I’m baaaaaaaack! After missing the first episode because of NYCC, I’m back as your regularly scheduled reviewer of The Walking Dead reviews. After an extremely up-and-down third season, the show is back and…well, I broke the promise of my final words of the finale review and decided to keep watching and keep reviewing.
With that said, this one’s for you M83, and spoilers from the episode itself will be discussed. Comic spoilers? Not so much.
1. Bloodbath
Say what you will about the quality of the first two episodes this season, but the show is doing something everyone wants: killing lots of freaking zombies. Scott A. Gimple has dialed back the circular conversations (mostly) and replaced it with a whole lot of wanton destruction. Whether its walkers getting obliterated by fences or heads getting smashed like Gallagher crushing watermelons, the first two episodes have seen a lot of death by both human players and zombies.
Does it make the show superficially more enjoyable so far? You better believe it. Is it good? The jury is still out on that, but at least it’s entertaining to watch, and with improved great work and performances by Chandler Riggs as Carl, Danai Gurira as Michonne and even Andrew Lincoln as Rick, it’s at least a promising start. Thankfully, we’ll get to focus on them more because this episode sure as hell wiped out some serious redshirts.
2. Speaking of Michonne…
Is it just me or has there been more quality character work done with her in just two episodes this season than there was in all of season three? You can tell Gurira is enjoying the experience, or at least thriving in it, as moments like the one where she cries to herself when she gets to hold Judith develops her are heartbreaking and extremely well handled. Gurira’s performance is really one of the breakouts of the season so far, and I’m looking forward to her role in the season as we move forward.
3. The Death of Farmer Rick
At the close of the last season, Rick backed away from his role as a leader because it was breaking him and his relationship with his son Carl. At the beginning of this season, a remarkably calm and collected Rick tended to the fields, cared for their pigs and did everything he needed to do as a man with his unique farmer skill set could do to keep his people alive.
Yet, we found out that there was a council who presided over issues in the prison, and Rick was not part of that group.
In this episode, Daryl asks Rick if he wants to join them, and he declines, but when the fence was going down due to the crushing weight of zombies, he stepped up and led them once again. In the process, he sacrifices the (likely infected) pigs of his new identity, and you can see in his face that he knows – knows – that its more than just sadness connected to sacrificing his bacon connection. Andrew Lincoln is a good actor, and rarely we’re given an opportunity to see that on this show. So far, so good in rearming a good actor with some good scenery to chew on.
4. The Children Are Our Future
And if that’s the case, our future is going to be absolutely, astonishingly messed up. It’s not Patrick’s fault, of course, that he got infected and turned the majority, even if he did look like he was 35 and not an actual child. But this episode continues to tackle one of the major themes of the comic that is something the show is working on more and more: the rise of the kids of the show to adulthood sooner rather than later.
Last season found Carl killing a younger Woodbury resident he ran into in the woods, and since, he’s clearly trying to impress his dad by being less violent even if it is hinted that this is against his nature. In this episode, they handle that quite well, as he wants his gun back, but he still can’t help but apologize to his dad for shooting a walker to save Michonne’s life. Meanwhile, Lizzie, one of the other youngsters in Carol’s survival/reading time, has her father get turned in the bloodbath in the prison, and she eagerly volunteers to take him out.
Continued belowEven though she backed out from the task, it still felt a little rushed to take her from being freshly introduced to the show to stabbing her father in the head. If that wasn’t enough, Carol calling her weak because she wouldn’t do the deed? Makes things that much worse, and underlines the differences in how they tried to handle these two kids. It will be interesting to see how the show features them going forward.
5. Rats and Gasoline
Someone is conspiring against the prison crew. Someone was feeding rats to the walkers outside of the prison to draw them in, and someone is burning the bodies of the infected – perhaps before their deaths. While we aren’t given any definite clues, I have some ideas on the subject.
Option 1: Bob Stookey, Lawrence Gilliard, Jr.’s new character who was introduced in the premiere. Named after a much different character from the comic, so far they’ve portrayed him as…well, a bit uneven for sure. He’s an unknown quantity, he’s a somewhat more notable actor, and he’s kind of creepy.
Option 2: The other little girl, Lizzie’s sister. It’s unlikely she could pull the bodies far enough to burn them, but let’s be honest: that girl is creepy as shit. Brings to memory the little brothers from the comic who ended up being pretty damn sociopathic, with Carl ending up putting one of them out of their misery (the other? Killed by his brothers hand).
We shall see. Any guesses? Share them in the comments, or at the very least, let me know how wrong I am about this episode, which I actually found pretty interesting and well made.
