NOTE: Let’s be mindful of all the new viewers participating in this conversation and try not to spoil plot points taking place deep into the run of the comic series. Mild speculation is fine and encouraged, but don’t get too explicit with regard to future surprises. They will be deleted. Thanks!
“Bloodletting”
or
“Otisburg? OTISBURG?!?”
When last we left our intrepid survivors they were having trouble with their kids, Marty. Little Sophia was still missing in the zombie (and deer, apparently) infested woods and Carl was shot in the torso by persons unknown. Which of these cliffhangers to resolve fir– oh, wait we’re flashing back to the past! Lori waits outside of a school and tells a friend that the has been fighting with Rick. Again. She was being a bitch and he was staying emotionally flatlined. Again. It would seem that ol’ Rick never really gets upset about anything. Just as Lori is trying to decide if she’s really still in love with Rick, a patrol car pulls up with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Shane gets out and the look on his face says it all: Rick’s been shot in the pilot episode! The bell rings and little Carl comes ambling out of school and things are about to get really topsy turvy in his life.
Just wait until the zombie outbreak happens, kid.
After the opening credits and back in the present, Rick runs through a field holding his son Carl’s limp body. Running along with him is Shane and a dude with a rifle named, of course, Otis. He’s a portly fellow and can’t keep up which does not make Shane too happy. Otis tells Rick to keep running and he’ll find a house and in that house he’ll find someone named Herschel, and Herschel can help Carl. Boy, I hope that Herschel is a thoracic surgeon.
Standing in front of the house is Maggie and she watches Rick through binoculars as he runs towards her carrying Carl. You know, at this stage in the game I would think that a stranger staggering towards your location would would be shot but what do I know about the social niceties of zombie post apocalyptic society? Perhaps he sent someone ahead with his calling card? Maggie calls for her dad Herschel who, when Rick finally arrives, asks if Carl has been bitten by zombies. Rick says no, your idiot named Otis shot him. Herschel springs into action and starts barking orders and asking for all kinds of medical junk. Maybe he is a thoracic surgeon! Hooray! Herschel, Maggie, and some random woman immediately start working on Carl as Shane and Otis finally show up. Rick’s covered in blood and let’s be honest, that stuff’s not coming out of his uniform shirt, I don’t care what those commercials that show large amounts of blood being removed from clothing say.
Otis tells Herschel that he was shooting at the deer and that the bullet must have gone clean through and hit Carl, which is both good and bad. Good because the bullet was going much slower but bad because the bullet entered Carl in six pieces. Rick starts freaking out that Lori doesn’t know that Carl has been shot but Rick shouldn’t worry because back in the woods Lori senses a disturbance in the Force. They all heard the gunshot but she thinks that something is wrong. But because this is The Walking Dead and not Star Wars, the group presses on in search of Sophia.
Back at the highway, Dale and T-Dog continue to strip the abandoned cars of spare parts. Dale asks T-Dog how he’s feeling because the dude was just bleeding out yesterday. He’s in pain and Dale checks his arm and he finds out that T-Dog’s wound is infected and he is in danger of dying of blood poisoning. T-Dog finds this hilarious. Dale convinces T-Dog to search the cars for antibiotics and in doing so T-Dog finds something even better: cigarettes! Sadly, the car in which T-Dog finds the cigarettes features a baby seat covered in blood and bits of brain matter and that puts a damper on his Marlboro Man moment.
In the house, Rick blames himself for allowing Carl to come along with him and Shane. But before Rick is able to personally blame himself for every bad thing that has ever happened to the group, Maggie comes busting in to tell him that Carl needs blood–STAT!. In the ad hoc operating room, Shane is tasked with holding Carl down while Herschel goes about digging the bullet fragments out. Carl is screaming his head off and it’s an excruciatingly hard scene to watch. Kudos to Chandler Riggs who plays Carl.
Later on, Carl has some of Rick’s blood being transfused and he’s stable. Rick, however, is not. He’s freaking out that Lori doesn’t know that her son has been shot and is being operated on by Dr. Herschel, Medicine Man, and he’s a bit woozy from all the blood they’ve taken. I can’t imagine that Rick’s operating on a proper diet he’s bound to pass out at any moment. Once in college I went to give blood and I hadn’t eaten anything all day. I damn near keeled over. They had to put me in a bed and give me orange juice and a sandwich. Free food! Where was I? Oh, right–Shane volunteers to go fetch Lori while Rick stays close enough to keep giving blood to Carl. Herschel tells Rick that all of that rigamarole in the previous scene resulted in the removal of only one of the six bullet fragments, and the shallowest one at that. Plus, he thinks Carl has internal bleeding. Herschel has to cut Carl open and find the source of the bleeding and stop it. Now we’re getting into serious surgery territory. He needs supplies–respirators and whatnot. Otis and Shane volunteer to go to the local high school where FEMA had set up a field hospital before it was overrun by zombies. But now Shane can’t go get Lori so Maggie volunteers.
Back on the highway, Dale and T-Dog have had no luck finding antibiotics but they did find a sweet machete and a guitar! Now they can start some kind of really fucked up busking duo. T-Dog decides that since he and Dale were left behind that they must be considered the weakest of the group. And by weakest he means old and black. T-Dog thinks they don’t fit into this goup of crazies and tries to convince Dale to abandon the rest and take off and take their chances on their own. Dale is horrified until he figures out that T-Dog is running a high fever due to the infection.
In the woods, after deciding to abandon their search for Sophia for the day, the rest of the groups finds themselves about a hundred yards from the highway and in a prime spot to get attacked by zombies. Which is what happens to Andrea when she falls behind the group.
A) Never fall behind the group.
B) Andrea is going to need some serious therapy once civilization is reestablished.
Andrea tries to defend herself from the zombie with a complicated technique involving screaming and tripping and falling to the ground. She’s done for! But wait! Maggie comes riding up on a horse and wielding a bat. She bashes the zombie and starts yelling for Lori. She tells everyone that Carl has been shot and that Rick needs her to come now. Lori doesn’t hesitate to jump on the horse with Maggie even though Daryl doesn’t think that it’s a great idea to go off with a stranger. Even if that stranger has a horse. Maggie gives the others directions to the house and takes off with Lori in tow. Glen is a bit slack jawed because this cute girl appeared out of nowhere on a horse to bash the zombie and save Andrea. Daryl is kind of annoyed that Lori didn’t listen to him and so he very matter-of-factly finishes off the zombie with his crossbow because sometimes he is awesome.
The group reunites with Dale on the highway. Daryl is annoyed, Glen is all about the girl who appeared out of nowhere “like Zorro”, and Andrea doesn’t want to talk to Dale–again–about being attacked–again–by a zombie. At this point Carol has to wonder if they’ve all forgotten about Sophia. I certainly have!
Back at the house Herschel and Rick commiserate over the beauty of the land and the horrors of “the epidemic”. It took Herschel’s wife and stepson but spared his daughter Maggie. Herschel’s hoping to ride this thing out until there’s a cure. Rick tells him that the CDC blew up and that there is no cure. Herschel starts talking about how it’ll all be okay and the hysteria over AIDS and Rick’s like, “Uhhh…” Anyway, Herschel thinks that this is just the latest in a long line of plagues and everything will be fine eventually. Rick is saved from having to say “You’re crazy, old man” when Maggie and Lori arrive. She runs to Carl’s bedside and you can tell that she’s barely holding it together.
Later on it’s time for more blood transfusions and Rick is staggering. Herschel gives him some orange juice and then gets interrogated by Lori. Has he done this kind of surgery before? Is he really a doctor? Is he board certified? Does he take their insurance? Actually, as it turns out, Hershel is a veterinarian. But hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
At the high school Shane and Otis find the place completely overrun with zombies. I mean, completely. It’s like Atlanta all over again.
On the highway, the group wants to head to the house but Carol doesn’t want to leave in case Sophia comes back. They compromise. The group will stay behind for the night and make a big sign for Sophia telling her where they went, meanwhile Glen will take T-Dog to the house to see if they can get him some antibiotics because otherwise he’s going to die. Daryl says, “hey, why didn’t you say you needed drugs?” and pulls out a big ol’ bag full of just about every kind of pill, both illegal and over the counter, that you could want. The (formerly?) racist saves T-Dog… again!
Back at Zombie High School, Shane and Otis make their move. They grab a bunch of flares out of an abandoned squad car and light them up to distract the zombies while they run into an emergency medial trailer to grab supplies.
At the house, time is running out for Carl. Rick wants to give more blood and then go help Shane and Otis. That plan is immediately nixed by Lori and Herschel because Rick can barely walk across the room at this point.
In the emergency medical trailer, Shane and Otis scavenge the equipment they’ll need to save Carl. Hooray! They open the door to make their escape only to find that, having grown bored of the sparkly red lights, all of the zombies have returned. Boo! Time to make a run for it! They run this way–zombies. They run that way–zombies. The damn things are everywhere! The front door to the school is locked so Shane blasts his way through the glass with his shotgun. He and Otis quickly pull an inner security gate closed and lock themselves in. As the hordes of zombies press against the gate trying to get to Shane and Otis’ sweet, sweet manflesh, the bolts holding the gates together start to feel the strain…
Not only that but we’ve got our first major addition of new characters to the cast and if you’ve read the books you know that we mostly likely have a few new permanent(ish) additions. This episode reinforced the fact that this show features really fantastic casting.
New executive producer and showrunner Glen Mazzara took the writing reins this week and he turned in a tense and taut episode that featured little in the way of zombie thrills and chills and instead focused mostly on the characters. There’s a lot of tension in this group and it makes for fascinating inter personal dynamics. When you’re busy running for your life from the flesh craving undead you don’t usually have a lot of time to deal with your issues so its good to have episodes like this to focus on what the characters are going through. Between the strong writing and really suburb acting this week, The Walking Dead is quickly become one of the best shows on TV.
See you back here next week and throughout the season for my recaps and discussion and analysis of The Walking Dead every Monday morning here on iFanboy. We hope you’ll join us, it should be a lot of fun!
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Really great episode this week. Helped quite a bit by using the zombies very sparingly and effectively.
i watched the first episode of the second season a few days ago – this show is terrible
and I know this is off topic but you should do a recap of Once Upon a Time detailing what a blatant fucking rip-off of Fables it is
Ya unfortunatly your right. Havent watched the second episode.. but this show is pretty bad. I heard at my local shop that by the end of the filming for this season… there was a huge blowup between most of the cast members. Supposedly large numbers of the cast permanently quit the show. I dont know if its true though. It seems possible to me. Because the casting has been so awful. They have grouped a few competent actors/actresses with mostly mediocre and or horrible actors/actresses. I would imagine that might annoy the real pros of the group. Obviously the directing and writing arent too impressive either.
Once upon a time started out as a “Fables” tv show initially. So yeah, It’s probably damn similar.
@edward Okay, so I just watched the first episode of “Once Upon a Time” and it is no more a rip off of Fables then Fables is a rip off of the public domain Grimm’s fairy tale stories. The character relationships are in no way similar and does not seem to be moving in the direction of any of the Fables story arcs I’ve read. Yes there is a sheriff that may be the big bad wolf and yes there is a version of Fable Town, but that’s really it. However, I will say this show would probably not be on the air without the comic book series and it’s cult popularity. I’m honestly shocked it’s not a “blatant fucking rip-off” as you put it.
@Scottsisco: That’s the logic the studio executives used when figuring out they didn’t have to pay Bill Willingham anything too
but, unfortunately, you’re wrong. The concept of trapping the fairy tale characters in a modern day real-world city while battling enermies from the old world is a total plagiarism.
This is way to dorky to internet fight about. You win, “blatant fucking rip off” it is.
well, it’s obviously too late to avoid dorkiness, Fables Fan
Haha, touche my friend 🙂
Well, opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.
opinions are like assholes, no one gives a shit
@Reform: how are opinions like asshole then when the asshole is specially designed to give a shit? That’s fucking stupid
Some of the dialog was a little odd, but I like most of what’s happening.
I enjoyed the episode quite a bit, but not as much as Conor’s “recap”. I think we need to have a contest in which the winner is awarded the opportunity to sit with Conor while he watches an episode and gives a running commentary. I’d buy raffle tickets.
And, yes, Daryl is all kinds of awesome in the scene where he casually shoots the zombie.
The dialog is getting more and more terrible by the episode. The soap opera between the characters feels forced and unnatural. People are behaving illogically at every turn. They are riding the premise and they feel stuck, it also feels like they are listening to their fans TOO much, “Oh you like Daryl? Well now he’s super nice, see how he saved the black guy twice? He ain’t racist, see how he shoots this zombie boom like he’s real cool? You like Daryl right? Now you will love him!”
Can they reboot back to like Ep 3 and start over? I will still watch the show, but I see dark days ahead and I ain’t talkin’ bout the story…
Maybe I’m watching a different show than everyone else but I’m liking this season a lot so far. Different strokes I guess
I agree, but you have to be able to think of the book and show as different properties in order to not drive your self crazy.
Even separating the show from the comic – this is just progressively worse, in its writing, acting, pacing. I was hoping the dialogue would be better than season one, & it was for those first 15 Darabont minutes. Then… hell, this is going downhill fast.
In two episodes (one of which was an extended ep), about 1/3 of an episode’s worth of story has actually occurred.
I like this show a lot!
This was a really boring episode. It wasn’t a bad episode by any means, but from start to finish I could care less on what is going on.
I really doubt on what ‘great’ casting is in this show when most of the actors are terrible. Their line readings are stilted and everything is written so melodramatically. Most of these problems do come from the writing because it is predictable and they’re the reason why so many characters are being underused or unlikable. Take Lori for instance: While she was a bitch in the comics, at least Kirkman got her to be likable later on. Here, Lori is so unlikable and so mean to everyone that I am rooting for her to bite the bullet sooner. Yes, it’s terrible that Herschel is a Vet first and not a real doctor; but you take what you can get in an apocalypse and Lori’s continued reaction of dismissal was really annoying.
Really look at the cast and see how everyone except for Rick and Shane are being underused. Andrea is a whiny bitch who has quickly turned into a frequent victim on the show. Glenn has had virtually little to no lines the entire run sans his intro in season 1. Theodore (finally giving him a creditable name!!) is what he practically told us in the episode; the only black man in a horror show so he even knows his fate at this rate. I could go on and on and on. Heck the Greene’s weren’t ever properly introduced in this episode and while Scott Wilson did a great job with what he had in the episode; his speech to Rick about nature correcting itself seemed to come from no where. The only people I really care about are Dale and Daryl because they are played by two great actors and are seemingly given the best moments in each episode now.
I think, again, the real problem with this show is that it’s trying to cater to both fans of the book and new viewers. Each episode teases us a little on ‘hey this is from that particular issue!’ but then delve so far away from the source material that it’s muddled in it’s execution. The Greene’s farm is a big plot point early on in the book but here it is literally used as a dues ex machina and again none of the new characters were ever given a proper introduction. Also the characters all act pretty damn stupid in situations. Why Andrea couldn’t just run the fuck away from a single zombie and just easily get into her predictable instead is anyone’s guess. Plus Rick wants to save his son but can’t seem to take the hint he needs to stay for blood transfusion after being told by a professional a million times. Also why did Shane have to wait for Otis to go get medical supplies? Shouldn’t he have been told immediately instead of giving a pep talk to Rick twice?
The bad writing and stilted acting is killing this show. I didn’t hate this episode because the lack of zombies; fuck Kirkman has written a ton of issues that I enjoyed that had no zombies in it. But if you want to do an episode mainly focusing on characters then you better have some damn good writers and actors involved. This episode showed their biggest weakness and showed it HARD. I know people love this show because of the violence and it’s a comic adaptation. But if you really watch the episode it won’t take long to see the endless flaws in it.
D-
(I am torn on whether I want to stop watching this though. Because this show is a great way for me to bond with my parents as weird as it sounds. So if I stop watching then I kinda leave my parents out to dry because they like watching it as a family. So even with my negative review I might still be watching it for sentimental reasons…..again as silly as that sounds.)
The only thing I don’t agree with is the actors. I think most of these people are really good actors given shit to work with both from the writing and the directing. It’s a shame and this may turn into the biggest waste of material, but maybe it will turn around there is still hope.
But really, if you can’t pull off this stuff just throw zombies at us please!
@Burritoclock: The way they deliver their lines is pretty bad. Yes some of it might have to do with the directing and writing but if these were the best people for the job I shutter to think who were the rejects. They overact too in this from Rick/Shane screaming at Greene while removing the bullet, to Andrea acting like she is in ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ with all that screaming.
Again other then Dale and Daryl (maybe Herschel too if he stays longer) are the only people I root for in this show now because they actually do a good job.
Is it the chicken or the egg??? I think its both.
Spot on here, man. I will say, I think the dude who plays Rick is pretty good underneath all the shit dialogue/reactions they pile on him. In this episode, there were VISIBLE MOMENTS where you could see the actors wincing through their lines.
Ugh. And the half-committal religion/theology drama from these two episodes. God-aweful.
Loved the line about Dale and T-dog starting a fucked up busking duo. Just picturing them street performing with a banjo and a machete makes me laugh.
i know its really fashionable to find something wrong with something popular, especially when its related to comics…but i am loving this series and this season so far. I don’t know what you guys are complaining about.
I thought it was a pretty good episode and a nice act 1 to this next chapter. I’m excited to see what’s coming next.
I agree.. It is fashinable to find something wrong with something popular. However, thats nothing new .. it always has been. Its always been fashionable. Probably from the first day that the fist words were uttered by man. I find it annoying as well. But believe it or not.. im criticizing out of disappointment not because im contrarian. I have to say ive been spoiled by HBO and Showtime. If youve been watching those two networks its really glaring when your watching inferior network or basic cable shows. Most HBO shows have movie start talent as opposed to TV star talent. Makes a big difference. Example. The next new HBO show thats coming out is called luck. It stars dustin hoffman and nick noltey.. hows that for real acting talent.
Dismissing people disliking something as being fashionable is lazy. Try again.
Mad Men and Breaking Bad are both on the same network and are insanely popular. Both of those shows make the problems in Walking Dead stand out that much more.
@iroberts : “You pictrogram sux dinosaurs”
@prax…i’m sure you’re right…but in this case i’m calling it as i see it.
@Burritoclock Considering Walking Dead has much higher ratings than either Mad Men and Breaking Bad, I would venture to say this is the insanely popular show, the other are the critical darlings. Mad Men’s 4 season got about ~2.5 million viewers, Breaking Bad is sitting at consistently below 2 million. Walking Dead’s first season pulled in more than double those numbers.
@Wally Fair enough. Many of the opinions expressed thus far seem to be “Emperor’s Got No Clothes” than anything else.
@Wally: I’m sorry but I don’t think pointing out flaws in the writing or acting, arguably the two most important aspects of ANYTHING TV or Film related, are nitpicks.
I hear ya Burritoclock. I love Breaking bad too.. havent watched mad men yet… Its just that when i see breaking bad i think… man thats like every hbo/showtime series. It rare off of those too channels.
Its rare off of those two.. “two” channels. Gotta watch the typos.. or the lazy brain rather.
On another note i just watched the second episode. Was much improoved. Im not ready to drop it quite yet.
@PraxJarvin You can’t really site high ratings as “See, told you so” for these first two episodes. Be realistic – that’s primarily momentum from last season.
@Wally Your argument is really, “it gets a free pass from criticism because it’s popular”? And again, LAST season was popular. This season so far… I don’t think anyone here is attacking anything other than a severe downturn in quality.
@Jason I was using Season 1’s numbers. At any rate, at it’s lowest ratings, Walking Dead was still nearly 2x as high as the other two shows. I’m also not a huge fan of the show, I’m not saying “I told you so.” I’m pointing out the fallacy of calling MM or BB “insanely popular” when the numbers say otherwise.
However you felt about it, you can’t deny that the casting of Herschel was spot on. That had to have been really creepy for Adlard to see.
“When last we left our intrepid survivors they were having trouble with their kids, Marty. Little Sophia was still missing in the zombie (and deer, apparently) infested woods and Carl was shot in the torso by persons unknown. Which of these cliffhangers to resolve fir– oh, wait we’re flashing back to the past!”
I’m digging the Flashbacks in the show – something Krikman hasn’t done in the Comic Book at all. How cool would it be to see each character have a flashback to a time before the the outbreak or right at the start? But the writers from “Lost” might sue. 😉
************
“Otis tells Herschel that he was shooting at the deer and that the bullet must have gone clean through and hit Carl, which is both good and bad. Good because the bullet was going much slower but bad because the bullet entered Carl in six pieces. Rick starts freaking out that Lori doesn’t know that Carl has been shot but Rick shouldn’t worry because back in the woods Lori senses a disturbance in the Force. They all heard the gunshot but she thinks that something is wrong. But because this is The Walking Dead and not Star Wars, the group presses on in search of Sophia.”
Lori is really starting to bug me. This scene in particular rubbed me the wrong way. Could this be a result of lesser talented writers getting their grubby hands on the script? I miss Frank Darabont!
***************
“In the house, Rick blames himself for allowing Carl to come along with him and Shane. But before Rick is able to personally blame himself for every bad thing that has ever happened to the group, Maggie comes busting in to tell him that Carl needs blood–STAT!. In the ad hoc operating room, Shane is tasked with holding Carl down while Herschel goes about digging the bullet fragments out. Carl is screaming his head off and it’s an excruciatingly hard scene to watch. Kudos to Chandler Riggs who plays Carl.”
The kid that plays Carl did a good job here. Kid actors can make or break a movie/series. Good Example, Haley Joel Osmet in the Sixth Sense… yay. Bad Example, Jake Lloyd The Phantom Menace… ugh
**************
“Back on the highway, Dale and T-Dog have had no luck finding antibiotics but they did find a sweet machete and a guitar! Now they can start some kind of really fucked up busking duo.”
Dale and the T-Dog’s!! I’m Dale on the guitar! Over on Bass we have Merle! How does he play bass with only one hand? Talent my friends. On Drums it’s John Bonham! Yeah he came back as zombie but man he can still pound those skins! And on machete it’s T-Dog! This next song is called, “Poisoned Blood!”
******************
“In the woods, after deciding to abandon their search for Sophia for the day, the rest of the groups finds themselves about a hundred yards from the highway and in a prime spot to get attacked by zombies. Which is what happens to Andrea when she falls behind the group.”
This was a great attack scene that I didn’t see coming. Clever how they gave the zombie a sleeveless shirt to make him look a bit a Daryl. Now if they had given him a cross bow as well…..
**************
“The group reunites with Dale on the highway. Daryl is annoyed, Glen is all about the girl who appeared out of nowhere “like Zorro”, and Andrea doesn’t want to talk to Dale–again–about being attacked–again–by a zombie. At this point Carol has to wonder if they’ve all forgotten about Sophia. I certainly have!”
Where the hell DID that little girl go?
*******************
“Back at the house Herschel and Rick commiserate over the beauty of the land and the horrors of “the epidemic”. It took Herschel’s wife and stepson but spared his daughter Maggie. Herschel’s hoping to ride this thing out until there’s a cure. Rick tells him that the CDC blew up and that there is no cure. Herschel starts talking about how it’ll all be okay and the hysteria over AIDS and Rick’s like, “Uhhh…” Anyway, Herschel thinks that this is just the latest in a long line of plagues and everything will be fine eventually. Rick is saved from having to say “You’re crazy, old man” when Maggie and Lori arrive. She runs to Carl’s bedside and you can tell that she’s barely holding it together.”
I’m wondering if that was what CDC Dude whispered in Rick’s ear at the end of the last episode from last season? “There is no cure.” Or maybe it was just, “Your wife’s a bitch.”
**************************
“On the highway, the group wants to head to the house but Carol doesn’t want to leave in case Sophia comes back. They compromise. The group will stay behind for the night and make a big sign for Sophia telling her where they went, meanwhile Glen will take T-Dog to the house to see if they can get him some antibiotics because otherwise he’s going to die. Daryl says, “hey, why didn’t you say you needed drugs?” and pulls out a big ol’ bag full of just about every kind of pill, both illegal and over the counter, that you could want. The (formerly?) racist saves T-Dog… again!”
Every Zombie Holocaust survivor group needs a Daryl. My favorite character on the show, and I don’t even fuck my sister and burn crosses!
************************
Another good episode, but I am starting to notice a slight, what’s the word, laziness, in the writing. It’s okay to question the actions of characters to a point, but not to the point where it distracts from your viewing pleasure. Walking Dead is walking a fine line right now with that problem. Frank Darabont’s absence in this dept is noticeable
Daryl has quickly become the best, most likeable, smartest and most able character on the show. I keep hoping he offs Rick and Shane for being ineffectual prigs.
The flashbacks felt so out of place to me. This was always billed as, “the movie after the zombie movie”. It feels kinda wrong to go backward. That’s just my take.
I enjoyed episode 2 a lot more than the opener, but there are still some problems carrying over from last season. The more dialogue, the worse it gets. Let these people act, dammit! I was actually convinced by Rick’s red-rimed but not out-right-crying tears on the porch. I didn’t Shane coming and saying “It’s okay man, let it out.” The writing has significantly dumbed down this season, we’ve got characters screaming motivations at each other. Hell in episode one, you had the cast laundry list every plausible explanation for what the sound of a bell could be to the audience.
I could pick some nits, if I cared to (Zombie horde was far too large to be unseen/unheard until the last second in episode one, for one), but I’m starting to notice bad techniques creeping in. The over-abundant let’s film day for night and slap a yellow filter over it has to stop. Or at least, don’t let me see a clear blue sky over people’s shoulders if you’re filming “The sun is setting” scenes! There was some poor sound mixing too. Some characters appear to be stomping for no discernible reason, others walking on the same floor are apparently ninja. If I’m bored enough to be picking out day-for-night and sound mixing issues, there’s a problem.
Now, I watched Episodes 1 and 2 on the same night, so perhaps my displeasure with 1 (entirely too long, needed an editing and not the indulgent extra long priemiere.). The slower pace, light-on-dialogue episode 2 worked a lot better, for me. Granted there are some “Luckily everyone here has a PhD in Deus Ex Machina” situations in this ep that are carry over from the comic, but I would have thought someone smart enough in the writer’s room would have been able to address it.
I want this show to live up to the hype, but the seams are showing. The further we move away from the Darabont, the more this show slides into thoughtless, run of the mill Zombie movie territory.
You nailed it. All of your criticisms were the same things bugging me as I watched it last night.
That being said, Andrew Lincoln was playing Rick’s shock almost perfectly. Was really impressed by it. Can’t say the same for the rest of Ep. 2. I’m really hoping the show picks up soon. It just isn’t doing it for me anymore, and that’s too bad.
You know what was weird and funny?
Frank Darabont’s name seems to be shoe-horned into the credits now. The one credit in particular, ‘created by’ in particular, his name pops up for a split second and then suddenly disappears. It’s like a game of trying to find his name in the credits now.
Also, I didn’t hear about the cast breaking up like one of the commenters mentioned. But there was reports earlier in filming that the cast was pissed that Darabont left for stupid reasons. So I can kinda see why the cast might be phoning it in as a sorta ‘strike’ on his departure. But that is what killing the show if any of it were to be true.
I enjoyed this episode far more than last week’s. It brought out all those factors as to why it is a record-breaking and critical success. Right now season 2 has an 80 on metacritic, so apparently people do like it.
I liked the episode, and love the series all together. I don’t mind that it may not be following this or that, that’s what makes it even more interesting to me. And Conor, great job on the Back to the Future reference! LOL
Last week I was okay with the cliffhanger, but yesterday when Shane and Otis were trapped behind the gate I was pleading the tv to go on five more minutes!
I really didn’t care for the first episode of this new season but this episode won me back. The dialogue is a little clunky still and I’m tired of the missing child storyline but I love what’s going on with Carl and Rick.
Another thing that bothered me was the way they resolved the Sophia story…well for the time being.
The Mom has been acting hysterical for almost two episodes. She wouldn’t take no for an answer and when someone suggested to stop the search or convince her she was going to be fine on her own she snapped at them. But when they suggest in this episode to put ‘a big sign’ up for her and leave her food…She’s totally won over!
Another example of inconsistent writing for a character.
I’m worried the plots in this show will get dragged on a bit to much. That being said, while i agree there are some problems here and there with characters and dialogue, i find it hard pressed to call any aspect of this show “Terrible”.
Why was Carl’s mom worried that the medicine man was a vet? The medicine man has a superpower, x-ray vision. He knew the bullet split into 6 fragments. He knew where to find at least one of the fragments.
Haha, nice.
Great illustration of bad writing!
I love this show.
I do agree that sophie’s mum changed her tune pretty quick at the end of the ep, but still a great watch
Did anyone notice that when Darryl went and got the drugs out of the bike, at the bottom of the bag is a bit of “blue meth” from breaking bad.
AMC easter egg?????