The pressure was on for The Walking Dead in its second season. Not only is it following a brief (6 episodes) but intense debut run that was both highly acclaimed and successful, but it comes after an ugly battle between showrunner Frank Darabont and the AMC network ended spectacularly with Darabont being fired from the very show he adapted for television. Even in Hollywood, with it’s reputation for fickleness, a creator being booted is kind of a big deal, and there was much anxious speculation from cast, critics and viewers alike on what kind of an impact Darabont’s departure would have on the series.
The episode revolved around the search for Sophia (Carol’s young daughter, who was chased from the group and lost) with a couple of hold-your-breath suspenseful near misses with the unfriendly neighbourhood zombies to fill out the action. The first appearance of a large group of Walkers is the first of these moments, as what becomes known as a ‘herd’ (c’mon, everybody knows the collective noun for zombies is a ‘shuffle’) close in on the group. Everybody scuttles under the cars for safety, except T-Dog, who is bleeding all over the place after cutting his arm, and Andrea, who is cleaning her gun inside the caravan and it is totally oblivious to what’s going on inside. Y’know how in Zombieland they always had those rules for survival popping up? Well, right then would have been a good time for ‘Rule 27: It’s never a good time to clean your gun’ to pop up. The whole sequence is edgy, scary as shit and really awesome. Daryl saves T-Dog with his trusty crossbow and covers them with dead bodies to avoid detection (a much less disgusting version of the stomach-churning guts bit from last season), Andrea saves herself with a screwdriver slipped to her by Dale, and all the under-car dwellers think the coast is clear, which it is until Sophia gets chased away by a couple of extra slow zombies at the tail end of the herd. Lull = officially over. Andrea actually wanted to die back in the CDC when it was blown up anyway and now resents Dale for taking away her choice to do that, so now we have Andrea and Dale conflict in addition to the Lori and Shane conflict. Oh, and Shane wants to leave, and now Andrea wants to leave with him.
Events along the way in the hunt for the missing child range from the icky (cutting open the body of a Walker and sifting through the innards to find out what it’s last meal was) to funny in a creepy way (a bunch of zombs in church, still sitting on the pews, all turning around in unison as the group enter.) And about that church: is absolutely every show right now doing some sort of storyline with religious overtones? Sure seems that way to me. Rick gives a guilty glance at JC on the cross as he’s braining a Walker, and both he and Carol get big prayer monologues. I’ll accept it, since it is Georgia and there probably would realistically be a Southern Baptist Church anywhere you wander.
The ep has an extremely shocking ending SPOILER ALERT as Carl (he’s Rick and Lori’s young son) is shot as he’s approaching a deer in the forest. How’s that for a massive ending to a premiere! After a teaser for what’s to come (which looks incredible), it’s all over, leaving me stunned but excited for future episodes of zombie drama (zombrama?) goodness.
Kill of the Week:
Rick caving in a face with a big-ass rock.
