I have literally been counting down the minutes ’till the season 2 premiere and now it has passed. The first season, while short and not exactly fulfilling, was definitely good enough for me to crave more. With fantastically detailed and completely believable zombies as well as hard-hitting emotional conflicts within the group of survivors, you have a recipe for success to serve up to today’s flesh-hungry audience. In an age where gore isn’t just appreciated, it’s demanded, The Walking Dead fills that hole.
What we learned at the end of the first season is that there is little to no hope of outside help coming along. In season 2, you feel a sense of hopelessness within the group, especially with Andrea. After losing her sister, she has lost all will to live. At the CDC, Dale gave her an ultimatum; either come with the survivors, or he will stay behind as well to die. This of course weighs heavy on her heart and she decides to live for him. Now she has an understandable disdain for Dale and somewhat hates him. I find this interesting as a reader of the comic because in the book she relies heavily on Dale as a source of strength and motivation. To see the hatred in her eyes for him is a little unsettling but I can sense they are working towards a bigger picture.
Other relationships are sort of questionable to me. Rick and Lori are a little too happy for a couple that is surviving a zombie apocalypse and Lori does not seem to feel any kind of regret for what she did with Shane when she thought Rick was dead. Shane doesn’t seem to feel guilty either. Just an unspoken jealousy and hatred towards Rick, which I don’t understand since Shane was the one that slept with his partner’s wife only weeks after the apocalypse began. So they try and counteract by forcing a relationship between Andrea and Shane directly after a scene where she tore Dale a new one in front of the entire group.
The character that really turned around in my mind is Daryl Dixon. He really shined in this episode as a survivor, tactical genius, and all around bad-ass. He makes me want to learn how to wield a knife with authority and has given me a new favorite weapon, the Automatic Cross Bow. Norman Reedus is easily the best character on the show thus far, but I see some serious character development for Carl. I can see him becoming the gun-toting cowboy already and that sort of excitement is saved especially for the fans of the ongoing comic series
Frank Darabont is still credited as the Executive Producer, which has me hopeful for the success of the show. With him overseeing, I can only assume he would step in were anything to go awry. That may make me a sucker but I fear myself becoming an apologist of the show down the road. With all the budget cut rumors, any fan would be worried. I am here to tell you though, the season premier was gore-tastic and full of scenes that looked very expensive to produce. The zombie makeup was on par with if not better than the first season, and there were scenes of carnage that would be simply beautiful to any fan of the genre. There’s just something about watching someone fish through zombie innards that gives me goosebumps.
This first episode begs the question, “How long would you keep searching for another person’s lost child in a post-apocalyptic world like this one?” During a very thrilling scene that had me on the edge of my seat, Carol’s daughter, Sophia, escapes certain ingestion and runs into the woods. Rick, being the kind-hearted civil officer he is, makes it his personal responsibility to protect Sophia but ends up losing her in the process. I believe he could have easily taken care of the mere two slowly stammering zombies while still keeping an eye on the young girl but he felt it to be safer to lead them away from her completely. That would probably be my one major complaint with the episode. It had some slow moving parts but made up for it with quite the surprising ending that definitely stays true to Robert Kirkman’s style of writing on the comic. Overall, I think it was a great beginning to what is sure to be a long running season and I’ll be patiently awaiting the arrival of the next episode.
I have been so busy lately that I hadn’t been able to watch either episode of season 2. Which i a bummer because I didn’t miss a beat in season 1, but I guess after two years, things might change a little. But amazing no one in the cast changed, didn’t see any new gray hairs or anything. This season is starting gout great, but they haven’t killed nay of the cast off yet, we don’t know about the little girl, but Shane and Otis look like they might be lunch. Knowing my luck they will find a way to escape unharmed. I think the real reason I watch is to see how long it is until all the supporting cast are eaten for lunch. Working Sunday nights at DISH have really started to get on my nerves now though, but the one nice thing is on dish online Episodes post the day after it airs, so I got caught up yesterday when I was expecting only the first episode, so that was a bonus.
Is the king of comments over? I had the most comments for November.