Tag: Zombies

What I’m drinking: Newcastle Werewolf.  The goal was to save this for Hemlock Grove, but, at this point, it seems unlikely I’ll go back to watching that show.  At least not anytime soon.
This is a decent beer.  Not nearly as good as Newcastle Brown Ale, but pretty good.  It has a bitter berry taste to it (especially in the aftertaste), and I’m not a huge fan of that. Still, it’s red and has a werewolf on the label, so I love it.

Six things that annoyed me:

1.  “Don’t doubt yourself.  We don’t get to do that anymore.”  Rick rattled off this line to Maggie.  These kinds of lines drive me crazy.  I know this was meant as a pep talk, but it comes off as an empty platitude at this point.  Like “we’ll take this one week at a time” or “we’ll give 110%”.  I understand the thought behind it: “With this world being the way it is, we don’t have the luxury of being weak.”  It makes sense.  But it’s used so often in this show it has become laughable.  At this point, it’s almost like counting how many times the phrase “God help us,” shows up in a disaster movie.

2.  Zombies breaking through the fence.  While I enjoyed watching the scene, I couldn’t help but think about how things could have gotten to that point.  Zombies stacking up against an already weakened fence, and they had one person out there with a killin’ stick.  They know how close they came to catastrophe with that fence not long ago, but they just chose to ignore it.
I know the prison is overrun with zombie flu.  I know there is a medicine search party of four currently pillaging the countryside.  I know that Rick told one of their most accomplished zombie killers to hit the road.  But there has to be more people in that prison.
Which leads to another gripe with writing.  When they’re looking to kill someone off, there is no end to new characters to choose from.  Father of two?  Dead.  Love interest of a young girl?  Dead.  But now that they need someone to help clear the fence, there’s suddenly no one around.  I know zombie flu is ravaging their little prison community right now, but I refuse to believe that Rick, Maggie & Carl are the only able-bodied people currently around.

3.  Hershel’s insistence on killing the dead away from prying eyes.  I understand it to some extent (trying to keep up morale), but everyone in that prison has been living through a zombie apocalypse for at least a couple years, and is now infected with a virus they know will kill them if left untreated.  They’ve seen worse things than a dead person getting stabbed in the head.  Just do it quick and don’t mess around.  The time it takes to turn into a zombie differs with each person.  The last thing you want is a cell block full of the undead, solely because you didn’t want to ruffle any zombie feathers.
(I say “zombie feathers” because it appears as though animals are making a habit of feasting on the undead.  I assume it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing zombie animals.  And zombie birds are one of my greatest fears.)

4.  The fact that Hershel didn’t attach a shotgun to his leg (like a slightly-less-sexy Cherry Darling) seemed to be a waste of a good shotgun.  Snap that thing on your stump and get the party started, old man.

5.  As much as I loved the father-and-son bonding over zombie slaughter scene (more on this in the next section), I couldn’t help but question the positioning of the guns.  Just a big ol’ bucket of guns right where anyone could grab them.  It worked out well for Rick and Carl, but for all anyone (but Rick) knows, there’s still a maniac stalking the prison, killing the sick.  If someone is killing those infected with the flu, it’s usually not a stretch to see that person start killing people who appear to be well.  After all, everyone is technically infected.  I can almost see Frank Reynolds – doused in Purell – wandering the prison yard with a gun, muttering about needing to purify the world.
And yet, even though there’s a murderer on the grounds, guns are made readily available to anyone who can walk to the gun buckets.  Doesn’t seem like the wisest idea.

6. The reveal at the end, showing the Governor standing outside the prison.  I’m not entirely sure why I’m supposed to be scared of him.  He lost his following.  For all we know, he’s completely alone by this point (he had two lackeys the last time we saw him, but they didn’t seem to be completely on board with the murder of innocents).  The prison may not be quite as secure as it was originally thought to be, but it’s still a bit much for one man to overcome.  Just because we see him, we’re supposed to be scared.  Make no mistake: he’s a psychopath.  If I came across him by myself, I wouldn’t stand a chance.  But against a group of well-armed people in a prison?
Oh, they’ll figure out some way to make him scary.  Maybe he has a new army (unlikely).  Maybe he’ll sit outside and kidnap people as they leave on supply runs (the more likely scenario is that he’ll kidnap Carol and use her as a hostage.  Much weeping and gnashing of teeth will accompany that scene).  Maybe he has some brilliant master plan to infiltrate the prison and take them down.  Whatever it is, it’ll be far-fetched.
I hope they prove me wrong and make this great.  But I have a feeling it’s going to be a giant mess, filled with lots of menacing stares.  I can’t wait.
It’s about time they moved on with the story, though.  That zombie flu storyline was all played out.  I’m curious to see what happens next, but I’m not holding out hope that it’s going to be amazing.

Five things I liked:

1. Hershel trying to keep things light by keeping a sense of humor.  Of course, I doubt (spa?) spaghetti humor is the best option when the cast has seen more than their share of intestines.  Probably kills with dogs, though.

2. Dr. S dropping the line, “Make sure all the doors are shut,” in the middle of his depressed rantings.  Someone finally had the sense to do this.  It’s amazing it hasn’t become a problem yet.  (For the record, I called for this in my write-up of the third episode.)

3.  Lizzie being smart and drawing Henry away from Glenn.  Well done, kiddo.  Well done, indeed.

4.  Father and son having a bonding moment with automatic weapons.  Just like God and John Wayne intended.  It was a bit of a shame that neither one of them was wearing an American flag bandana, but it was still an enjoyable scene.

5.  Loved hearing a Ben Howard song show up, even if it did seem a little dramatic.

Final thoughts:

For the most part, I liked this one.  It wasn’t without its flaws, but it was much better than the last two episodes have been.  There was tension without a lot of unnecessary drama, with a heavy helping of zombie killing.  I can’t tell if I really liked this episode, or if I just like it better than the last couple.  Life can be confusing sometimes.
Last season had a pattern of a couple good episodes, followed by a couple terrible ones.  This is looking like it’s following the same pattern.

Did you guys read Fremont’s write-up?  You should.  At the end, she talks about things for “the haters to complain about”.  Did anyone see her writing that?  Was she looking in my general direction when she wrote it?
You don’t have to answer that.  I already know she was.

What I listened to while writing this: Granada’s Takes a Lot of Walking.  A perfect little pop album.  I tend to listen to this in the morning, but it works well as a winding down album, too.

You can read Fremont’s thoughts on this episode here.

What I’m drinking: Apple cider and Fireball cinnamon whiskey.  With Fremont drinking gin and juice (combined with the debacle that was last week’s episode), I thought I’d step up my drinking game this week.  Before long, I’ll be slamming down bottles just a little too hard and drawing walkers right to me.  This is what you’ve done to me, Fremont.  I hope you’re happy.

Seven things that annoyed me:

1. The opening with Carol and Lizzie.  It’s a problem I’ve pointed out before, but it’s worth repeating (mainly because they keep doing it).  The writers have certain points they want to drive home throughout the course of the show.  That’s fine.  The best zombie movies hold a mirror up to society.  However, the best zombie movies don’t feel the need to spell this out to the audience.  Just show a scene and let the audience decide what it means.  Let conversations happen after the episode.  Half the fun of watching something is talking about it afterwards and trying to figure out what you just saw.  Looking for meaning in a small scene.  Looking for the bigger picture in an offhand comment.  Drawing parallels to other shows/movies/literature/etc.  Instead, The Walking Dead decides this isn’t the way to go, so we get things like Carol saying, “We all change,” then cutting to a dead-eyed Rick, staring at zombies.  The only thing less subtle would have been following this statement up with a montage of Rick and Carol doing morally-ambiguous deeds.  “Remember that time Rick killed Shane?  Roll film!”
We get it.  We’re not stupid.  If you want to make a point, make it.  But be confident that your storytelling will get the point across, instead of having characters look into the camera and tell us exactly what that point is.  It’s insulting.
However, if Matthew Broderick wants to show up and talk about who the walrus is, I’m totally on board with it.

2. Daryl’s little passive-aggressive digs at Michonne.  Wasn’t this dealt with last episode?  Daryl is not the passive-aggressive type.  Either she got the point or she didn’t.  Leave it alone.

3. Bob firing his gun at a single zombie (with Daryl & crossbow and Michonne & sword nearby) and no one admonishing him for it.  You’re out in the wild and you know there are zombies nearby.  Why fire a gun?  That will just alert zombies to your location, and you may find yourself in a herd before you know it.  Bob might not be smarter than that, and Tyresse may be too out-of-his-mind to be thinking clearly (unless the conversation is about vengeance, Tyreese ain’t listening), but Daryl and Michonne know better.

4. Carol’s cold logic is fine and all, but it’s getting preachy.  “I’m right.  You’re wrong.  End of discussion.”  I’m also not entirely sure where this new Carol came from.  I guess the change hit her during the months we didn’t see her.  It seems to have appeared out of nowhere, as if it had been carried on the backs of the dozens of new people who now inhabit the prison.
Part of the draw of television over movies is being able to spend more time with characters.  To watch them evolve (or devolve).  We’re not locked in to 90 minutes.  Character development can be slow.  That’s the perk.  However, The Walking Dead seems to have missed this memo, instead deciding to just change characters on a whim.  I’m all for Carol turning into Logic Woman (someone needs to fill that role), but I’d like to see a bit more of that development.  Based on where she was when the series started, we’ve seen her change quite a bit (a fact she talks about during this episode).  This seems to be a pretty logical spot for her to end up in.  But it seems like they skipped over a large part of that development.  Let the characters breathe.

5. Looking for a cure, knowing that zombies can give you zombie-flu without biting you, and not wearing masks or riot gear.  I honestly thought this little reveal was a knowledge bomb (not unlike a Bob Loblaw Law Bomb) dropped by Bob, but it seems that everyone already knew this.
This little medicine-hunting trip could’ve been planned better is my point.

6. Bob’s alcoholism adding useless drama.  If the guy wants to drink, let him drink.  I don’t care enough about his character to really care one way or another.  I can understand if this scene was building up to something down the line, but it really just served the purpose of adding drama to a scene that didn’t need it (“I gotta save the booze from the zombies!  I GOTTA!”).  We already knew he was an alcoholic.  At this point, I don’t care if he’s relapsing.  It felt like I was watching a very special episode of Blossom. But with zombies.  Zombie Blossom.  (Actually, I would watch that.  I hope AMC is taking notes on this.)

7. “I did something.  I stepped up.  I had to do something.”
This was part of Carol’s little speech to Rick.  Yet another example of her high-and-mighty attitude.  She did not “step up”.  She killed two people that didn’t pose much of a threat to the rest of the population in the prison.  Lock them up.  Don’t let anyone visit their cells without taking precautions.  If they die, they can easily be dispatched in their cells.  This flu is still in the early stages.  They don’t know much about it.  And yet, with that limited knowledge, Carol thought it was the best move to burn them before they died.  She may have think that she stepped up, but she made a rash decision based on limited information that may have actually harmed them in the long run (the sooner they looked into this disease, the sooner they could figure out how to treat it.  Burning the bodies of those infected early only sets back the progress in their fight against the zombie flu).  Isn’t that why the council was founded?
That being said, Rick was wrong to just kick her out.  Again, that’s what the council is for.  Even worse than Rick kicking her out on his own accord is the knowledge that next week will deal with the fallout of this.  If there’s one thing I really don’t want to see right now, it’s an episode dealing with Hershel lecturing Rick.
I already know where this is going.  Hershel will lecture Rick.  Daryl will get mad, yell at Rick, and go out to find Carol.  Which he will.  She’ll come back, and it will be tense for a while, but then everything will be okay.  (Also, Carol and Daryl will probably visit PleasureTown together.  Which begs the question: will the unicorns be zombies?)

Two things I liked:

1. I know this was also listed in the annoyances, but I kind of like the new Carol.  To survive in a zombie-infested world, you need to operate on cold logic.  Hard decisions have to be made, often very quickly, and emotion needs to be filtered out.  It’s the only way to survive.  I believe Damon Salvatore refers to this as “flipping the (humanity) switch”.  It can lead to problems down the road (people thinking of you as a monster and eventually becoming alienated), but, in a world with so much death, the number one goal is survival.  You deal with that first, and the consequences later.
Still, I wish it didn’t happen so suddenly, and I wish she seemed a little less haughty about it all.

2. Hearing Sharon Van Etten’s “Serpents” to close out the show.  I love her.  That song is great.  That entire album (Tramp) is great.  If you haven’t already, you really need to pick it up.  You could do a whole lot worse than to spend a night with “I’m Wrong” on repeat.
However, this also kind of doubles as an annoyance.  They ended the episode with Van Etten singing the phrase, “Everything changes,” as Rick looks in the mirror.  I don’t really have to say much more than that, seeing as how I tackled this with more words in the #1 slot in annoyances, but I just thought I’d point it out.

Final thoughts:
Not a lot to like here.  A lot of drama.  A lot of medicine searches (it felt like I was watching the extended version of Independence Day for half the episode.  Perhaps this zombie flu affects the adrenal cortex?  It’s worth looking into).  Very little plot or character development (we found out Bob was an alcoholic, but we already knew that and really didn’t care).  Just a boring episode.  Let’s hope next week breaks them out of this funk.  Although, judging from the “next week on The Walking Dead,” it looks like it’ll be a lot of dealing with sick people.  Goody.  It’s ER with filthy people.

What I listened to while writing this: Appleseed Cast’s Low Level Owl Volume 1.  Dense and dark and atmospheric and beautiful.  It’s perfect for this time of year.

What I’m drinking: Columbus Festbier Lager.  This time of year, I find myself trying a lot of pumpkin and Oktoberfest beers.  This is one of the latter.  It’s decent.  A little on the lighter side of Oktoberfest, but still very drinkable.  Not great.  Not terrible.  Strictly middle of the road.

Eight things that annoyed me:

1. Rick seemed to have been holding it together pretty well.  And now, only one day after giving up his pig-farming ways, he seems to have reverted back to Crazy Rick.  Yet another in a long-line of examples of the lazy writing that permeates this show.  Characters – even well-established characters – can change from week-to-week, depending on what the writers need to keep up the drama for that week.

2. Hershel dropping the line “We just lost twelve of our own.”  I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Or, like, twelve people we barely knew or whatever.”  I hate to keep harping on this, but criticism of the show demands it.  We didn’t really know any of the people who died.  We kind of knew Karen a little, but not really at all.  I honestly don’t even know who David was.  All of the characters are sad because so many of their compatriots have joined the ranks of the undead, and we’re supposed to feel the same way.  But I don’t.  It’s hard to feel sadness over the death of characters I never knew.  Twelve people died?  Make it one hundred people dying.  Unless it’s someone I know, the number doesn’t affect me in the slightest.

3. Those infected with the zombie flu living in cells with the doors wide open.  That makes no sense.  When they’re not being treated, those cells should be locked.  All it takes is one person to turn to kill the rest of the cell block.  There was one closed cell with a zombie, but there’s no indication of how that happened.  All the other cells were wide open.

4. I like Tyreese.  I really do.  Love the actor.  Love him in the comics.  Hell, I even love the crazy in him.  But I don’t love the drama they’re manufacturing between him and Rick at such an early stage.  And now they have himthrowing around high-and-mighty lines like, “I guess murder is okay in this place now,” and “You keep worrying about making sure the prison is running.  I’ll worry about what’s right.”  This show loses me when the drama gets ramped up and the moral grandstanding starts taking place regularly.  This episode had plenty of both.  Speaking of moral grandstanding…

5. Hershel with his “I can save lives.  That’s reason enough to risk mine.”  We get it.  You’re an amazing guy.  I could hear the writers screaming, “He’s the moral compass!” at me.  To quote Tom Waits, “Come down off the cross, we can use the wood.”

6. The habit these people picked up of driving without looking at the road.  There may not be any other drivers on the road, but zombies are everywhere.  For the love of God, have the person sitting in the passenger seat mess with the radio.  That’s one of the main duties of sitting shotgun.

7. Dr. S coughing up blood in Hershel’s face.  That’s a party foul, even in these apocalyptic times.

8. Leaving holes in the fence to quickly get in and out of, yet not trying to cover their tracks (or clear zombies away from those openings) once they’re through.  Bad, BAD idea.

Three things I liked:

1. Chad Coleman bringing a bit of Z to his role as Tyreese.  Living under a bridge does things to a man.

2. Wise-cracking Michonne.  She’s one of my favorite characters, and she barely has a character.  I like that they’re at least trying to flesh her out a little.  Of course, if the rest of the show is any indication, they will fail miserably at it.  Still, I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

3. The squeaky bicycle wheels to keep zombies occupied at the wall.  They’re doing well with these little details this year.  It’s not quite on par with the zombie-door, but it’s pretty close.

Final thoughts:
Far and away the worst episode so far.  I hope this is just a down episode while they ramp up for some more craziness in the coming weeks, because this was just really boring.  Too many monologues.  Too many concerned faces.  Too many lectures.  I like that they’re trying to cultivate a threat besides the zombies, but they can only carry that storyline for so long, and it feels like it has run its course.  I just can’t get excited about a series of episodes detailing antibiotic runs.  I don’t even mind if they stay in the prison for the immediate future.  I would just like this zombie flu storyline to be done.

I might even be able to get down with a little more detail on the inner-workings of their prison system.  What other inventions do they have?  The phrase “Everybody has their job,” was tossed around liberally, but I don’t know what jobs everyone has.  How do they make it work?  I might be alone in this, but a little more detail on that side of things could be pretty cool.
Begging to see how a prison full of refugees is run.  That’s what this show has become for me.

Shawn chimed in with his thoughts on this episode here.  You should really read it.

What I’m drinking: Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale.  Honestly, not as great as I hoped it would be.  Not nearly as pumpkiny as some others I’ve had.  But it’s still pretty good.

Six things that annoyed me:

1. With everyone on high alert for zombie noises, I find it hard to believe that anyone could not notice a zombie walking around in the prison, making all his little hard-to-ignore zombie noises.  “What’s that snarling and wet gnashing noise?”  “Just the wind, I suppose.  Lay your head back down, nameless person.  Life is perfect here in this dank prison, and things will never, ever change.” Then lots of biting and gurgling and me shaking my head.

2. Things I don’t care about: the deep-breathing techniques of children as they see their father get stabbed in the head.
That might sound heartless, but I’ll refer back to something I said last week: I don’t know these new characters.  I don’t really care about them at this point.  A fat bearded guy gets bit?  Oh well.  These things happen.  I didn’t know he had daughters, so I find it hard to suddenly generate any sadness that these girls have lost their father, when I didn’t even know they existed 20 minutes ago.
Killing non-characters is a lazy way to drive drama and try to evoke emotion.  And maybe it works on some people, but I really just don’t care.
This is pretty indicative of a problem I’ve had with these first two episodes.  There are a ton of new people that I feel like I should know, yet I have no idea who any of them are.  From the first episode, I know that D’Angelo Barksdale is a doctor.  And yet, when they needed someone to explain the fast-acting death-flu, they get another guy to explain it, while D’Angelo sits in the background looking concerned.  Is this new guy a doctor?  I guess he must be.  All I know is that the one guy I know for sure is a doctor is standing there with his mouth shut.  And that makes no sense to me.  They could kill 10 new people per episode for the rest of the season, and I could not find it in my heart to care about any of them.
Reading back over that, it does sound pretty heartless.  Oh well.  I guess I really am a monster, after all.  I am them.  They are me, and I am them.

3. Why did they stop tending to the fence?  I know, I know, they had sick people.  But making sure the fence didn’t cave in is a pretty big part of the safety of others, and yet they just kept letting the zombies pile up until they hit a critical mass.  That should not have happened.  I’ll tell you this right now: the council is doing a piss-poor job at keeping people safe.

4. I guess just anyone can burn two people in the middle of the day without anyone noticing.  (For the record, the smart money is on Carl.  You take away a budding sociopath’s gun, and he’ll find other ways to do terrible things.  Or maybe one of the new people has a history of arson.  It’s entirely possible.)

5. Really not subtle with the symbolism this year when it comes to Rick’s character.  The killing pigs scene this week was a bit too obvious of a way to show that he is back to being willing to kill again.  Farmer Rick is back to Killing Rick.  We get it.  Try making it a bit less obvious, please.  A lot of your viewers are pretty intelligent, and some of this feels a little insulting.  While he was burning his clothes, he may as well have screamed, “I have thrown these things behind me and am reverting back to my old ways!”

6.  I like to think that Tyreese (or anyone in this world) is more intelligent than to follow a trail of blood with no weapons drawn.  Those flowers won’t protect you, buddy.  I should know.  I’ve tried it in multiple times in Dead Rising.

Four things I liked:

1. It has only been two episodes, but I like that they’ve dialed up the action so far.  It’s almost as if the writers are sitting around saying, “Can we get at least two scenes an episode where zombies attack without much rhyme or reason?”  I am completely on board with this.  Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this zombie action dialed back in future episodes, but, for now, I’m a fan.

2. Hearing Beth sing a Tom Waits song.  That’s two for the series so far (“Hold On” showed up last season, and “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” this week).  Not sure who the Tom Waits fan is: a writer or the music supervisor or the actress who plays Beth (Emily Kinney), but I’m a big fan of it.  Hope to hear more in the future.  Maybe find a way for a zombie to recite “9^th and Hennepin”?  Just spitballing here.

3. Introducing a new, non-zombie threat to the survivors.  It’s an interesting little addition to the world.  It’s not just zombies you have to fear: it’s everything.  I’m not sure where they’re going with this flu scare (it may well be over now, and they’ll spend a bunch of time dealing with their little firestarter), but I like it while it’s here.

4. This is not so much something I liked, as much as it is something new we have learned about the zombies in this world.  We learned that the zombies will eat animals (pigs and rats, at the very least).  In the Romero world, we didn’t learn this until the underwhelming (to say the least) Survival of the Dead.

Final thoughts:

Some pretty big leaps in logic, and some terrible decision-making by a lot of characters.  Still, there was a decent amount of action here, and the plot seems to be moving forward.  It’s not like season 2, where we watched the characters sit around in a farmhouse all day.  Through two episodes, there have been constant threats.  Some of it may be illogical, but at least it’s interesting.