Walking with The Walking Dead

Well, here we are at the last "Walking With the Walking Dead" post I'll be writing until October 2011. Maybe it's just me, but I don't know how good of an idea it is to wait that long before airing new episodes. I understand that there aren't any now, but surely at least something new could be finished before then. I worry about the attention span of joe tv-watcher, who will likely have found other things to occupy their tivo long before next fall. With having season 2 start a whole year later, AMC will almost have to "re-introduce" the entire world to the show. Unless of course there are plans to re-run the six episodes from this season over the summer or something.

Well then, the finale didn't waste much time in answering my question as to whether or not we would be staying in the CDC for a while, now did it? There be SPOILERS ahead kids, as per usual.

Episode 6: TS-19

This episode begins with a flashback with Shane and Rick at the hospital while Rick was still in a coma after being shot. I'm guessing this is maybe during the beginning of the outbreak, as the military is on the scene doing a little "clean-up". It was kinda hard for me to decide whether Shane was simply scared out of his mind, or just a complete moron, but there's an explosion that rocks the hospital and all of Rick's monitors lose power. Shane gives Rick a look, listens on his chest for a heartbeat, decides that he's probably dead, and leaves the room. Rick isn't hooked up to any sort of life-support, in fact he doesn't really appear to have much going on other than an IV and some heart monitors, but the screen turned off and Shane got the hell out of there. But hey, at least he pushed a stretcher in front of the door, what a pal! 

Back in the present, Rick and company enter the CDC and that's where we're basically spending the rest of the episode. They're greeted by Dr. Jenner and his assault rifle. After giving everyone blood tests, and doing introductions, the group gets some much needed downtime, with dinner and wine flowing freely, followed by the first hot shower that most of them have had in a while. We also get more proof that Shane is going to continue to be a bit of a problem for Rick and Lori, as he confronts her about their relationship, telling her that he loves her. He grabs her, and gets some nasty scratches across his face and neck for it. I was waiting for Rick to show up here, but he doesn't.

The next morning, the group has some questions for Jenner, who really doesn't appear to know much more than they do about the outbreak. All he really does is go over the different possibilities for what is going on, but there's no definite answer. He explains that he is the only one who stayed behind, as the other doctors and people who worked there either left, or couldn't handle what was going on and ended their own lives. He shows them the research done at his facility on one particular test subject though, TS-19, who was bitten there and volunteered to have the doctors  experiment and record her during the process of death. The demonstration ends when we see a bullet enter the brain on the screen seconds after re-animation.  I thought this was a pretty cool scene, I liked watching the zombification process occur through MRI. It's different, and not something that we usually get in zombie movies, as they tend to be more about surviving the undead than actually studying them or the science behind it. 

Of course all is not well at the facility, and our little band of survivors have arrived just a few hours before the generators will be running out of fuel, and the building will go into full decontamination, which being that this is a Center for Disease Control, dealing with weaponized viruses and the like, means fire and lots of it. With just 30 minutes until ignition, Jenner locks everyone inside. His motive for doing this being that outside there is nothing waiting for them but eventual agonizing death, and dying inside the facility by incineration is a much better alternative. Of course there is a bit of disagreement here, and after a bit of persuasion (including Shane going apeshit and blowing several monitors and such to shit, and threatening to blow the doctor's head off with a shotgun before he's wrestled to the ground by Rick), he re-opens the door of the room they're in. He wishes them luck, and tells them that there's nothing he can do about the main doors to the facility, as it's in complete lockdown. 

They arrive at the front door with just over 3 minutes left until decontamination. As expected, they have some trouble getting the glass to break, as axes, a chair, and a shotgun all prove to be useless. Luckily though, Rick is the kind of guy that walks around with grenades in his pocket, and Carol just so happens to have found one there while washing his uniform the first morning after he arrived at camp. Apparently this woman, who has two small children with her at almost all times, has been carrying a live hand grenade in her purse. Wow. Anyway, so Rick places the grenade by one of the windows, it does it's job and the group head outside with not much time left to spare. We lose another "tv-only" cast member here, as Jacqui decides she doesn't want to end up like Jim and Amy, and stays behind with Jenner. Andrea also wants to stay behind, but Dale refuses to leave without her, so she reluctantly escapes with him. Once outside, the group dispatches a few roamers between them and their vehicles, they all board up and drive away from the burning pile of rubble. 

End season one! Overall I'm pretty pleased with the show so far. I hate that it was only 6 episodes, but I get why. I am glad that it's been so popular though, I even have people who I never would've thought would be into something like this come up to me at work and ask me about it. There are still a few things we're left hanging on, like Daryl's brother Merl, still no idea where he is or what he's up to with the van, the whole Rick/Lori/Shane thing is nowhere near over, and just as in the comic, Andrea and Dale are showing signs of becoming an item. Lots to work off of beginning next season, bring it on.

Walking with The Walking Dead

Has it really been 5 weeks already, and there's only one episode left until the end of next freakin' year? Damn. This week's episode was smaller in scope, and dealt primarily with the group dealing with the aftermath of last week's attack. As such, I won't really have a whole lot to say about it, but you just know there are a couple of things I want to talk about. First things first though, once again, if  you haven't seen the episode yet, stop reading now. SPOILER ALERT in full effect from here on out.

Episode 5: Wildfire

So as I said, they're dealing with the attack from last week, and some better than others as to be expected. Daryl and most of the men in the group are making sure the zombies are dead again, and burning the bodies, and preparing the bodies of the people killed for burial. Remember last week when I mentioned that I didn't really care for Andrea and Amy? Well, this episode didn't really do anything to change that, but it did give me what I thought was an extremely emotional and very well done scene, probably second only to when Rick first arrived at camp and saw his family alive. Andrea refused to let anyone get near Amy's body, while she sat beside her from the moment she died, even going so far as to pull a gun on anybody who got close. The others weren't sure what to think about her, given her state of mind, but I knew exactly what she was doing, waiting for Amy to return from the dead so she could be the one to end her suffering. If you can call being a reanimated corpse suffering that is. Most days that sounds pretty good to me.

During the cleanup we also learn that Jim didn't make it through the battle unscathed, when fresh blood is noticed on his shirt. He tries to play it off, but eventually is held down and a we get a look at a big bite mark on his abdomen. There is some argument as to what to do with him, but eventually he's taken inside Dale's RV and kept watch over. A couple of reasons why I like this, one it happens in the comic and it's good to see that we're not moving away from it entirely, and two it gives a glimpse as to the transformation that takes place once bitten by a walker.

The Rick and Shane feud is really beginning to flare up this week, with arguments over just about everything. Shane even has Rick second guessing himself, and they're both going to Lorie for affirmation. Quite the triangle we have forming here, and again I was beginning to think that I was going to be right about where this season was going to be ending. Especially when Rick and Shane went out into the woods to do a sweep, and tempers flare, ending with Shane pointing his gun at Rick when he has his back turned to him. In the comic this is where Shane really loses it, and is also where he exits the book. In the show, however, Dale walks up, sees what is happening, and Shane plays it off like he thought Rick was a walker or something else, saying that they really should start wearing  reflective vests. I still don't think things will end well for these two, but it's not looking like the situation will come to a head this season.

It's eventually decided that the group should move out toward Atlanta, to try and get Jim some help from the CDC. Not everyone is on board, and the group does a bit of a split here. Fine by me, as the ones who leave aren't in the book, so now I won't have to bother learning their names. Along the way, the RV breaks down, and while stopped Jim asks for Rick and company to leave him behind. The virus has almost taken over him, and he wants to go be with his family. Another part of this week's episode that I liked because it was from the book. After making sure Jim knows what he's saying, and that it's what he really wants, they leave him sitting under a tree, and move on toward Atlanta.

Here's where the episode loses me a little. We get a look at a scientist inside the CDC who's apparently been working on a way to cure the disease by himself, as he appears at least so far to be the only one inside the building. When Rick and co. arrive, the CDC is in lock-down, with dead bodies laying around outside. Once they start banging on the doors, the bodies start moving around. You'd think that at this point they might know better than to do this. After a few minutes, and some serious begging and pleading into a camera that they're not even sure someone is watching, the door eventually opens to an ominous white light.

So going into the season finale next week, we're completely off the comic continuity again. It's going to be interesting to see what happens inside the CDC. Will they attempt to stay there, like they do the prison in the book, is the scientist going to be joining the group, or will he go the "mad scientist" route and attempt to experiment on them with the disease? I'm sincerely hoping things don't get all "Resident Evil" route here. I don't think it will, but this last scene REALLY reminds me of Capcom's survival horror zombie offerings. Hopefully we'll find out some of the answers next Sunday before we have to wait the excruciatingly long time until season 2 begins.

Walking with the Walking Dead

So that's what "Vatos" meant! Completely outside the comic again this week, but this is the first episode that Robert Kirkman's written himself, so it's forgivable. Not to mention the fact that this is the best episode to date, in my opinion. Did anybody else get the feeling that this could easily have been a "deleted scene" from the comic? I can totally see where Kirkman would've used this, it fits perfectly with the tone of the book. Of course several details would've needed to be changed, but stll.

Episode 4: Vatos

So far there really hasn't been much need for this, but as of this week I think it's for the best that I add a huge SPOILER ALERT to these posts. If you haven't seen this episode yet, or are waiting to watch the whole season at one time, do NOT read any further. You've been warned!

This week kicked off with Andrea and Amy fishing in the quarry, noticing the little differences in their respective style, which both found strange being that their father had trained them. Another little bit of emotional drama for the series, and a good scene, but so far I don't much care for Andrea in the show. In the book she's one of my favorites though, and hopefully as the show progresses she'll start turning more and more into that. Amy as it turns out, doesn't last long enough in either iteration for me to form much of an opinion one way or the other. But more on that later. Before getting back to Rick and co.'s search for Merl, we get a quick look at camp, where Dale notices some unusual behavior from Jim, which I totally called, and again, more on that later.

After discovering Merl's severed hand on the rooftop last episode, Rick and crew begin following the tracks left behind trying to find the rest of Merl. He managed to get outside the building after cauterizing the stump where his hand used to be, and of course Daryl wants to follow. Rick tells him they'll look, but first they need to grab the guns out in the street, and after a little scuffle, Daryl agrees. The plan is for Glenn to run solo to retrieve the bag, and then meet up with either Daryl in one alley, or Rick and *ugh* "T-Dog" in another if the path isn't clear. Of course things don't go exactly as planned, and after grabbing the guns, Glenn is attacked by what appears to be gang members, or "vatos" (cool mexican guys, similar to homies- thanks Urban Dictionary!). They grab him and the bag, but before they can get in the car, Daryl shoots one of them in the ass with his crossbow. Vato drops the guns, but they drive off with Glenn, but not before Daryl captures one of them.

After some convincing, Rick, Daryl, and T-Dog (I seriously hate that, and is this supposed to be Tyrese because I really hope not) get the captured vato to bring them back to his camp to meet with his leader "G", to attemtp to negotiate a hostage exchange. Unfortunately, G isn't as interested in exchanging hostages as he is getting his hands on the guns, and he recommends Rick leave and decide whether to return ready to hand over the guns, or "locked and loaded" and ready for a bloodbath. 

Well, how about Rick this week?! It took three and a half episodes, but this week I finally got a "GO RICK!" moment when he returned to the garage with the bag of guns, and no intentions of leaving without both them and Glenn, ready to get all "O.K. Corral" up in that bitch. G threatens to cut Glenn up and feed him to his dogs, which he assures are 3 of the meanest, man eating bitches on the planet, bought from Satan at a yard sale...

Before things pop off though, a sweet old lady walks in and the entire situation is diffused. Turns out G and crew are holed up in a nursing home, with G and one other being the only former employees who refused to leave the guests behind when the zombies attacked. The rest of the vatos are children and grandchildren who came to visit family, and ended up staying to help out. This is exactly what makes The Walking Dead so great, this easily could've gone the stereotypical route with the "gang bangers" and all, but Kirkman completely flips the situation, and basically shows us that the two groups are pretty much exactly the same, just a group of people trying to survive in a bad situation. Absolutely loved this entire scene. 

So after parting with almost half of the guns, and getting Glenn back, the gang returns to find their van stolen and decide that only Merl can be responsible. And where's the first place Merl would head toward? Camp. So they take off on foot after him. 

Now, for that strange behavior, earlier Dale noticed Jim up on a hill by himself digging, and he's been at it all day, in 100 degree Georgia summer weather. Anybody who's ever lived through a summer in the southeast knows that clearly this dude is off his rocker a little bit. Worried about him, eventually the group heads up to see what he's really up to. Not taking kindly to being questioned, Jim eventually has to be wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by Shane. That night at camp, chained to a tree, Jim explains that it must have been the heat, and that he's fine. He had some sort of dream, and that's what prompted the digging, but he couldn't remember any details. As mentioned before, I called this, as soon as I saw him I said "he's digging graves", and I knew this episode wasn't going to be ending well.

And it didn't. While the gang sits around cooking up all the fish that Andrea and Amy caught, the zombies attack camp. First they get Ed, who has refused to leave his tent after the ass-whipping that Shane handed him last episode, then Amy who had left the group to pee. Several of the group are taken during the attack, mostly show-only characters who had existed mainly in the background thus far, you know the "red shirt" wearing types from Star Trek. Rick and crew arrive just in time to help fight off the last of the zombies. Right before the credits roll, Jim remembers his dream, and why he was digging, he was digging graves.

So as I mentioned, this was my favorite episode so far. I know you'll probably assume it's because of the carnage at the end, and you're not totally wrong, but it was the scene at the nursing home that really did it for me. Even though there wasn't much from the book, this is the first time I really felt like I was watching a moving issue of The Walking Dead. You can accredit every bit of that to the fact that Robert Kirkman wrote this one himself. Nobody gets these character and this story the way he does, obviously. I say let him write the rest of the show too, provided of course that it doesn't interfere with his comic book writing in any way. Only two episodes left, and then we're forced to wait a whole year for season 2....

Walking With the Walking Dead

Looks like those new characters may be around for a while, eh? We're three episodes in, and just as in the comics, it looks like the main focus here is going to be the people and how they interact with a zombie outbreak, with the actual zombies themselves being in the background. In my opinion, exactly the way it needs to be for this to succeed as a television show.

Episode 3: Tell it to the Frogs

I'm not entirely sure my attempt to read the comics along with the show is going to be worth the effort, aside of course from my enjoying the series again from the beginning. With these new characters, I'm thinking the show might become more and more it's own monster, primarily just using characters and a few situations from the source material. I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a little disappointing, especially knowing and loving the book the way I do. It's understandable that the show needs to be able to stand on its own, and is catering to an entire new audience, but this show exists because of comic nerds like me, and I want to see what I've read when I turn on the tv. But I promise not to bitch about this for the entire season.

Episode three began with Rick, Glenn, and the rest of the crew returning to base camp from Atlanta. Rick is the last one out of the truck, and we get what is easily one of the best scenes so far when he's reunited with his wife and son. I thought it was really well done. Amy's reaction to her sister Andrea returning was a bit much I thought, she acted like Andrea had been missing and thought dead longer than Rick had, but maybe that's just me. Perhaps her relationship with her sister is just different than my relationship with my own brother, as I'd imagine a "sup" would likely suffice for the both of us in a similar circumstance.

The first zombie scene this episode with the deer I liked, this also happens in the book. Different situation, as in the comic it's only Shane and Rick that run up on the zombie chomping away on Bambi while they're out hunting. Of course in the show, the entire group show up and take turns beating the hell out of the zombie before Dale finally removes it's head with an ax. At this point in the comic, Shane and Rick are already butting heads over how the group should be lead, and what the next move should be, Rick wants to pack up and move further away from the city, and Shane wants to stay put and wait for the military to drive by and rescue them. The hunting trip is where their differences begin to turn from discussion to full blown argument, and the show hasn't touched on this at all yet. This leads me to believe that the first season will be ending about where I think it might be, with Rick and Shane's feud coming to a head.

We also get another new character introduced, Daryl, played by Norman Reedus of Boondock Saints fame. Daryl is Merl's brother, Merl you might remember was handcuffed to a pipe on the roof of the department store and left behind by Rick and company when they escaped Atlanta. Daryl is none too happy to hear the news about his brother, and after some arguing and a fight, he, Rick, T-Dog, and Glenn set out to rescue him and retrieve the guns Rick lost when he was swarmed while riding the horse into town. All this is pretty much tv only stuff, except for one thing when they get to the roof and find Merl gone. Apparently he managed to reach a hacksaw, and sawed his hand off to escape the cuffs. Comic readers should be familiar with a one-handed character, but it's not Merl, and it didn't happen this way, so I'm interested in seeing how this little twist plays out. Why Merl decided to saw through his own wrist instead of the chain on the cuffs, or the pipe he was cuffed to, we may never know. My guess? He's stupid.

One last thing I wanted to mention, the Shane and Lori relationship. It may have been going on a little longer in the show than in the book, but it looks like it's just as over as soon as Rick comes back. So tv Lori is in agreement with comic book Lori in her assessment that her and Shane was a huge mistake. Lori drops a little bit of a bomb at the end here, when she says that Shane is the one who told her Rick was dead. Wonder if he truly thought that, or if he already had feelings for Lori in the past. The show also gives us a little glimpse of psycho Shane, when he beats the living shit out of Ed, who wins the award for biggest douchebag in the show so far after he slaps his wife, Carol, for laughing while washing clothes with Andrea, Amy, and Jacqui at the quarry.

And that's what I thought about episode 3. It's still too early to tell, but The Walking Dead has some definite potential to dethrone Sons of Anarchy as my current favorite show on television. Next week's episode is entitled "Vatos", an interesting title, can't wait to see what Frank throws at us next.

Walking with The Walking Dead

You didn't really think I was done talking about The Walking Dead on AMC yet, did ya? My original plan was to re-read the comics along with the show as it aired, and talk about each episode afterwards. Unfortunately for me, I have somewhere around a half million comics, and my issues of the Walking Dead ended up spread all over the place throughout the course of three different location changes the past few years. However, a friend asking me if they could read the comics, and myself always being one to promote comics whenever possible, prompted me to rent a backhoe and dig all 78 issues out and get them together.

This also gives me the opportunity to do what I had planned on doing, and enjoy the series all over again, in both print and televison formats. It's going to be somewhat difficult to not read ahead of the show beforehand, as I won't be sure before the episodes air when and where in the story they'll break. I remember enough of the series to stay pretty close though I think. That's the plan anyway. For this first post, I'm gonna catch up on the first two episodes, in preparation for the third tonight.

Episode 1: Days Gone By

So far there have been lots of things that seem to be pulled directly from the books, especially in the first 90 minute episode. The scene when Rick is shot was  of course important for setting up the entire story, but in the show it was way more fleshed out and took longer to get through. Nothing really important to note as far as differences to what happened, but in the comic it was I think literally no more than three or four panels on one page. The flashback sequences with Rick and Shane in the patrol car talking, and with Rick and Lori didn't happen in the book either. I thought these were nice additions, particularly the Rick and Shane scene as we get a glimpse of their past friendship, and adds a little sadness to what is coming for those two.

The meeting of Morgan and his son Duane also ended up being pretty different detail wise, and for the better. I thought Morgan's reaction to Rick in the show was far better and more believable in the show. In the book, Duane cracked Rick on the back of the head with the shovel, Morgan ran over, looked at Rick, helped him up and took him home for dinner without much question. In the show, same thing, only Morgan never took his gun off Rick, even after he got him home and cleaned and bandaged up until after much deliberation, and explanation on Rick's part. Granted, in the book the first thing Rick did after waking up in the hospital was put on clean clothes instead of waltzing around town in his tattered, dirty hospital gown, so "comics Morgan" was dealing with what probably appeared to be a perfectly normal human being. Still, during the zombie apocalypse, it's going to take more than clean clothes to make me comfortable with a stranger, especially if I'm considering bringing him to the home that me and my children are living in.

The other stuff before they part ways was overall the same in both, Rick took them to the police station, gave them supplies, thanked them and they went their separate ways. The book never gives us a look at Morgan again after this point, the show adds what so far has been my favorite difference. Morgan returns home with Duane, tells his son to read his comic books for a while, and proceeds upstairs with the rifle that Rick has just given him. I'm not sure if I'm exactly right, but to me at this point it seemed as if maybe Morgan had decided to move on, because he no longer seems worried about alerting the walkers outside to his and Duane's presence and begins shooting from a second floor window. He eventually trains his crosshairs on his wife, but can't bring himself to pull the trigger. Again, not entirely sure why he decided to do this, unless he and Duane are taking their car and relocating.

The rest of the episode was pretty close to the book, with no notable differences. The tank was new, and pretty cool. It did appear in the comic, but only for a splash page, and there wasn't any interaction with it. The poor horse was in both, but his ending was far more unsettling in the show, attribute that to the addition of sound though.

Episode 2: Guts

Episode two was a completely different story, literally. I promise not to be as long on with this one, and honestly couldn't be if I tried. The Asian kid who rescued Rick is Glenn, at this point in the comic, Glenn and Rick escape the department store by climbing the scaffolding and leaping to the roof of the store beside it, then climbing down and running back to camp, where Rick is reunited with his family and meets the others. The show at this point introduces us to several characters in the store, including four that don't appear in the comic. As far as I remember, and can tell from what I've gone back and read, Morales, Jacqui, T-Dog, and Merle exist in television continuity only. Amy, Andrea, and Jim exist in both. Again, nothing wrong with changing things up, but from what I can tell it looked as if this group had maybe left camp in search of supplies, and had run into Rick. In the comic, no one seemed to know exactly why, but Glenn always made supply runs alone. Maybe easier for him to get in and out by himself? Not sure, but if we're going to add characters, I really hope they all aren't as annoying as these few were.

The only other real difference worth mentioning is Shane's relationship with Lori, which seems to be secretive in both, but much more "ongoing" in the show. I got the impression that Shane and Lori had been routinely sneaking off the be by themselves and getting it on, in the comic it's only referenced once and Lori is of the opinion that it was a mistake. Apparently "tv Lori" is ok with making this "mistake" into a bad habit maybe. Again, a subtle difference, but makes what is looming there a little more uncomfortable.

So all caught up and ready for episode three now! I've finished the first 6 issues of the comic as of this writing, so I'm probably as far ahead as I need to be for a while. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the season finale wasn't what happens at the end of issue 6. The show is off to a fantastic start though, with a lot of good buzz, especially amongst the horror blogging community. I also read online today in several different places that the show has been given the go ahead for a second season. It's exciting, being a long time fan of the series, it's really nice to see so much love for The Walking Dead right  now.