the timing. She did manage to kill Zombie Milton, but still got bitten.  So, it stands to reason that she was almost safe, right?  A few seconds slower, and Milton gobbles her up in the chair.  A few seconds faster, and she’s prepared to fight.  How much time did she spend whispering, “Milton…  Milton…  Are you still with me?   Milton…”  Wouldn’t it be nice if Andrea had devoted that time to getting loose?

Along with the unsatisfying story arc for the Governor, this Season Three was also about Andrea and the trade-offs she made to be “safe.”  Again, I think it was supposed to be moving and poetic, but it just wasn’t.  The resolution to the Sophia Story was better than this.  THAT story was too long, but did ultimately pack a punch. Andrea’s Tale was just a dud.

3. You call that a massacre? – After fleeing the prison, the Governor’s people don’t want to go back.  One of them says something like, “Are you mad?  We can’t go back into that massacre!”  You’d half expect the Governor to say, “You call that a massacre?  I’ll show you a massacre!”  But, he does kinda have a point.  For all the build-up to the raid on the Prison, there wasn’t much heat. Creeping around in the dark, a few zombies, a really bad ambush by Maggie and Glen…  The whole thing was so damn pointless.  Honestly, if they were going to kill all the Woodbury townies, why not have Maggie and Glen gun them down and then have these two “good” people have to wrestle with what they had done?  Make them live with the wives and children of Woodbury next season.  The storytelling choices (and marksmanship) on this show are just baffling.

The Walking Dead S03E15 – Review

The Story: Will Rick deliver a member of his group to the Governor in exchange for peace?

The Review:

1. A mostly nice episode for Merle & Michonne – Michael Rooker has been among TWD‘s best assets this season.  As an actor, he’s just interesting to watch. Every scene with Merle is always just a little more than the mere dialogue would suggest. There’s always something lurking under the surface, whether it’s betrayal of the group or an unwelcomed sexual advance or the threat of violence.  Even when saddled with this week’s stupid subplot from the writers (about searching the prison for drugs), Rooker is usually able to rise above the material.  He’ll be missed on a show whose stars are capable of little more than reading the lines (with a strained voice to disguise their English accent).

Credit should also go to the way the show has salvaged Michonne.  Remember Michonne during the fall season?  She was just an awful mess of glowering and saying very little.  Of course, it probably didn’t help that most of her dramatic scenes were with Andrea (who would make all of us glower), but still, the writers just didn’t know what to do with her during the fall.  Obviously they rewatched those episodes over the winter break and said, “Yuck.  How about we write some dialog for this lady?”  And it has mostly worked out.  I enjoy Michonne now and like how she slowly and calmly talked Merle into releasing her and trying to settle scores with the Governor.

2. Too much patronizing of the audience. – There is almost nothing more annoying than a TV show that patronizes the audience.  This episode wasted half of its running time with the morality of giving Michonne over to the Governor.  Are there really people in the audience who don’t understand the implications of that?  Let me break it down for you. You see, if the Governor and the prison go to war, MANY people are likely to die, so it might make sense to sacrifice ONE person to avoid further bloodshed.  Do you get it?  We can talk about it again in a slightly different way if you’d like.  You see, is Michonne really even a true member of the group or is she extra because she wasn’t even at the farm?  Even if Michonne is ‘worth more’ from a utilitarian standpoint than one-legged Herschel and his singing daughter, Michonne isn’t family.

Gah! I hate it when writers think that the audience is too stupid to figure out what is going on.  Part of the fun with these dilemmas is when they are vague and you can quietly consider what it means to YOU, rather than having it explained in a raspy dialog by Rick and Darryl.  Of course, the show wasn’t done being patronizing as we had to dive into the amoral cesspool of “gettin’ someone to do yer dirty work” with Merle… Or as the Governor put it, “He’s a wild card, but he’s effective.”  This whole trope of people like Merle being necessary evils because they do the dirty work is beyond annoying.  By the end of the episode, there was some interesting stuff related to Merle, and that higher-level material isn’t served by the patronizing.

3. Glen + Maggie – Just as Michonne has blossomed this spring, Glen has taken a real nose-dive.  He’s always mad and intense.  Clearly when the actor auditioned, they didn’t make him read any lines with intensity.  He did have that really great and intense scene with the zombie when he was held captive in Woodbury, but that intensity doesn’t translate well to his relations with fellow cast members.

Even if Glen’s decreasing Q-score makes him less fun, his relationship with Maggie is still an important part of TWD: If someone doesn’t start to make some babies, TWD will never be more than Rick and the Governor fighting over the last can of pinto beans.  So, it’s nice to see that some ideals like marriage and monogamy are surviving and that TWD isn’t falling into one of those post-apocalyptic tropes where women are forced to become breeding stock.  I worry a little for this show when they fiddle with these higher ideas because they’ve shown a propensity to dive (badly) into the “what makes us human” theme. Nevertheless, they didn’t muck it up this week.

The Walking Dead S03E14 – Review

The Story: The Governor is a dirty, back-stabbing bastard.

The Review (SPOILER ALERT):

1. Tight, horror-themed episode – This was a very good episode.  The real stars of this show are mostly behind the camera and in the editing suites.  That Andrea/Governor cat-and-mouse in the old factory was really HOT and most of the hotness stems from lighting, camera-work, editing, music, etc…  It really makes me wonder why this show doesn’t do THAT all the time.  It’s like a baseball pitcher who has 100 mph fastball, but is constantly dicking around with mediocre curve balls. Just throw the fastball over and over and over until it stops working.

An interesting observation about the old factory scene was how much better it was than earlier scenes of Andrea doing her 5K.  Zombies outside aren’t very scary because you have to construct weird circumstances for the zombies to have a chance (like stopping to rest against a double-trunked tree so a zombie can sneak up and hold you in place for the other zombies).  Zombies in dark places where you don’t have room to maneuver and don’t know where you are going are really scary.  It gets a lot worse when you’re being stalked through a dark place by a creepy psychotic ex-boyfriend with a shovel and a whistling habit.   That whole scene was tense and came out very well.  It kinda reminded me of those late-80s/early-90s thrillers like Deceived or Malice or Blue Steel.

But, even though the big set-piece was the star of the episode, it wasn’t the only good horror moment.  Did anyone anticipate the Governor nabbing Andrea right at the threshold of the Prison?  She was THIS close and then bam!  That particular surprise was made more effective because it wasn’t telegraphed in advance.  If you pay attention, the episode had previously telegraphed several other Andrea surprises such as the tree zombie and a few others in the factory, but they took away the telegraphing camera movement for the big surprise.  They didn’t want us to see that one coming.  Good for them.

There was even a very cool Silence of the Lambs-esque scene at the very end: out-of-context, insanity rock music and first-person zooming camera through the crazy man’s lair to the trapped woman.  Cool.

I wish TWD would just surrender to being a horror show.  I know, I know, “there is so much MORE to the comics,” but this show usually stumbles badly when it tries to do anything else.  Would it really be so bad to be a great horror-themed TV show?

2. Less Rick or just less distraction? – A few weeks ago we had that excellent bottle episode with Rick, Michonne and Carl meeting Crazy Morgan.  That episode excelled because of its reduced scope.  THIS episode shows what can happen when you reduce the scope of the show AND exile Rick & Co. from the proceedings.  Honestly, I’d bet that nobody wants to see that crap at the awful Prison— Glen yelling, Rick scowling, Beth singing…

3. Who burned up the zombies? – It had to be Milton, right?  Maybe it was some other random Woodbury townie who has had ENOUGH, but I’m pretty sure it was Milton.  I’m just curious to see what character arc creators have lined up for him.  Like Merle and Darryl, Milton is a new character who doesn’t come from the comics, so I have no way of predicting what will become of him.  Will he make some heroic sacrifice and kill the Governor?  Will he be the new leader?  Even though Milton is quiet, he doesn’t seem totally benign for some reason.

4. Tyrese given something to do – It wasn’t “awesome” and – frankly – it’s basically Chad Coleman playing the exact same character he played on “The Wire,” but it was nice to see Tyrese figuring into the plot.  It still feels a little tacked on and “extra,” but I’m sure Tyrese will have a bigger role to play before the finale.

The Walking Dead S03E13 – Review

The Story: The big meeting we’ve all been waiting for: Rick & The Governor.

Things We Liked and Disliked About This Episode:

1. The two-hander episode – The structure of this episode was really odd. Almost every scene was a two-hander.  We had Rick/Governor, Milton/Herschel, Daryl/Martinez, Maggie/Glen, Herschel/Andrea, Rick/Herschel, etc.  Herschel was kinda busy.  It was almost like a series of auditions where they kept mixing characters together to find combinations that worked well together.  Some of the combos were really weak; like the Rick/Governor scenes, but some were compelling, which made the episode a little more interesting.  Mostly, I applaud the shows creators for mixing up the formula of the show even if it wasn’t wholly successful.

2. Interesting dilemma for Rick – I like the challenge that the Governor has tossed out to Rick: Give us Michonne and all will be forgiven.  Coming on the heels of last week’s episode where Rick and Carl bonded with Michonne, it actually shows that the creators have some grasp of a dramatic arc.  Granted, it is a fumbling arc as Rick went from irrationally hating Michonne to really liking her a lot in one episode, but that’s about all we can expect from this show.  Hey, we’ll take character arcs however they come in this show.

Let’s see how the show handles this dilemma…  It could go very badly.  The solution is very simple. You sacrifice Michonne for the greater good.  Hopefully, there is no hand-wringing about how doing so would mean, “sacrificing our humanity” or any such crap.  I have a feeling that all the people who worry about “lost humanity” wouldn’t survive the first month of the apocalypse.  Do something useful with the dilemma. Put Michonne in break-away handcuffs like Chewbacca in Star Wars and spring a trap on the Governor, put a bag over her head and dress her in long sleeves and gloves and have it be Carol under the hood to show Andrea how to properly slash a throat, etc.

3. Chained heat! – Two hot things happened at the Prison this week.  For one thing, Merle is not okay with this sitting around crap while “his brother is out there.”  I like how Merle adds a random element to the group.  If not for Merle, it would just be Beth trying to get the others to play sing-along with her.  The other hot thing was Maggie & Glen.  Glen is so fish-out-of-water when he tries to be Rick’s lieutenant, but he works really well as Maggie’s boyfriend.  It was nice to see Maggie snapping out of her post-Woodbury experience.  Did that 4-5 week period of moping around the Prison accomplish anything?

The Walking Dead S03E10 – Review

Original air date: February 17, 2013

The Story: How long before the Governor attacks the Prison?

The Review (with SPOILERS): 

1. Pretty hot last 15 minutes – Maybe the final minutes only felt hot because the first ~100 minutes of this “spring season” were so plodding?  Regardless, I’ll bet everyone watching the episode said, “WHOA!” when Axel got shot.  One second I was wondering what the writers were doing by making Axel flirt with Carol, how that would play out when Darryl returned, etc… And then he has a hole in his head.  Splat!  I still think this is a deeply troubled show because the show’s creators have shown no ability to maintain any sort of fast-paced momentum, but it was nice to see that they haven’t lost the ability to deliver an “Oh, snap!” moment.  Good for them!  Then they followed up with the trojan horse truck through the gate.  I totally didn’t see that coming either.  Who was the driver?  Was it Andrea?  

Now, it wasn’t perfect.  There was a little too much automatic weapon spraying without anyone getting hit.  At some point, that just becomes nonsense noise that serves no purpose.  We get it. Much ammo was expended!  And how did The Gov get a man up into the tower?  And what sort of metallic innards did Axel have that Carol could hide behind him?  And why did the Gov have a very, very non-standard weapon?  Good luck finding spare magazines in the zombie apocalypse!

2. Less Rick = Better Episode – Even before the big finale, this was a much better episode because it had about 99% less Rick.  He wasn’t totally absent and we’ll talk about that below, but it was way more fun to spend time with ALL the other characters than to watch Rick do anything.  For example, I even prefer watching the Governor appoint Milton to spy on Andrea to watching Rick do much of anything.

3. The Dixon Brothers – How much fun were the Dixon brothers?  And how good were the actors?  I enjoyed Merle being bigger than life, peeing on trees, asking people for enchiladas and such.  But that scene after they saved the family was great and showed what a cool show this could be if it was blessed with better lead actors.  Didn’t you just love how Merle melted from belittling his little brother’s softness (in wanting to go back to the Prison) to realizing that he really didn’t want to be left behind and alone?  That emotion is so vital to the comics, but we usually can’t get it from the TV show because Rick just can’t pull off that level of acting.  And I loved seeing them ride to the rescue when Rick was pinned down by the zombies.  Merle should be a fun addition to the group and I’m sure Michael Rooker is drooling at the thought of out-acting Andrew Lincoln every week.

The Walking Dead S03E08 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (story), Bill Gierhart (direction)

The Story: Rick & Co. come to save Glenn/Maggie from the Governor – OR – A guide to making prison shanks out of zombie bones.

The Review (SPOILERS): This was a pretty strong episode that mostly kept the action hopping, but it had highs and lows.

1. Watch out for the zombie head! – The absolute highlight of the episode was the sequence between Michonne and the Governor in his lair.  It started out tense with Michonne waiting for the Governor to return home and didn’t let up.  Going from the caring moment when Michonne thought she was saving a trapped little girl through the brutal fight with the Governor, this was a sequence that really delivered.  The outcome of the fight wasn’t preordained and it carried on for a little longer than was comfortable – in an Eastern Promises sort of way.  What a insane sequence for Michonne. She thinks she’s there to deliver some vengeance and instead finds out that the guy is even more whack than she thought! THEN there’s the bar-fight with zombie heads snapping all over the floor…  The only downfall of this scene was how it ended.  No, I didn’t think we’d really get any penises nailed to boards like in the comic, but the Andrea/Michonne stand-off was so flat.  It was an example of a scene lingering too long in a bad way.  We get it, “they’ve chosen different paths and now these two women who were inseparable have nothing left between them – sniff, sniff…”  We already knew this information about Andrea/Michonne and while the stand-off was meant to be impactful, it didn’t add anything that we didn’t already see when they parted ways at the gates of the city a few weeks ago.

2. The Raid! – The bulk of the episode focused on Rick & Co.’s raid through Woodbury with guns blazing.  This was exciting, but just okay.  It had a certain A-Team feel to it with lots of full-auto, hip shooting at nothing in particular.  It wasn’t particularly realistic or well-choreographed either.  Lots of people laying down “covering fire” by standing in the middle of the street, lots of people taking cover behind stuff that won’t stop bullets like park benches and solar panels…  Not a lot of hits either considering we are talking about Rick “Headshot” Grimes and his gang of Zombie Assassins!  What really soured me on this shoot-out was that l I watched the Season 3 finale of Boardwalk Empire later in the evening.  THAT is how you do shoot-outs (I’d say more but don’t want to spoil BE here).  There’s simply no comparison between the two and I think the creators of TWD should be a little more aware of the quality level of the other “prestige shows” they hope to compete with.  How can the same set of creative people do the great Michonne/Gov fight and then give us a lackluster shoot-out?

3. Carl’s a badass until he talks. – This show would be a lot better if little Carl fell and slashed his larynx on a rusty pipe or something.  Chandler Riggs is actually pretty good as a physical actor.  I really buy him when he’s shooting his way through the prison and there’s just something arresting about a world where a little guy like Carl is forced to do such horrible things when he should be playing soccer or Modern Warfare on a PS3.  Sometimes the visual is enough and you don’t need to make him talk.  I can just imagine that during the filming of that scene where Carl declares that he’s running in the direction of the screaming that Scott Wilson (Herschel) turned towards the director and said, “Are we really going to use that?”

The Walking Dead S03E07 – Review

The Story: The Prison & Woodbury learn of each other’s existence – or – Another use for duct tape.

The Review (SPOILERS):  1. The comics. – Let’s get one thing out of the way immediately. This episode was fairly strong and had almost nothing to do with the comics.  Other than the idea that the prison and Woodbury come info conflict and some similarities/ironies of the torture scenes for Glenn/Maggie, there wasn’t much crossover.  And, that’s fine.  Frankly, it’s more fun to watch the show when it isn’t trying to be 80% faithful to the comics because the show’s creators don’t seem to know which 80% to retain.

2. It’s all about tension. – This episode was fairly strong because it kept the action and tension levels pretty high. Torture scenes, Michonne fighting walkers, Rick running to her rescue, zombie flash-mobs in the forest, crazy mountain people in cabins… These are all good things about this episode.  They show what this series is really good at, making you uncomfortable.

3. Flat tires. – As good it was while the action was bouncing along and the tension was high, this show just can’t resist the urge to dive in for poorly-done touching, sappy stuff.  The reunion with Carol was an overlong dud.  It starts with Darryl summoning Rick to “see something” as if he found the Virgin Mary’s face in some zombie splatter or had just shot a raccoon.  Why not just say, “Hey!  I found Carol”  Then the scene goes on for a minute too long as Carol hugs everyone (like it’s Thanksgiving) and they reflect on the loss of the last few episodes.  If only the audience missed Lori and T-Dogg as much as these other characters did.

I know these scenes are brief, but they kinda harsh your mellow when you’re enjoying the tension of the episode.  This show would be better served to keep the pedal to the metal.

The Walking Dead S03E06 – Review

The Story: Sexy-time in Woodbury and Rick is waiting by the phone like a teenager.

The Review (SPOILER ALERT): 1. The telephone comes and goes. – My complaints with “the telephone” storyline are pretty well known. Basically, TWD is a third-person narrative and we viewers should not be hearing any character’s private thoughts. We never hear Herschel’s inner thoughts about corn muffins or Andrea wondering if the Governor brings the heat in bed or Merle evaluating whether some rusty, scrap metal could be welded to his stump. So, we shouldn’t hear Rick’s inner thoughts in the form of a non-existent phone call. Weak, weak, weak.

The telephone was also oddly handled. I hate to compare to the comics because the TV program is a unique beast, but my hope has always been that the TV program would adapt what “works” from the comics and improve it. In the comics, The Telephone had some effective moments. The calls came right after Rick and Carl has escaped the bloodbath at the prison. They were alone in hiding and losing hope when suddenly, Rick gets these phone calls promising a sanctuary from the zombies. Those calls played out for many issues (and months) before we learned that the voice on the other end was Rick’s insanity masquerading as Lori’s voice. That allowed readers to get their hopes up for months that Rick would find a better place for him and Carl, which then made the revelation that Rick is insane more crushing since he was solely responsible for Carl’s safety at the time.

With this TV depiction of the Ttlephone, the writers have adapted only the bad parts from the comics. There simply isn’t enough time for the promise of a sanctuary to register with the viewer. If you use a DVR like I do, there are only ~40 minutes to even ponder the fact. There also was no doubt about Rick’s mental status going into this episode after his Heart of Darkness retreat into The Prison, so The Telephone isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know. Plus, Rick’s gang isn’t exactly unsafe right now. The prison is about as good as it’s going to get. Presumably the gang will get chased from the prison at the end of this season and anytime afterwards would be a good time to use the telephone. Or, if you must play the telephone card now, make it a B-story for a few episodes and let a crazy Rick try to convince the gang to leave the prison for some unknown place of safety. Again, weak, weak, weak.

2. Contact! – One of the fun elements of the Woodbury plotline has been the differences from the comics. Not all the changes have been good, but it certainly keeps us off-balance. Michonne is going to be the vector for contact, but she has more to tell Rick & Co. Seeing the peril that Glen and Maggie find themselves in really makes me concerned. I’m not so worried about Glen, but any reader of the comics has to wonder if Maggie is going to get “the Michonne Treatment.” Just the thought of that makes me cringe.

Actually, thinking of our “heroes” being tortured is a nice way to consider how much we enjoy the character/actor combo. With Lori, every time a zombie came near her, I cheered for the zombie. Same with Shane. Same with Rick. But, I really can’t stand the thought of Maggie getting roughed up. Kudos to the writers, Lauren Cohan and the tank-tops for making her so likable.

3. Andrea! – If you ever wanted to sleep with Andrea, you need to (a) be a self-assured, bad boy and (b) fake a bad Southern accent. Do that, and those clothes are usually coming OFF! The problem I have with Andrea’s character is that the writers are using her to fill a purpose. Andrea is the living morality tale of “what would we do give up to be safe” question. She’s really not a character at this point; she’s a concept. And that is weak. Also, her love scenes with the Governor made me think of Basic Instinct 2 (also starring David Morrissey) and that is a not a good thing.

Hopefully, in the weeks to come, we’ll see Andrea become aware of her old friends both at the Ppison and in her boyfriend’s torture chamber. What will she do? Help them escape? Harbor a grudge over being left behind? Until then, I guess she’s reduced to comparing family killing techniques with her new girlfriend on the wall, carrying her oversized purse everywhere and sipping whisky in The Governor’s private garden as he seduces her to his Scientology cult.

4. Michonne is really growing on me. – You wonder why they rolled Michonne out so slowly. For the first few episodes this season all she did was glower at people and complain about stuff. Surprise: we didn’t like her much. But, now that she’s been given more to do, she’s becoming a more enjoyable character. I still think the ninja-stuff is a little over the top, but that’s mostly because I don’t need this show to look like Revolution.

5. Good make-up replaces CGI. – After last week when we got awful CGI zombie guts, we are back to good, old fashioned make-up special effects. This is very welcome as the make-up portion of this show sets it apart from everything else on TV. I mean, there are a LOT of weak elements on TWD, but you can’t fault the zombie splatter. One almost wonders if the producers saw the bad CGI, decided it looked awful and called the make-up guy to come back to work.

6. Carol is back. – There really isn’t more to say about this, but I’m glad she is back. She brings a softness to a show that is ugly and hard.

7. Governor & Merle. – It was a small element, but Merle has started a problem by lying to the Governor about Michonne being dead. The Gov clearly won’t be happy when he sees Michonne still running around in a few weeks. What will the Governor do?

8. Let’s mix it up. – This show gets monotonous. I wish the creators would show us a different sort of episode sometime. They don’t have to do anything huge, but let’s step away from this consistent third-party view of everything and have an episode that is a slight comedy, or an episode where we follow Darryl around or an episode that follows a particular zombie. Show me a different way to view this show. I don’t mean to turn the show itself into a comedy, but do a sort of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” sort of episode. Just look at how Mad Men can tell a consistent narrative over the course of a season, but have each episode have a unique flavor. Each episode is a part of a whole but also a unique finished product. Or look at that episode of Lost with Nikki and Paolo or all of the unique and memorable episodes of the X-Files or the “Pine Barrens” episode of The Sopranos. Mix it up!

Conclusion: This show has its enjoyable aspects, but botches too many things both large and small to be called “good”. The telephone was a waste, but things are looking up for next episode when the groups come into conflict. TWD is better when it is moving fast and the conflict is boiling.

Grade: C+

– Dean Stell

The Walking Dead S03E05 – Review

A Few Things (with minor SPOILERS): 1. Kinda directionless – This episode wasn’t really about anything.  So far this season, each episode has had a clearly defined plot: prison clearing, guided tours of Woodbury, dealing with inmates, etc.  Looking at my notes, there wasn’t really a central defining theme of this episode. Things do happen, but because of the split action, neither the Prison narrative nor the events in Woodbury could gather much steam.  However, it does allow us to focus on a lot of smaller items…

2. New revelations in Woodbury – We learned a lot about Woodbury.  Some was good and some not so much.

Good: Michonne really emerged as a character in this episode.  She hasn’t had much to do but stand in the background and glower thus far this season.  But, here we get to see her bona fides with the sword, and she seems legitimately bad-ass.  Or maybe she was just a HUGE Kill Bill fan?  Regardless, she has a personality now and it’s adding something to the show, especially since she ruptured her partnership with Andrea.  Although I have a bad feeling that the Governor isn’t going to let her go so easily.

Mixed results: Andrea is kinda all over the place as a character.  Her willingness to accept a screwed-up, alt-version of society does fit with the young lady who wanted to lay down and die at the CDC in Season 1.  But, then in Season 2, Andrea started to emerge as a bit of a tough customer when Shane started teaching her to shoot.  It would be nice if the show’s creators made an effort to reconcile these two depictions of Andrea.  Is she a quitter?  Was she only acting tough, but really had a death wish?  Does she just have a thing for men with terrible Southern accents?

Bad: The zombie/gladiator games were really stupid.  Those worked very well in the comics because all of Woodbury was very Thunderdome-esque, but the TV version of Woodbury has a Stepford Wives aspect to it.  It’s fine to be different from the comics, but given that Woodbury itself is so different, they should have just omitted the zombie fights or at least handled it differently.  It just seemed wrong that the crowd of people who were dutifully edging their sidewalks earlier in the day turn into professional wrestling fans at night.

3. Rick goes Col. Kurtz – How long was Rick missing in the Prison?  It’s reasonable that he wanted to look for Lori, but the whole thing got weird after Glenn went to find him.  After their confrontation, Glenn obviously just left him there for what?  12 hours?  2 days?  Does he realize that he’s standing on the zombie spawn point and no new zombies will appear until he moves?  Not even little Carl stops by to check on him during his illicit scouting trips to the Prison library?  And how did he know where Lori died?  Why did Carl and Maggie leave the knife behind?  Did Rick think that the zombie gobbled Lori up bones and all?  There are a lot of holes in this part of the story.  I mean, it isn’t terrible, but this story could be vastly improved if the writers’ room had a few cynical SOBs who would ask questions like these.  It wouldn’t take much to address them and tighten the narrative.

4. Telephone calls – And then we have The Telephone… (SPOILERS) The set-up for the telephone is so different from the comics that it will necessarily be a different story. One thing I HOPE is that we viewers don’t hear Lori’s voice on the phone.  TWD is a third-party narrative and there is no place for inner monologue or hearing a character’s thoughts in a third-party narrative.  The viewer is a fly on the wall and while the fly can get close enough to the phone to hear both sides of a legit phone call, the fly is not telepathic and cannot hear Rick’s insanity.  The creators can still tell the same stories, but they need to be more creative.  The writers have already (kinda) broken this rule last season when Darryl hallucinated Merle, but at least those scenes were shot from a first-person perspective.

5. Special effects are worse – Did anyone else notice that all the zombie chopping this week went from incredibly well done make-up/physical effects to mediocre CGI?  It wasn’t quite Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie quality, but it wasn’t good either.  If the budget doesn’t allow for the proper effects to be done, the creators should just modify the script and shoot the scenes differently.  I’m especially thinking of the scene of Michonne chopping up the gametime zombies.  That could have been handled in many different ways and gotten the same effect.