If you watched last night's episode and want to discuss it, meet me on the comments page for this post. SPOILERS.
P.S. (SPOILER-FREE PARAGRAPH): The above photographic still (from AMC's Season 2 ad campaign) is the single image that got me to watch the series. It's incredibly effective. I think the reason is that it exactly counters the only stigma the show's got: namely, that it's yet another zombie story, breaking into an overdone, glutted market. What possible reason could there be for more zombies? The above image got to me because it seems to answer the question, as powerfully and poetically as possible. There aren't any zombies in the picture; it could be happening any time, in any genre; it's just a rural cop running on a road towards a farm. There's nothing that overtly suggests a Zombie Apocalypse...and yet, AMC is saying that there is. Look again. Feel the tone, the vibe. It's the zombie apocalypse, all right...like you've never seen it before. Gave me chills, and I immediately hit Netflix and watched the first episode (and I haven't looked back).
14 comments:
In no particular order:
1) NO discussion of the graphic novel; upcoming characters we might or might know about; how the story diverged/will diverge from the comics version etc.
2) I don't know what it was about last night's episode, but something about it really got to me, to the extent that, for the first time ever, I had extended dreams set in a zombie apocalypse very much like Walking Dead's version. I actually woke up from the first one -- a nightmare -- and went to get a glass of water (opening the bedroom door very carefully, because I've seen enough movies to know about the double-wake-up nightmare trick) (Really!) and then, when I went back to sleep, returned to my zombie-apocalypse dreamscape. The only character from the show that appeared distinctly was Glenn, which is a testament to Steven Yeun (who's by far the best actor on the show).
3) Are they playing by "Romero rules" or what? Randall and Shane both got up as zombies without having been bitten. Is this the "secret" that Renner (my high school friend Noah Emmerich) whispered in Rick's ear? Or was he just telling Rick that Lorie was pregnant? If you don't have to get bitten to rise as a zombie, than what the hell is the deal with all those corpses in all those cars everywhere? I need to think through the whole series and remember if this is consistent. Don't get me wrong: I prefer the "Romero rules" (as opposed to, I guess you'd say, the "Zack Snyder rules) but it certainly changes the gameboard.
4) Things are really moving quickly now. I love the development that Randall really is pretty fucking evil and was lying about his scary cabal of machine-gun-toting rapists who are nearby. (It's the opposite of the reveal in Reservoir Dogs that Gordon Nash, the cop with the cut-off ear, actually knew that Mr. Orange was a cop and didn't tell Mr. Blonde.) Unfortunately the knowledge of the exact location of the bad guys died with Shane.
5) Rick's maneuver with the knife and the gun was pretty fucking sweet.
6) Is Shane's "character arc" believable? It seems a bit forced, but then, it's a TV show and you can usually see the "invisible rails" guiding the story and not mind them.
7) I can't figure out why Glenn declined Maggie's invitation to move into her bedroom. Does he think it's "unfair"? Or is the show doing its usual trick of emphasizing how modern gender equality goes away when society collapses?
8) Only one episode left in the season (I think.) I know they're going to engineer some kind of unbearable cliffhanger, and I'm not looking forward to the entire year and a half of suspense that we've come to expect from AMC shows. Maybe they'll up the pace on TWD, since it makes so much money (and, unlike Mad Men, it isn't created by some unfirable control freak who insists on negotiating everything for six months before the next season even gets greenlit).
9) I don't miss Glenn, because, while the character (and his "position") was very important, I just didn't find him that personally engaging. A different/better actor would have made a difference, probably by not constantly staring incredulously at everyone. Shane was terrific, but the actor had pretty much exhausted the "I'm crazy and barely containing myself" head-duck vocabulary he'd developed.
10) It's about fucking time that we saw familiar characters as zombies! I'd literally forgotten how effective that particular zombie-movie maneuver is. And we hadn't seen it since Sophia (and, before that, never, except for people whom the main characters said they'd known as living people but whom we never got to see as such, like the dude's wife in the season 1 premiere).
Anyone else?
I meant to say "Dale" at the beginning of #9 above.
My guess is that the virus has mutated and is now effecting the dead somehow. This might account for the horde that suddenly came over the hill in a surge, could be those dead folk from the cars you mentioned?
Totally agree about seeing familiar characters change, it has been long overdue.
Thankfully, they will now have to abandon the farm or be sitting ducks. I have been anxious for them to get back on the road.
On a side note, I still haven't forgotten about Daryl's brother who has yet to make a reappearance.
Right, Daryl's brother, the excellent Michael Rooker (from that Portrait of a Serial Killer movie, amongst other credits). He's awesome. Although his finding them is looking increasingly unlikely (unless he joined that other group and we have a The Stand type confrontation coming up).
Virus "mutated" is an interesting idea (and you're certainly not the first person I've read making that suggestion), but doesn't the whole zombie ethos tend to shy away from "virus" and other scientific concepts and over to just, you know, that they're zombies (and all the scientists are stumped)? The doc from the end of season 1 did the live catscan of his wife zombifying, but that was more helpless observation than it was any kind of "scientific" analysis.
Also, was it ever that only the bitten rose? I can't remember, going back. I just read an interview with one of the producer/writers wherein he says that, if you go back and check out the traffic jam at the beginning of season 2, you'll see that they were careful to create fatal head injuries or other explanations for all the dead people in the cars, showing why they hadn't re-animated. (But what about all those corpses outside the hospital, way back in the very first episode?)
Yeah, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the "virus" itself. How did it start exactly?
I'm betting on Daryl's brother being the leader of that other group. Considering how it was described, the conduct of that group seems right up his alley.
Catfreek, one of the beloved traditions of the zombie genre is that there is never any explanation. This (along with the mandatory apocalypse) goes all the way back to Night of the Living Dead (which mentions "meteors" on a newscast but doesn't go any further).
You went to high school with Noah Emmerich? Cool.
And I've been itching to say this for weeks since it was mentioned, but the one movie they did have a (sort of) explanation for it was I Am Legend, which I wanted to (5 or so weeks later) give a shout-out to Jordan for posting such a rave, accurate review of the Director's Cut (or whatever the hell they called the Cooler Ending Cut - I've been blurred into submission by Blade Runner).
Everything you said, good sir, was accurate, and while the movie did pretty well and was generally well-recieved, it didn't seem to have the epic fist-punch of Awesome on the masses that I feel it should have. (I mean - LOOK at those empty streets! You think ONE GUY made that happen - oh wait...yes he did...)
Anyway, yay zombies! Wife is a much bigger fan of TWD than I am at this point, but only because it's on in the background each week as I do homework for the next day. I admire what they're doing with the mythology, and tweaking the so-called "rules." The best modern zombie tales have done just that ("running zombies" being the most distinctive innovation I can think of).
Get ready for the movie of World War Z. I know folks that have worked on it, and it sounds insanely good, and covers more of the book than you might expect.
I'm so excited for WWZ. Great hearing from you Stan, we miss you:)
I also went to high school with Mary Stuart Masterson and Anderson Cooper.
I beleive Glenn was showing respect for her father....it is a little early in the relationship--his maybe---i wold be there in a heartbeat...dan
I think we're on the verge of learning some of the rules of the zombification process. There was a quick bit in the school bus episode where Shane points out that the security guard zombies didn't have any bite marks on them. Rick is surprised and offers and alternate hypothesis, but it shows that the characters are still working on it.
Regarding Shane's character arc, it did seem a little excessive over the past two months, but when I try to consider that all of the events from the previous dozen episodes span perhaps just a week or two, I can swallow that stagnant character description much more clearly.
I agree that Daryl's brother will make a reappearance. They had Daryl's hallucination in a November episode just to keep him fresh in our minds. I'm sure he's coming back.
How about Carl? Is he beginning to be a sick little bastard or what? And Lori - she's becoming like a 1950s housewife or something, providing "stability"? Kind of bugs me.
I think we're on the verge of learning some of the rules of the zombification process. There was a quick bit in the school bus episode where Shane points out that the security guard zombies didn't have any bite marks on them. Rick is surprised and offers and alternate hypothesis, but it shows that the characters are still working on it.
Regarding Shane's character arc, it did seem a little excessive over the past two months, but when I try to consider that all of the events from the previous dozen episodes span perhaps just a week or two, I can swallow that stagnant character description much more clearly.
I agree that Daryl's brother will make a reappearance. They had Daryl's hallucination in a November episode just to keep him fresh in our minds. I'm sure he's coming back.
How about Carl? Is he beginning to be a sick little bastard or what? And Lori - she's becoming like a 1950s housewife or something, providing "stability"? Kind of bugs me.
Just like in The Stand, gender roles get re-defined when society collapses. It's not objectionable or offensive (although it could easily be if not handled as well), and the resulting re-alignments are interesting and thought provoking. Lori is not the dull, one-note character she seemed in danger of becoming at the beginning of the season; most of the egregious errors of those episodes have now been corrected.
I watched this week's again last night. I maintain that it's always excellent when well-established characters become zombies...especially when you've been following them for entire series seasons and not just two hours. Zombie Shane was excellent.
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