Sundays 10pm AMC
Between the airing of this episode and last week's, news broke that Frank Darabont fired the entire writing staff of show (except Robert Kirkman, obviously). Despite the internet uproar, I found myself relatively unconcerned by this. Kirkman and Darabont wrote all but two episodes of the first season so it shouldn't be that big of a change, and if the up and down nature of this short season was any indication, a more unified voice guiding the series should be a plus. So that's just my two cents on that.
This episode had some internal pacing problems of its own, but overall I think it was a strong ending to a brief season. It answered a few questions, raised a bunch more and drove home the themes that will theoretically be driving the show forward next year. I'm going to talk pretty explicitly about the ending of the episode in this review, so fair warning.
After arriving at the CDC and meeting Dr. Edwin Jenner, the survivors are offered a brief respite from the horrors of the world above. Their stay is soured however, when the mental fragile Jenner informs them that there is basically no hope for a cure and that the zombie plague has likely ravaged the entire planet. He then seals the survivors in the complex and initiates a self-destruct sequence. DUN DUN DUNNNN!
I liked this episode a lot, so I'm going to get the one problem I had with it out of the way first. The talking CDC computer was a silly way to deliver exposition and the whole self-destruct sequence (despite making sense in context) struck me as a cheap way to generate tension, and an unnecessary one too, given that they characters had just learned that, in the long term, they're pretty much fucked. That the last half of the episode centered around this was kind of weak, but the actors and writers managed to carry it through pretty well.
This whole CDC diversion seems like a substitution for a brief arc in the comic (issues 8 to 11 or so) where the characters stumble upon an isolated gated suburb and too quickly come to believe their troubles are over. The emotional thrust of the two scenarios is the same, but the CDC plotline comes with the added bonus of throwing a bone to TV audiences who probably wouldn't put up with the fact that the comic never widens it scope to indicate how the infection started or how it affected the rest of the world. Granted, Jenner doesn't actually tell the characters much that they don't know, but I suppose it helps to cement the gravity of what's happened.
Another big change from the comic is them keeping Shane around for as long as they have. It's easy to see why in this episode. His scene with Lori in this episode was pretty harrowing (and made up for the cliched scene of him drinking in the shower) and it would have been a shame to bring that whole love triangle to a boil too soon. Jon Bernthal is a solid actor and they've been doing a good job of having Shane and Rick be each other's biggest support while still driving a Lori-shaped wedge between them, slowly but surely. Speaking of which, I'm guess another one will be driven in by what Jenner whispered in Rick's ear. DUN DUN DUNNNN again!
The final bit that I think they did really well were the two scenes between Andrea and Dale. I was never really concerned that they were going to actually kill them (and even if I hadn't read the book, I still would have thought so), but it was an effective way to allow Andrea to come to grips with her grief over Amy's death and another nice building block in her relationship with Dale. That whole final sequence with Jenner trying to convince them to commit mass suicide with him did a really effective job of distilling the core motivation of the book which is (to me anyway) "Keep fighting even though you'll almost certainly die anyway". I think if the show keeps that in mind going forward, it'll be alright.
So yeah. Here ends my full season of TV reviews. It was a short season, sure, but it was fun to watch and to write about. I feel bad about falling off with my Boardwalk Empire reviews (the finale was great, by the way), but I think I just can't pull off movies and more than one TV show at the same time. I'll be back next year with more Walking Dead and this spring I'll be reviewing Game of Thrones on HBO. And by reviewing, I mean talking about how it is the greatest thing ever. Here's some final stray observations:
- Glad that the Chekov's Grenade came back into play. Not what I was expecting, but fun.
- This show is pretty good as far as being realistic (other than, you know, the zombies), but I really feel like they all couldn't have been that close to that explosion and still been fine at the end.
- Nice musical montage at the end. I'm not too familiar with the Dylan song they used, but they lyrics were sweetly appropriate.
- I kind of wish Jenner had stuck around. I liked the actor a lot. The stuff with his wife wasn't particularly original, but he played it well.
- Jacqui stayed behind to die. No one cared.
- I'm probably never going to get to that How To Train Your Dragon review, so here it is: It was fun! Jay Baruchal should do more voice acting! The physics of the dragons flying were extremely intricate and cool! I'm sure it looked great in 3-D! The main dragon looked like my girlfriends stupid cat! It wasn't as funny as Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs but you should see it anyway!
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