Humans Are The Enemy Again In The Walking Dead Season 7!

The Good: Decent performances, Moments of character, Decent effects
The Bad: Entirely oppressive tone, Dull plot, Some unremarkable character moments
The Basics: In The Walking Dead Season 7, the survivalist horror once again turns to humans as the primary enemy when Negan asserts his control over the Alexandria community.


In the graphic novels of The Walking Dead, there came a point where I gave up on the franchise. That point was when the storyline shifted from the Walker threat to the massive human threat in the Story Of Survival Horror. That volume (reviewed here!) was when the books became obsessed with the Alexandria Safe Zone coming under the heel of Negan and the brutal tactics he used to keep the people there - and in other, neighboring, communities in line. I have been generally fond of the television show The Walking Dead, so I was a bit wary when the show started hinting to the presence of Negan nearby in The Walking Dead Season 6 (reviewed here!). The Walking Dead Season 7 fully reaches the point where I got tired of the books as Negan is present in full force and the sixteen-episode seventh season takes time illustrating what life under the thumb of the Saviors is like and then transitions into Rick Grimes slowly working to build a coalition against him.

Unfortunately, just like in the books, The Walking Dead Season Seven has an oppressive tone as Rick Grimes is emotionally broken by Negan and the Saviors terrorize Alexandria, Hilltop, and the new community, The Kingdom. When the episodes in the seventh season are not draining the emotional life out of the viewer with the threat of any character being summarily executed by Negan or one of his many thugs - or being tortured on-screen - the show meanders into terribly boring territory where nothing much happens. As a season, The Walking Dead Season 7 focuses almost exclusively on the human threat to Rick Grimes and his community, with minimal walker attacks. Season 7 is very much where the television incarnation of The Walking Dead commits to being a Survival Horror story, as opposed to a television show about zombies overrunning the Southeast United States.

Rick Grimes is absolutely broken the night he and others from the Alexandria Safe Zone desperately attempted to get the sick, pregnant Maggie to Hilltop. That night, Negan beat Abraham to death and when Darryl threatened Negan, he killed Glenn as well. After being tormented for a day by Negan, Rick returns to Alexandria where the Saviors take at least half of the community's possessions. Darryl is taken by the Saviors and Carol recovers from her wounds in The Kingdom, while Tara makes her way back to Alexandria - meeting a reclusive community whose male population was executed by Negan on the way.

After multiple acts of violence and oppression by the Saviors, Carl hitches a ride on a Savior vehicle and gets caught by Negan in his compound. When Negan brings Carl back to Alexandria, he kills more people and responds to Rosita taking a shot at him by threatening her life. With the body count rising and Eugene taken by the Saviors, Rick and Michonne rally to start fighting the Saviors. To that end, they reach out to Hilltop, The Kingdom, and Oceanside to create an army to fight the Saviors. But the fear of Negan has permeated the area and making new friends and getting others to step up to fight the Saviors only makes the body count rise!

The plot in the seventh season of The Walking Dead is unfortunately undermined by some key problems in the characters in the show. Chief among these issues comes near the middle of the seventh season. Early in the season, Eugene helps Rosita make a bullet, after Negan and the Saviors have taken the vast majority of the community's guns. After an aggravating moment where Olivia turns an accurate ledger of the community's firearms over to the Saviors (if they never saw the inventory, the Saviors would be unable to menace the community by looking for guns they know should be there), Rosita takes her shot at Negan with disastrous results. In that moment, the cowardly Eugene confesses to making the bullet Rosita fired and this completely undermines the intelligence and ingenuity of Eugene. As Rosita is menaced and Negan demands to know who made the bullet, Eugene has the opportunity to save himself and others by telling Negan that it was Abraham who made the bullet and that no one living in Alexandria now knows where he made the bullet or how to make them. But, instead, he (virtually) pisses his pants and confesses.

After a series of meandering episodes that belabor the oppression of the Saviors and how spread out the protagonists of The Walking Dead are following the events of the sixth season finale, the season's built-in traps are sprung as Rick and his crew begin to try to form alliances. Tara breaks her word to the women who saved her life, Maggie and Jesus begin to effectively take over Hilltop by training the people there and Morgan and Carol find themselves bringing the reluctant Kingdom to the horrible truth that Negan cannot be trusted.

As with the prior seasons, the seventh season of The Walking Dead tries to keep viewers caring about the show's primary characters. In the seventh season of The Walking Dead, the essential characters are:

Rick – Absolutely broken by Abraham and Glenn being brained before him and threatened by Negan with having to cut off Carl's arm, he returns to Alexandria utterly unwilling to fight the Saviors. After several scavenging runs intended to keep his people alive while providing material for the Saviors, his relationship with Michonne begins to suffer. When Negan visits Alexandria - to return the wayward Carl - and kills his last lingering enemy in the community, he begins to scavenge for new guns and visits other communities to try to gain new allies. He risks his life to meet with Ezekiel, of the Kingdom, and a dangerous woman whose community lives in a junkyard near the Saviors' sanctuary. As he resolves to fight, he comes alive once again,

Michonne – Upset by the first meeting with Negan, she is instantly determined to fight Negan, despite the potential consequences. She begins to explore on her own, including scouting out the Saviors' territory. She is frustrated with Rick's unwillingness to fight Negan and is excited when he finally comes around. She continues to be protective of Carl and is shocked when Rick tells her the truth about Judith,

Maggie – After Glenn is executed by Negan, she hides out at the Hilltop, with Rick telling Negan she is dead. At the Hilltop, she begins to get tired of how Gregory kowtows to the Saviors. She and Jesus begin to work together to train the Hilltop community and keep each other alive. She does not blame Darryl for getting Glenn killed and she is eager to fight the Saviors rather than live under their heel,

Darryl – Recognized by Negan as a threat, he is taken to the Saviors compound and kept imprisoned. Dwight attempts to break him, but he remains unbroken by the Saviors. When his life is menaced and an opportunity opens, he is freed by Dwight's ex-wife and he is kept hidden at the Hilltop. He learns that Carol is alive and lies to her for her own mental health. He is eager to fight the Saviors,

Carol – After fleeing because she does not want to kill for those she loves, she is mortally wounded. Rescued by Morgan and people from The Kingdom, she wakes up in Ezekiel's community. Ezekiel has an arrangement with the Saviors that his people do not know about and Carol refuses to join his community, living just outside his community. When she is visited by Darryl and The Kingdom suffers some losses, she has Morgan tell her the truth about what is going on outside her cabin and she has to make an important decision,

Carl – Shocked by how Negan killed his friends and used Rick to menace him, he becomes determined to kill Negan. Given the chance, though, he is unable to kill his new enemy and Negan begins to mess with his head. Returned to Alexandria, he is shocked to still be alive and he eagerly joins every raid that might give him a chance to get revenge,

Father Gabriel - He talks Rosita down from recklessly attacking Negan. As Alexandria starts to take the lead in creating an army, he acts as the community's ambassador to one of the new communities in the area,

Tara - Out on patrol during the carnage from Negan's introduction, she loses Heath to a Walker attack and ends up at an isolated all-female community. There, she struggles to convince the women there not to kill her and she goes free, returning to Alexandria with the secret of Oceanside and its stash of weapons. When Rick opts to fight, she makes the difficult decision to break her promise to Oceanside to get weapons to fight the community that murdered her girlfriend,

Sasha - Shaken by Abraham's murder, she moves into Hilltop with Maggie. But when Rosita wants to kill Negan, she joins her on a suicide mission to stop the despot before he can kill more of their friends,

Eugene - As Negan exerts control over Alexandria, he gets the bullet manufacturing factory running enough to make Rosita a bullet. When Negan learns of his talents, he is taken captive by Negan and he joins the Saviors to save his own life and protect himself,

Rosita - Deeply angered over Negan and Abraham getting killed before she had real resolution to her relationship with him, she becomes frustrated by Rick's capitulation. Determined to fight, she had Eugene make her a bullet and when she misses him, one of Negan's minions scars her face. She hates Negan enough to launch an attack on him in his territory rather than live under him,

Aaron - The prime scavenger for Alexandria, he and Rick find a boat with supplies in the community's first major post-Negan victory. He is beaten by Negan's people and stands up when Rick does to try to keep his loved ones safe,

Morgan - Determined to keep Carol alive, he takes her to the Kingdom, a community close to where she collapses. He begins to train some of the residents at The Kingdom in his zen ways . . . with disastrous results. When Ezekiel and his chief security advisor, Richard, differ on a course of action in dealing with the Saviors, he is put into a moral bind that tests his pacifism,

Enid - Shocked at the loss of Glenn, she follows Maggie to the Hilltop after Carl's attempts to "protect" her upset her. She takes care of Maggie through Maggie's early pregnancy,

Dwight - The Savior who Darryl met before, he returned to the Saviors when his attempt to flee failed. Horribly burned by Negan, he falls back in line with Negan to save his life and the life of his wife. Tested by Negan with the care of Darryl, he falls back in line. But when his wife is used by Negan and he is goaded by the evil leader, he starts to break. Upset by having to run down defectors, he starts to question his place in Negan's community,

and Negan - After killing two of Rick's closest allies and breaking Rick, he tries to turn Darryl. He dispenses justice in his community with brutality and a de facto caste system. When Carl visits him, he torments the boy and returns him to Rick before dispatching the last of Deanna's sons. He is harsh and somewhat unhinged, but dangerously charismatic.

On the acting front, The Walking Dead is dominated by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Morgan plays Negan and every moment he appears on screen, he steals the show. While Andrew Lincoln plays broken Rick with unsettling accuracy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan keeps the show watchably by delivering the craziest lines with plausibility. Danai Gurira (Michonne), Sonequa Marin-Green (Sasha) and Christian Serratos (Rosita) each have moments where they step up to deliver powerful performances that make their characters vital, but unfortunately those moments are set between long stretches in the season where there are unremarkable performances or character moments.

The result is that the seventh season of The Walking Dead meanders between horrible people doing heinous things and the boredom of watching oppressed people being beaten down, which makes for an unfortunately average season of television.

For other works from the 2016 – 2017 television season, please check out my reviews of:
Thirteen Reasons Why - Season 1
Grace And Frankie - Season 3
Iron Fist - Season 1
Love - Season 2
Santa Clarita Diet - Season 1
A Series Of Unfortunate Events - Season 1
One Day At A Time - Season 1
Travelers - Season 1
"Happy Fuckin' New Year" - Sense8
The OA - Season 1
Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life
"Invasion!" - Arrow
"The Ghost" - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Duet" - The Flash
"The Fellowship Of The Spear" - Legends Of Tomorrow
"Star-Crossed" - Supergirl
Luke Cage - Season 1
Stranger Things - Season 1

5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Two Worst Nights In The Life Of Rick Grimes Bookend The Walking Dead Season 6!

The Good: Good ethical dilemma, Good characters/development, Decent effects
The Bad: Some elements are troublingly predictable, Unclear threat resolution, Irksome season finale
The Basics: The Walking Dead Season 6 sees threat from crazy humans, walkers and a dangerous new community while expanding the world of the series.


Not very long ago, one of the executive producers of The Walking Dead made the bold statement that the show had no plans to bring the character of Negan into the television show. That made me happy because when Negan entered the books (that volume of the graphic novels is reviewed here!), the series became entirely unenjoyable. It also made me excited because it seemed like the show would go in its own direction. Sadly, it did not take long in the production of the sixth season for it to be revealed that Negan would be making an appearance. In some ways, that makes sense given that where the fifth season of The Walking Dead (reviewed here!) seemed to be headed. The sixth season of The Walking Dead follows up on the threads that were set in motion in the fifth season and then advances the plot to a fairly logical conclusion.

The Walking Dead Season Six does not get to the same oppressive place that the graphic novel series did, but given that the overbearing nature of the series came after Negan arrived, it made some sense that the season is not that bad. Instead, season six of The Walking Dead finds Rick Grimes and his survivors fighting against walkers, the Wolves (crazed people who intend to brutalize and kill other people), a massive herd of invading walkers and then Negan, a nearby warlord who is exerting control over communities nearby Alexandria.

The sixth season opens with flashes between the horrible night when Morgan arrived at Alexandria and a mission the residents of Alexandria are on days later. Right near the Alexandria compound is a quarry, filled with walkers. When Rick Grimes and his friends are on a dry run to figure out how they will corral the walkers out of the quarry and send the massive herd in the opposite direction of Alexandria, a truck falls into the quarry and forces the dry run to become an active attempt to save the survivor's compound. In the days after Deanna's husband was killed, Rick and Morgan take his killer's body out to dispose of it and discover the quarry. They then set up the materials - cars, wall plates, etc. - needed to lure the walkers away. Unfortunately, while most of the community's warriors are out on the mission, Alexandria is attacked by the Wolves, who begin slaughtering the residents. While most of the residents try to hide, the members of Rick's group who stayed behind slaughter the invaders.

Unfortunately, in saving Alexandria, Rick and some of the others inadvertently bring some of the herd back to just outside the wall. When the watchtower collapses and takes out a section of wall, Alexandria is overrun by walkers. On the way back to Alexandria, Abraham and his team encounter a group of people who try to take their new tanker truck for Negan. After clearing Alexandria of walkers and reinforcing the wall, Rick takes charge and begins to lead the Alexandria community. A few weeks later, Rick and Darryl discover a scavenger who leads them to a new community, Hilltop, and there they learn the threat of Negan and the Saviors.

There are a handful of episodes that diverge from the main plot in Alexandria and those episodes focus on characters who are fleshed out. Most notable of these is an episode that features Morgan exploring his emotional journey following Rick's last visit to him outside Atlanta. The episode is notable in that most of the other one-shot character episodes come up when the character is being killed. How Morgan got sane is a surprisingly engaging episode, even if it does not fit the main narrative of the sixth season.

Similarly, near the end of the season, there is an episode that focuses on Carol and Maggie, who are at the mercy of Saviors who are holding them to trade for one of their own. That episode is absolutely brutal in a way that even the episode where an entire family is slaughtered in less than thirty seconds is not. The strength of that type of narrative is that it develops the characters and does that exceptionally well.

The sixth season of The Walking Dead deepens the characters within Rick's group and introduces a few new ones. In the sixth season of The Walking Dead, the essential characters are:

Rick – After his horrible night where he was forced to kill Pete, he leads the effort to secure Alexandria. He orders Darryl, Abraham, and Sasha to keep driving the Walkers away when Alexandria is attacked. In trying to get back to Alexandria, he cuts his hand badly and has to flee there on foot. He finds himself exceptionally attracted to Jessie, but when the wall comes down, he has to prioritize saving the lives of others. When Carl is wounded by Jessie's son, he goes into a rage and begins slaughtering walkers. After a particularly irksome day, he and Michonne become more intimate. He organizes the ruthless plan to slaughter the Saviors and save Alexandria,

Michonne – Out with Rick on the corralling mission, she recognizes that Rick killing his rival after the man is bitten is a mercy kill (something Morgan does not necessarily accept). She clashes with Heath on their way back to Alexandria over Rick's order to leave behind people who cannot keep up. She comes to believe in Deanna's vision for Alexandria. When trying to lead Jessie and her family to the quarry, she saves Carl's life. She and Rick begin a romantic relationship,

Glenn – Trapped with Deanna's incompetent son on the corralling mission when it goes bad, he and Nicholas attempt to draw walkers off by burning a building to draw them out. After Nicholas has to take out a turned former friend of his, Nicholas gets twitchy and kills himself, trapping Glenn among walkers on the wrong side of the herd. After surviving under a dumpster unable to contact Alexandria, he is rescued by Enid and the two begin traveling together. They arrive home right before the watchtower falls and commit themselves to saving Maggie. He is horrified that he might have to kill when invading the Saviors' compound. He helps Heath out and tries to protect Maggie when she is captured,

Maggie – She is out preparing a garden with Deanna when Alexandria is attacked. With Carol, she kills the invading Wolves. When Michonne and Heath make it back to Alexandria, she becomes convinced Glenn is still alive and goes out with Aaron to find him, but she finds the way completely blocked by walkers. Pregnant with Glenn's child, she willingly turns back with Aaron and awaits a sign from Glenn. When walkers overrun Alexandria, she is trapped on a guard post. She acts as the key negotiator when Jesus brings her to Hilltop. She acts as lookout when Rick organizes an attack on the Saviors, getting captured in the process. When her pregnancy develops complications, the residents of Alexandria try desperately to get her to the Hilltop community to save her life,

Darryl – After disagreeing with Rick on Rick's desire not to go looking for additional people for Alexandria, he takes his newly restored motorcycle out to lure walkers away from the quarry. In attempting to get back home after the mission, he is ambushed and finds himself in a burned-out forest, at the mercy of a new enemy. His attempt to do something kind costs him his new motorcycle and his trusty crossbow. He helps save Alexandria after the wall falls. When going out on a scavenging run later on, he is attacked by the man who stole his crossbow, setting him on a path for revenge,

Carol – After maintaining her ruse of being a simple housewife without any skills, she is forced to defend Alexandria. When the Wolves attack, she disguises herself as a Wolf and starts killing them to maintain her cover. She learns Morgan has a prisoner, but gets a concussion when the wall comes down and finds herself in his care. She squares off with Morgan and has to save Denise's life, though the weight of killing people soon begins to wear upon her. When the Alexandria group learns about the Saviors, she becomes deeply uncomfortable with how many people she has killed and protective of Maggie. Disturbed by how she has had to kill to protect Alexandria, she resolves not to kill again and leave behind Rick's group,

Carl – Defending Judith during the attack on Alexandria, he horrifies his peers by killing an invading Wolf. Jessie's oldest son gets a vendetta for him, believing he stole Enid from him. While trying to leave Alexandria after the wall falls, he is shot in the face, losing an eye. He tries to protect Enid and attempts to be a part of the mission to help Maggie,

Father Gabriel - Still a pacifist, he defends Alexandria only be incapacitating invading Wolves. He keeps Judith safe when the wall comes down. When Rick goes into a rage against walkers, he finally steps up to defend Alexandria,

Tara - Having recovered from her wounds, she tries to help Denise acclimate to being Alexandria's doctor. She gets into a romantic relationship with Denise. She quickly adopts a protective attitude to the people of Alexandria, much to the ire of Rick. She tells Denise she loves her before leaving with Heath for a two-week run,

Abraham - He and Sasha stick to the corralling mission when the horn goes off and everyone else tries to flee back to Alexandria. On the way back to Alexandria, he holes up with Sasha. He begins to express affection for Sasha. He goes out on a limb to acquire a rocket propelled grenade launcher. When making contact with the Hilltop community, he gets the strength and resolve to dump Rosita and pursue Sasha,

Sasha - She becomes the voice of reason while out driving with Abraham on the corralling mission with Abraham. She comes to the aid of Alexandria in its darkest moment. She refuses to get involved with Abraham while he is still involved with Rosita,

Eugene - Still a coward, he inspires Denise not to be cowardly when she starts practicing medicine. He starts training, reluctantly, with Rosita. He manages to overcome his cowardice on the night Rick goes apeshit on the walkers within Alexandria's walls. Shortly thereafter, he develops a plan to produce bullets for Alexandria and illustrates an ability to improvise that is shockingly effective,

Rosita - After aiding in the defense of Alexandria when the Wolves attack, she remains unphased by the attack, having seen life outside the walls. She starts training the residents of Alexandria and Eugene. After Abraham leaves, she is on her own for the very first time in her life,

Deanna - After her husband and Pete's deaths, she accepts Rick's methods and his help in defending Alexandria. She leaves the defense of Alexandria up to Rick's people, remaining with her cowardly son outside the walls in hiding during the attack. In shock after the wolves attack, she creates a plan for the Alexandria community. Unfortunately, when the wall comes down, she is wounded,

Aaron - After the attack on Alexandria, he is horrified to discover that he inadvertently led the Wolves to the community. He immediately takes responsibility for his actions and he aids Maggie in leaving the compound to search for Glenn. He exhibits a lot of loyalty to Maggie from that time forward,

Denise - Pete's replacement, she is completely unskilled at actually practicing medicine. She loses her first patient after the attack on Alexandria. She is consoled by Tara. She struggles to save the life of the man Michonne and Heath rescued and is advised by Tara. Morgan brings her to care for the Wolf he captured, which puts her in mortal jeopardy. After she is rescued from the Wolf, she saves Carl's life and stitches up Darryl. She tries to get soda pop for Tara before Tara and Heath head out for a two-week run,

Morgan - Is willingly imprisoned by Rick so Rick can determine he's all right to come into the Alexandria compound. He makes it back to Alexandria first when it is attacked by the Wolves and he inadvertently helps one flee with a gun. He encounters the Wolf he previously let live and captures him, which tests his resolve to not kill anyone else. He keeps that Wolf imprisoned in a basement in Alexandria. He objects to Rick's plan to kill Negan's Saviors,

Heath - One of the Alexandria community's residents who was on a run for weeks when Rick's group arrived, he is part of Rick's mission when Alexandria is attacked. He is horrified to hear Rick tell Glenn and Michonne that not everyone will make it and thrown off when Rick scavenges from the body of a resident who is killed. He is very competent and he strives to keep people from the community alive when the corralling mission goes south. He and Glenn debate Rick's plan to kill Negan's people; he managed to not kill a living person before,

and Enid - Having survived before Alexandria on her own, she starts to bond with Carl. When the Wolves attack Alexandria, she stays with Carl. Once the fighting is over, however, she leaps the wall and flees the safety of the compound. She finds Glenn and reluctantly begins to travel with him back to Alexandria. Once back within the walls, she bonds with Maggie.

The sixth season of The Walking Dead is an effective season of growth that does not simply feel like it is a transition between getting to Alexandria and the rise of Negan. In many ways, season six of The Walking Dead feels like what the prison would have been for Rick's survivors had Andrea not ended up with the Governor. In some ways, it is even more unfortunate that the show decided to add Negan as he seems - in his very brief time in the sixth season - like a cheap retread of The Governor. Fortunately, there is so much character development and actual things that happen, that it is hard not to feel satisfied by season six.

In fact, the only real serious problem with the plotting for season six of The Walking Dead is that when the Wolves attack and Alexandria is overrun, it is not clear whether the threat from the Wolves still exists. Morgan and Carol fail to interrogate the captured Wolf to find out basic information like where they are based, how many of them there are and how many were part of the attack on Alexandria. As a result, the time lapse that occurs late in the season feels somewhat problematic in that it makes no real sense that the Wolves do not attack in that period . . . if they still exist at all.

On the acting front, The Walking Dead Season 6 hones the talents of all of the major players. Newer characters like Eugene (played by Josh McDermitt), Tara (Alanna Masterson) and Denise (Merrit Weaver) are all given substantive moments in the sixth season. Steven Yuen, Andrew Lincoln, Melissa McBride, Danai Gurira, and Lauren Cohan are all given enough to do to keep their characters interesting and push the envelope for their performances forward.

Ultimately, the sixth season of The Walking Dead holds up incredibly well, especially when binge-watched!

For other works from the 2015 – 2016 television season, please check out my reviews of:
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 2
Legends Of Tomorrow - Season 1
Jessica Jones - Season 1
Daredevil - Season 2
House Of Cards - Season 4
Doctor Who - Season 9

7.5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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On The Road Again, The Walking Dead Season Five Mirrors The First . . . With More Developed Characters!

The Good: Character development, Good performances
The Bad: Very light on plot developments/originality
The Basics: The Walking Dead Season 5 is a season that takes time to develop the characters viewers know . . . and makes for a season that holds up much better for binge watching than fans might expect!


Recently, I read an article that asserted that streaming television services like Netflix are ruining television. The crux of the argument was that television shows needed time and space to breathe between episodes and the relatively new trend of binge watching has destroyed that space. Some of the shows that the article cited, like works by Aaron Sorkin, do not suffer from being watched all together and many shows fare poorer when binge watched because viewers are much more easily able to catch inconstencies within the series. Bad writing is not the same as a show needing space to breathe. Interestingly, some of the most popular shows hold up better by binge watching as opposed to waiting weeks between episodes to get the next one. The Walking Dead Season Five is one such season of television.

In its fifth season, The Walking Dead actually returns more to its roots, though most fans seemed irked by the way it meandered and very little happened. Despite those complaints, the latest season of The Walking Dead has a lot in common, in terms of plot structure, with the first season of the show (reviewed here!). Like the first season, the primary characters in the fifth season find themselves fleeing a bad situation until they find a place that gives them some feeling of hope and security. Instead of working to establish the full cast, though, the fifth season of The Walking Dead fleshes out the characters who have joined the cast over the years and develops them with the changing world in which they find themselves. The fifth season of The Walking Dead picks up immediately after Season Four (reviewed here!) and it is impossible to discuss the fifth season without some spoilers on where the fourth season left the characters.

Opening in a box car at Terminus, the survivors who had been separated are (mostly) all back together and now facing a common enemy. Led by Rick, they attempt to mount a resistance against the people running Terminus. The residents of Terminus are cannibals and when Rick, Darryl, Bob and Glenn are taken to the meat processing plant, only a disruption outside the bloody plant gives them the opportunity to escape. Their escape is orchestrated by Carol, who catches up to the group with Tyreese at Terminus and liberates her friends. The group takes up refuge in a church near Terminus, where they are preyed upon by the survivors of the massacre at Terminus. The survivors split after a particularly bloody incident, with Glenn accompanying Abraham's group on a trip to Washington, D.C.

But when Abraham's group is forced to turn back and casualties within the group begin to mount, Rick's group struggles together to make it to Washington. The trip on the road is exhausting and leaves the survivors at the mercy of the elements and walkers. It also allows a scout from a nearby community to find and evaluate Rick's group. Approached by Aaron, Rick's group decides - mostly against Rick's wishes - to accompany him to the community at Alexandria. There, they try to find a new purpose and rebuild a society, but find the people who have been living there are unfortunately unprepared for all that the world has become.

The fifth season of The Walking Dead continues well the emotional journey of Rick Grimes. After struggling with himself to avoid his own darker instincts, Rick taps into them to help Carol liberate everyone from Terminus. What brilliance comes in the fifth season of The Walking Dead comes from the idea that it is impossible to utilize violence without it having a profound effect on a person. Faced with a good thing, Rick is unable to recognize it. The world might need Rick Grimes to keep some people alive, but Rick Grimes needs other people to help pull him back from "survival mode." In the fifth season, Bob, Michonne, Darryl, and Carl fill the niche vacated by Hershel, trying to remind Rick of his humanity and help him survive within a community.

The episodes in the fifth season of The Walking Dead are more cerebral, intimate and unsettling than most of the prior seasons. While the books in The Walking Dead series very quickly leapt into exploring the horrors of humans (The Governor repeatedly raped Michonne and lopped off one of Rick's hands!), it is the fifth season of The Walking Dead that most explicitly illustrates just how much humanity has degenerated. Opening with cannibals who make multiple attempts to harvest Rick and his people, the fifth season is upsetting with rapists in authority positions, cowards and the rising threat of people who openly hunt other humans.

The fifth season of The Walking Dead deepens the characters within Rick's group and introduces a few new ones. In the fifth season of The Walking Dead, the essential characters are:

Rick – Having managed to survive Terminus, he allies with Carol and together they lead the group out of danger. After encountering Father Gabriel, he and his group take up at Gabriel's church. He remains holed up at the church while Abraham leads part of the group to Washington. After they reunite following the attempt to rescue Beth, he inists on trying to get Noah home. He is wary when they are met by Aaron, but wants to keep the residents of the Alexandria settlement safe,

Michonne – Eager not to lose her humanity, she advocates taking up residence in Noah's community and then in Alexandria. She remains a formidable opponent and one of the few people that Rick actually trusts. She stands against Rick's authority when he is reluctant to join a society and start a new life there,

Glenn – Unsettled at Terminus when he is forced to kill a survivor who was harvested and is unable to accept life, he desperately wants to find a safe place for himself and Maggie. He pledges himself to Abraham when Abraham is committed to getting Eugene to Washington. When the group reaches Alexandria, he is disturbed by how the men who go out on supply runs are reckless. He finds himself at the mercy of a very human enemy,

Maggie – Relegated to a supporting role for much of the season, she is eager to find Beth. After the incident at the hospital, she is more or less lost. She is not impressed by Father Gabriel and when the group reaches Alexandria, she becomes a liaison to the local government,

Darryl – After Terminus, he and Carol are not able to resume their relationship. The rift between them gets worse after the hospital incident and he finds it impossible to assimilate after the group reaches Alexandria. He accompanies Aaron on missions to try to find more people worthy of Alexandria . . . though they discover a new threat instead,

Carol – The time on her own and with Tyreese after the fall of the prison made her into a badass and she is able to rescue her friends from Terminus. After reuniting Rick and Judith, she and Darryl go looking for Beth. She ends up wounded and at the same hospital as Beth, where she is bartered for after the tense negotiations Rick and Tyreese orchestrate. In Alexandria, she pretends to be demure and is able to recognize that one of the residents is abusing his wife and child and pushes Rick to deal with that,

Tyreese – Still unsettled by the girls Carol had to put down, he tries to keep Judith safe. His struggle to retain his humanity puts the rest of the group in danger after the fall of Terminus. When trying to rescue Beth, he advocates for a more peaceful solution than Rick's use of force. In trying to get Noah home, he finds himself put in a surprisingly dangerous situation,

Carl – He shows up. In Alexandria, he makes a friend again,

Beth - Following her separation from Darryl in the prior season, she awakens at a hospital. There, she struggles to survive rapist guards and a situation where humans are kept under a dangerous authority. Her attempt to leave allows Noah to escape and when Carol arrives, she has the chance to save them both,

Father Gabriel -A priest that Rick's people rescue after Terminus, he is a coward who puts everyone at risk. He is terrified by the brutality he witnesses among Rick and his people when Rick works to defend them from the cannibals and Walkers. In Alexandria, he betrays Rick's people,

Noah - A young man stuck in the hospital Beth ends up at, he has a family and community he desperately wants to return to. After the negotiations for Beth and Carol go sideways, he helps lead the group to his community. After that, he is eager to join the Alexandria community where he wants to learn new skills to be useful in the new society there,

Tara -The former aid of the Governor after Woodbury, she continues to search for redemption. She becomes Eugene's only real friend after his deception is revealed,

Abraham - The militaristic survivor continues to be obsessed with getting Eugene to Washington, with Rosita. When Eugene confesses to him, he wigs out and nearly beats Eugene to death. In Alexandria, he steps up as a leader of the construction crew and usurps the locals who are fearful and incompetent,

Sasha - Tyreese's sister, she becomes obsessed with killing walkers and keeping people safe after Bob's death,

and Eugene - A geek who insists he has the answer to the infection that has decimated the world, he uses Abraham to try to get the group to Washington. When Abraham's group faces an impossible herd of walkers they must get through, he confesses that he lied, which almost gets him killed. In Alexandria, his technical knowledge becomes useful to the people there.

The fifth season of The Walking Dead is slow and cerebral, but punctuated by intense scenes of blood and brutality. After a truly nauseating opening that is some of the most graphic throat-slitting and eviscerations the series has yet seen, the episodes become more tense without much in the way of real grossness. Following the struggle at the church, there is a long period before graphic gore returns to the screen. The season has a body count comparable with the first season, though because of the season's obsession with fleshing out the characters, viewers are likely to get hit pretty hard by the main-cast deaths in this season.

On the acting front, the fifth season of The Walking Dead is pretty much flawless. All the performers know their characters and they hit their marks, easily creating the horrific world following the zombie apocalypse. The new and guest stars gel well with the established cast and the season holds together remarkably well, despite very little actually happening.

Ultimately, the fifth season of The Walking Dead is a rare season of television that holds up better on multiple viewings and when watched all together fleshes out the characters much better than it initially seems. This is a season that puts the essential characters in a setting where the series could conceivably end and does it well-enough that viewers actually care about them. Instead of trying to top the plot tension of the prior season's finale, The Walking Dead evolves to a place where the viewers care enough about the survivors to want to see them rest, succeed, and build something truly safe and enduring.

For other works from the 2014 – 2015 television season, please check out my reviews of:
Orange Is The New Black - Season 3
Sense8 - Season 1
Grace And Frankie - Season 1
Agent Carter - Season 1
Daredevil - Season 1
The Newsroom - Season 3
House Of Cards - Season 3
Doctor Who - Season 8
True Blood - Season 7
”Shadows” - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
”City Of Heroes” - The Flash

6.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Tearing Down All That They’ve Built: The Walking Dead Season Four Divides Rick’s Survivors!

The Good: Character development, Good performances
The Bad: Repetitive-feeling plot
The Basics: Building and losing a new world makes for more average than extraordinary television with The Walking Dead Season 4!


For our five and a half year anniversary, my wife got me a number of very cool gifts. I picked her up the Harry Potter Wizards Collection (reviewed here!) and she got me a few cool things. So, while I have not had the chance to read the book she bought me - S by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst – I have been enjoying rewatching The Walking Dead Season Four and drinking some of the Samurai Chai Mate tea (reviewed here!) she got me! Having watched The Walking Dead Season Four at least twice now (some episodes I have seen more than that), I figured that it was time to write a proper review of it.

In its fourth season, The Walking Dead reached a point that so many television shows with a very limited concept got to long before The Walking Dead did. Shows like Bones or Castle have a simple premise that at some point becomes repetitive and predictable. After a few episodes, the only thing to watch some of those styles of show (or the NCIS or crime scene series’) is for the characters and how they might interact and develop. But, like AMC’s other mega-hit Breaking Bad (reviewed here!), by the fourth season of The Walking Dead the plot has become formulaic and the series is unwilling to ask its audience to go on a journey beyond what is expected. In the fourth season of The Walking Dead continues – in fact, cements – the pattern established in prior seasons. So, instead of asking viewers to accept that the show is going to move in a different direction (namely one of world-building instead of mere survival), The Walking Dead Season Four reverts to form as quickly as it reasonably can. Truth be told, even for those who had not read any of the graphic novels, when the third season of The Walking Dead (reviewed here!) left the Governor alive, viewers had to know that he would be back and it would not be good for Rick and the other survivors who have taken up in the prison.

With the prison having become a sanctuary of sorts, Rick and his people have survived for months since the fall of Woodbury. Rick has essentially become a farmer and the prison has become the refuge for a number of people all around the area. While Darryl leads supply runs with Glenn, Rick checks traps for dead animals and others work to kill the Walkers that build up on the fence. But the string of casualty-free days is broken when a supply run turns disastrous when Bob - a new, alcoholic, survivor - draws Walkers to the store they are getting supplies from. Rick’s encounter with a mentally-unstable survivor puts him back on the path where he has to become comfortable with killing again. The prison quickly turns dangerous when a sick boy dies of a flu-like virus before turning and setting a sickness through the entire prison. Tensions run even higher when two of the people who get the flu are killed and their bodies are burned to try to stop the flu from spreading. As the flu spreads through the infected ward, the threats multiply. The group searching for antibiotics runs into the herd of Walkers and are delayed, which allows the situation at the prison to deteriorate.

Things go from bad to worse when the Governor resurfaces. Having joined a new community and killed his way into being their leader, he returns to the prison with a tank and the desire to take what he wants from Rick and Michonne. In the bloodbath that follows, Rick’s group is scattered. Michonne, in shock, follows a herd of Walkers while Carl tries desperately to keep Rick alive in an abandoned house they find. Maggie searches for Glenn while Tyrese learns about a potential sanctuary up the train line, Terminus. Glenn, in the meantime, teams up with a survivor from the Governor’s people and ends up in the company of Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita. As the disparate groups of survivors from the prison find their footing, they all learn of Terminus, a place where survivors are supposed to be welcomed and safe.

What took me multiple viewings to truly grasp about the fourth season of The Walking Dead was how good a season it is for the character of Rick. Rick Grimes ended the prior season desperate to bring Carl back from the brink of his burgeoning psychopathic tendencies. The fourth season of The Walking Dead begins with the two of them reformed; the conflict there has been resolved. By leaping ahead a few months, The Walking Dead skips over the gruesome process of Rick and Carl changing their behavior to try to live a more civilized existence.

So, what follows throughout the fourth season is The Walking Dead is the process of Rick’s ability to live civilized and without violence getting eroded away. Walkers threaten to overrun the fence, the pigs might be infected with a virus and they can be used, the Governor returns . . . season four of The Walking Dead is largely about getting Rick back to a point where he can be as brutal as he needs to be to keep his son alive in the wild, horrible, world that was embodied in the earlier seasons. In some ways, the point of the fourth season is to answer the question posed by Rick in the prior season: “Can we come back from all we’ve done?” The answer, as the fourth season shows, is “yes,” but it doesn’t pay until all the threats are actually eliminated!

Fortunately, Rick Grimes is not the only character in the fourth season of The Walking Dead to grow and develop. In the fourth season of The Walking Dead, the essential characters are:

Rick – Having started to become the man who takes in everyone, he finds peace for a time without his gun. Desperate to come back from all the killing, he has taken up farming and works to bring Carl back from the violence he had lived with. With Carl left guarding the Infected, he is desperate to protect the prison from herds that threaten to topple the fence. But when he learns that Carol killed Karen and Dave, he goes on a supply run with her and leaves her outside the prison’s protection. After the Governor attacks the prison, he is severely weakened and relies upon Carl for protection. While Carl is out with Michonne, he has to escape the house they were holed up in when others abruptly take it. Rick becomes obsessed with keeping Carl alive and safe, especially after they are forced back onto the road,

Michonne – Hunting the countryside for The Governor, she is obsessed, but returns to the prison as things get worse. She and Darryl volunteer to get antibiotics from the nearby veterinary college, which seems to work better for her given she has an aversion to Judith’s crying (and being around the baby). As the last one standing at the prison, she quickly recreates her Walker camouflage and heads out on her own. After roaming closer to the herd, she finds Rick and Carl. She begins to actually bond with Carl and tell him about her life before the fall of civilization,

Glenn – He remains concerned about his new wife and does not seem keen to bring a child into this darkened world. When the infection hits the prison, he succumbs early, which puts Maggie on edge and leaves him under Hershel’s care. After a desperate struggle with the virus, he is in a severely weakened state when the Governor arrives. Thought to be in the bus, he actually is left behind at the prison where he teams up with an unlikely person and begins his search for Maggie. When they are rescued by Abraham, he insists on turning back around to find Maggie. Learning about Terminus, he becomes focused on trying to find her there,

Maggie – Upset when Hershel goes into the infected ward, she is distraught by being unable to help her husband, who also falls ill. When things turn south in the isolation wing, she breaks in order to save Glenn and Hershel’s lives. After the fall of the prison, she, Sasha and Bob go hunting for Glenn. After not finding him on the bus, she takes it on faith that Glenn would head to Terminus and she pushes her group in that direction,

Darryl – Not adjusting well to being a community leader within the prison, he identifies with Michonne in her desire to hunt down the Governor, though he remains back at the prison trying to keep everyone safe. He and Beth flee together after the fall of the prison. He begins to develop feelings for her before she is abducted and he ends up in the company of a band of men who are worse than Merle was,

Carol – Hosts story time within the prison, until Carl discovers that she is using the medium as a place to teach the children how to defend themselves. She tries to mentor two young girls when their father dies and she tries to stop the spread of the flu by killing Karen and Dave before they can get anyone else sick. Abandoned by Rick while out on a scouting run, she witnesses the fall of the prison and she heads after the children, managing to rescue them (and Tyrese) at the most opportune time. When she and Tyrese and the children find a house together, the children’s inability to understand the world they are in and it leads to a horrible series of events,

Tyrese – Turns away from a life of violence and tries to join those scavenging for supplies as opposed to those who kill Walkers on the fence. He develops feelings for Karen and is crushed when she gets sick fast and killed as a preventative measure. He and Rick fight quite a bit, but he manages his rage by slaughtering Walkers while out on the run for antibiotics. Managing to survive the fall of the prison, he ends up taking care of Judith, Lizzie, and Mika. He, the children, and Carol begin to find their way together until what is probably the very worst day of his life,

Carl – No longer trusted with a gun, he reluctantly takes up reading comic books and farming with his father. When the virus hits the prison, he steps up to actually defend the prison and those who are suffering there. With the fall of the prison, he steps up – albeit angrily – to take care of Rick. He and Michonne bond on the road,

Hershel – He acts as Rick’s conscience and expresses pride in how Rick was able to bring himself and Carl back from the brink of madness. He helps diagnose the illness and when he goes out to get elderberries for a tea to relieve the suffering of those infected, he finds himself in the isolation ward, infected himself by the resident doctor! But when he manages to recover, he falls into the hands of Rick’s worst enemy,

Beth - When her friend Zach is killed while on a supply run, she turns to Darryl for emotional support. After managing to survive the plague inside the prison (she takes care of Judith during the crisis), she and Darryl run off into the woods when the prison falls.

The fourth season of The Walking Dead also sees the introduction of Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita, who are important in the graphic novel series. They are not given much time to grow and develop in the fourth season of The Walking Dead, but the fact that they have been introduced bodes well for the fifth season of the show.

The truth is, though, that watching the fourth season of The Walking Dead is more an act of inertia than great television, especially on the plot front. Unless and until the show makes a giant paradigm shift for what type of story it is telling, the nature of the beast is that whatever the characters build up will be jeopardized by human beings more horrible than the protagonists. The characters are engaging enough, but the plot is pretty stale for those who have been watching The Walking Dead.

In addition to a few decent character moments, what the fourth season of The Walking Dead has are some wonderful moments of performance. Danai Gurira’s portrayal of Michonne, for example, is especially deep. She is impossible not to watch and there is something so incredible about her performance that one forgets that this is only her second season on the show. Gurira and Chandler Riggs play off one another masterfully. Riggs does not play Carl as bratty any longer; instead his character is much more realistic and deep than before.

The whole cast – Andrew Lincoln, Steven Yeun, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Lauren Cohan, Scott Wilson, Emily Kinney and Chad L. Coleman – is given the opportunity to shine at least once in the season. So, even as the plot stagnates a bit, the performances actually get quite a bit better.

The result is that The Walking Dead Season Four progresses the characters and moves the story in a slightly different direction, but it is much more average than it is indispensible television.

For other shows from the 2013 – 2014 television season, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 1
The Newsroom - Season 2
Breaking Bad - Season 5
The Clone Wars - Season 6
Orange Is The New Black - Season 2
Parenthood - Season 5

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Fight The Living: The Walking Dead Season Three Finds Its “Others!”

The Good: Excellent serialization, Great acting, Good plot, Mood, Special Effects
The Bad: Soap opera quality to many of the character interactions and plot progressions, Several episodes that are drawn-out plots with little actually happening
The Basics: In the third season of The Walking Dead, the living pose a greater threat to Rick and his band of survivors than the undead who roam after the viral apocalypse.


When I reviewed the second season of The Walking Dead (that review is here!), I noted that the show had a strange analogous quality to Lost (reviewed here!). Lost had very distinctive seasons – establishment, the “Hatch Season,” the Others Season, The Rescue Season, The Time Travel Season, and the Resolution season. The Walking Dead has not only fallen into such distinctly different seasons each time around, but it has found a pretty disturbing way of mirroring Lost in its plot interactions. After a season of establishment (reviewed here!), The Walking Dead was limited largely to a farm, its version of the Hatch. The third season of The Walking Dead would be the season where they have to interact with The Others in order for the analogy to hold . . . and they do!

The Others in The Walking Dead are the residents of a nearby town, called Woodbury. After the second season of The Walking Dead, I began reading the graphic novels upon which the television series is based and I knew that this would be an intense and dark season of television. And it was. Season Three of The Walking Dead ties up a number of dangling plot and character issues from the first two years, while advancing the plots and characters exceptionally well. But, this is a season that is more psychologically dark than it is filled with zombie gore. While the television series does not contain the extreme repeated rapes and dismemberments of main characters, it is packed with enough troubling moments to give one pause as to whether or not they want to watch it. For my money, the third season – which is in many ways a slower, more ponderous season with a few whole episodes where virtually nothing happens – is an investment season and one I endorse more on the faith that it will pay off in the near future.

That said, season three of The Walking Dead introduces some wonderful new characters and puts the survivors of the zombie apocalypse in a pretty cool new setting. And, to be fair to the season, for all the problems with how some of the individual episodes (fail to) stand on their own, the season is a remarkably cohesive and heavily serialized season of television that plays well when watched as a single sixteen episode movie. In fact, one of the only big leaps the viewer has to make is that the prison – which was seen in the final shots of the second season – remained undiscovered by the group of survivors the next morning when they awoke and reconnoitered the area!

Picking up months after the loss of the farm at the climax of the second season, Rick Grimes and his small group of survivors have become a cohesive fighting force. They go house to house scavenging for what they need and when the horde of walkers finds them, they pack up, move out and evade to survive. In this way, they managed to survive the long winter, but with the spring thaw comes more walkers. Unfortunately, Lori’s pregnancy is also nearing its climax and she and Rick have not exactly reconciled over the winter. When the group discovers a prison, they decide to break in, secure it, and take up residence there. In the process, they lose T-Dog and Hershel becomes the first person to survive a bite when Rick amputates his leg after he is bitten and they see him through the illness that follows.

But taking the prison does not lead to a happy ending. In addition to inmates who Rick and Daryl are wary of, Lori’s pregnancy comes at the worst possible moment for her and Carl. Andrea, who survived the winter with a mysterious survivor named Michonne, fell sick and in evading walkers, the pair end up in the hands of Merle Dixon. Merle brings the women back to the nearby town of Woodbury, which is run by a seemingly gentile man who everyone calls the Governor. Andrea falls in with him, but Michonne is instantly suspicious of him and his motives.

When Michonne leaves Woodbury, she is hunted by Merle and she witnesses Glenn and Maggie abducted by Merle when they leave the prison to pick up baby formula at a store near the prison and Woodbury. While Andrea finds herself in a relationship with The Governor, The Governor has Merle torture Glenn and Maggie to find where they came from. With information from Michonne, Rick and his people mount a rescue of Glenn and Maggie, but that puts Daryl in direct conflict with Merle and the two go rogue for a time. But the Governor, now knowing about the prison, covets it and after he is wounded (his eye is sliced in half by a piece of glass) and his walker daughter killed, he marshals the people of Woodbury to take it. The conflicts that follow put Rick, who is not entirely mentally capable any longer, and the Governor, who is far more callous and bloodthirsty than he initially seemed and now is determined to get revenge upon Michonne, on a collision course that will cost lives and stretch both men to the point of insanity.

The third season of The Walking Dead is ponderous in many ways; it takes a long time for a lot of important things to happen. In fact, one of the most significant aspects of the third season – in character terms – is the remarkably slow build-up to the Governor actually developing, or being exposed, as an evil guy. Unfortunately, given how good the Governor initially appears, one of the best lines from the graphic novels – “Why, Stranger, we feed them strangers.” – is not utilized in the television season. Instead, Michonne’s initial paranoia about the Governor seems more paranoid than the result of any genuine threat he poses. Even after his collection of severed heads, his walker daughter, and the “games” he has for the citizens of Woodbury are exposed, he is played off as just a guy running a town. It is not until he is shown raiding a nearby military depot and lying to the people of Woodbury that the viewer gets the sense that Michonne was actually right.

The third season of The Walking Dead is one where the tragedy is quick and then long stretches pass and the conflict in those parts is mostly between characters struggling with sanity and their personal affiliations. Andrea remains ignorant to her people being holed up at the prison for much of the season and Daryl and Merle fight about which survivors group to stick with, while Rick deals with the fallout of the death of Lori (it’s not much of a spoiler; by the end of the fourth episode, Rick’s daughter is born at the cost of her life). By contrast, when the outright conflict begins in the second half of the season, following the Governor being wounded by Michonne and the subsequent attacks on the prison, the season has a lot of action (save “Prey” which spends an inordinate amount of time with Rick and the Governor sitting down, drinking whiskey, and trying to negotiate).

Like all worthwhile shows and movies, The Walking Dead is really about characters. In the third season of The Walking Dead, the principle characters are:

Rick Grimes – The former sheriff is now not in a mental place to lead his people after he helps them take the prison. Helping clear the prison of some of the most dangerous surviving inmates and then losing Lori unhinges him to the point that he abandons his new baby to wander (mostly because he continues to hallucinate seeing and hearing Lori). But, after a period of feeling unable to bear the responsibilities of life in this new, dark world, he gets his head in the game to defend his people against the Governor,

Lori Grimes – Rick’s wife, she is still pretty pissed with Rick and how he has not forgiven her for having an affair with Shane after she thought he was dead. But when she and Carl get caught off guard in the catacombs in the prison, she must give birth, even though the process might kill her,

Carl Grimes – Cold and badass now, he and Beth seem on the verge of having a romance. Unfortunately, he has to kill Lori to prevent her from turning, though he tries to keep the new baby, Judith (whom he names) safe. Unfortunately, in trying to keep people safe, he starts to become callous about the living,

Hershel – The elderly farmer sees the prison as a chance to settle down after losing most of his family and the farm. When he is bitten, Rick amputates part of his leg and when he survives, he becomes Rick’s most valued advisor. In fact, he is the only one Rick tells about seeing Lori after she dies. He comes to respect Glenn and accepts the relationship Glenn and Maggie have,

Maggie – Now in a full-fledged relationship with Glenn, she is traumatized when captured by Merle and the Governor. Feeling guilty that she cracks and exposes the survivors at the prison, she and Glenn work much of the season to find their way back to one another,

Glenn – Beaten severely by Merle, he once again proves his resilience. In addition to assisting to take the prison, he becomes the loudest voice against allowing Merle to join the prisoners. In wrestling with the consequences of the Woodbury incident, he decides to take a big step with Maggie,

Carol – She and Daryl develop a relationship and she trusts the rogue. She also is far more confident and strong this season and she briefly has a friendship with Axel, one of the surviving prisoners,

T-Dog – He shows up . . . but not for long,

Daryl – The resident redneck, he is Rick’s right hand in this season, until he is lost in the rescue attempt on Woodbury. There, he is pitted against his brother and when they refuse to fight one another, they strike out on their own. He works constantly on Merle to reform his racist, psychopathic, older one-handed brother,

Andrea – After being rescued by Michonne, she gets romantically involved with the Governor. After Michonne abandons her in Woodbury, she becomes one of the Governor’s most trusted lieutenants and it is only when he begins to show his true colors that she realizes she may have chosen the wrong side,

Merle Dixon – The Governor’s torturer and enforcer, he is now more ruthless than when he cut off his own hand in season one. When he learns Daryl is still alive from Andrea, he becomes determined to find him. When they are reunited, he finds himself on the outs with both groups . . . and Daryl. He is actually given the rhetorical argument to stand for something better from the least likely person,

Michonne – The mysterious newcomer, little is known about her, save that she carries a wicked sharp sword and has grown protective of Andrea. Having learn to “camouflage” by having two walkers on chains – without hands or jaws – she has survived since the outbreak. Highly moral, she works to let the residents of the prison know Glenn and Maggie are still alive and where they are. She accompanies Carl on an excursion to recover a photograph of Lori for Judith,

and The Governor (Philip) - The leader of Woodbury, he initially seems like a cautious guy looking out for his people. However, his dark side soon surfaces as he uses “biters” for entertainment in Woodbury and raids any nearby settlements of survivors for supplies, most notably weapons. He sees the benefit of taking in Andrea, Michonne, and (later) Tyreese and his group of survivors. When Rick’s people fight their way into Woodbury to recover Glenn and Maggie, he becomes obsessed with taking the prison.

The third season of The Walking Dead has all of the principle actors comfortable in their roles for an entire solid season. Andrew Lincoln leads the cast and from the first moments of the season, it is clear something in the survivors has changed; they do move in a more fluid, military fashion and they have survived without casualties. Lincoln has to do the dramatic heavy lifting as Rick as the character undergoes constant stress from death and menace around him. Lincoln sells the part, with many of his performances – especially opposite an unplugged telephone – as unsettling.

Scott Wilson returns as Hershel in a way that makes him the sage character to replace the absent Dale, which is nice. Steven Yeun and Lauren Cohan continue to develop their chemistry well as Glenn and Maggie, respectively. And Danai Gurira has an auspicious entrance into the series as Michonne, who is cool, collected, and smart – even if this character is very quiet.

It is David Morrissey who makes The Walking Dead feel fresh in its third season. Morrissey plays The Governor and he gives the character layers and depth that is well beyond the writing. Morrissey plays the Governor very much like Rick initially was, making it seem like The Governor is just looking out for his people much like Rick did. His smile is winning and it is only as the season progresses that he loses it and exchanges it entirely for a cruel sneer. That progression is creepy and the mark of good acting.

Ultimately, the third season of The Walking Dead is a strong, enjoyable season of television that is worth watching, but not quite as tight as the season that preceded it.

For other horror television shows, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Carnivale
Twin Peaks
True Blood - Season 5

7/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the shows I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The “Hatch” Season For The Walking Dead: The Walking Dead Season Two Proves No One Is Safe!

The Good: Excellent serialization, Great acting, Decent plot, Wonderful bonus features, Mood, Special Effects
The Bad: Soap opera quality to many of the character interactions and plot progressions.
The Basics: When Rick and his band of survivors end up stalled on the road to Fort Benning, they take refuge at a local farm that brings out some of the worst elements in those among them!


Ever since Lost (reviewed here!) went off the air, I – and many other television viewers – have been looking for “the next Lost.” We’ve been looking for a genre series that captivates us and makes us care, one that makes us want to tune in and buy the DVD sets and talk to others about it. Lately, I’ve been thinking that The Walking Dead might well be that series. However, after watching the complete second season of The Walking Dead, I cannot help but feel that the writers and producers of the show are actually trying to be the next Lost in a very literal way. There are some uncanny structural similarities in the two series’ already and the second season really brings that out.

The second season of Lost was essentially split between time in the hatch and dealing with the fates of the passengers of Oceanic 815 who were in the tail section of the plane when it crashed. In analogous terms, the second season of The Walking Dead is the “hatch” season for the show. The group of survivors spends most of the season holed up on a farm (like the hatch) and the subplot involving Sophia is much like “tailie” section of the second season. The latter half of the season wherein the survivors take in a refugee they are pretty sure is evil is much like the capture of “[Not] Henry Gale” in the second season . . .wow, it is uncanny!

On its own merits, The Walking Dead Season Two is tense, often disturbing and very well-assembled. Its only real flaws come from a sense that the show is taking on more elements of a soap opera in terms of character development. But while that might be true of the Rick/Lori/Shane relationship issues, what makes The Walking Dead so incredible in the second season is how no one is safe. The show is not at all predictable in the long arcs and one of the real treats of rewatching the second season of The Walking Dead is seeing how well-assembled it is. In fact, in order to do a spoiler-free review of the second season of The Walking Dead, one cannot reveal how well-assembled the season is. Sufficed to say, in the last five minutes of the final episode of the second season, there is a revelation that was hinted to pretty completely throughout many of the episodes, without viewers even being entirely aware that that was what was happening!

Picking up where the first season of The Walking Dead (reviewed here!) left off, The Walking Dead Season Two is a highly serialized television series that is focused on the lives of a group of survivors following a zombie apocalypse. In the wake of leaving a doomed Centers For Disease Control facility, a group of survivors continues to migrate away from the roving populations of the undead. And in the second season, The Walking Dead continues to explore the human element working to survive the consequences of the collapse of the world over the course of thirteen episodes.

On the highway out of Atlanta, headed toward Fort Benning, Dale’s RV breaks down amid a traffic jam. While Dale works to fix the RV, a mob of Walkers passes through and the survivors all hide under the abandoned vehicles and, in the case of T-Dog, a dead body. Unfortunately, Sophia comes out from under the car in front of a straggler, who chases her into the woods. Rick follows her and has Sophia hide in order to draw the Walkers away from her. Unfortunately, when they return to where Rick left her, Sophia is gone. As the search for Sophia continues, Rick and Carl are walking in the woods when they come across a deer. The deer, and Carl, are shot by a hunter – Otis – and Otis sends Rick and Carl to the nearby farm he came from.

At the farm, Hershel, a doctor a man of god, works to save Carl’s life. Reluctantly, the rest of the group moves to the farm and continues the search for Sophia from there. They begin to settle in, with Glen drawing the attention of one of Hershel’s daughters, Maggie. While Carl recovers from his wounds, Rick tries to negotiate with Hershel to remain on the farm, even after Sophia is found, though he is resistant. When Glen discovers that Hershel’s barn is being used to store Walkers, Shane and Andrea step up to deal with them.

In the aftermath of the barn incident, tensions run high between Hershel’s people and Rick’s. When Hershel goes off to town to get drunk, Rick and Glen go after him. In town, the trio runs into two travellers, who force Rick to kill them in self-defense, which leads to a shootout with more of their friends and the recovery of a wounded youth, Randall. Saving Randall brings the conflict between Rick and Shane to a head and sparks off a debate on the boundaries the group is willing to go to save humans as opposed to protect themselves. When Dale works to persuade the members of the group not to kill Randall for the potential liability he poses, Carl inadvertently sets off a chain of events that will once again change everything for the survivors!

The second season of The Walking Dead is dark, sweaty and it feels dangerous almost every moment of every episode. The characters seldom cut a break and the fact that any of them survive while traveling together is something of a small miracle. The tension runs high in the second season as Shane and Rick begin to go head-to-head more often and Lori quickly learns that she is pregnant. The Walking Dead Season Two feels very soap operatic, especially in the relationship between Shane and Rick and Rick and Lori. Rick and Lori finally come clean about Lori’s affair in the first season and that drives a wedge between Shane and Rick and Shane and Lori, which makes some sense. Refreshingly, the second season of The Walking Dead deals with the revelation of Lori’s affair with Shane in a surprisingly mature way.

But the soap opera-type conceit starts to pile up with somewhat forced character conflicts between Dale and Andrea. Dale seems a lot more controlling of her than paternal and that is irksome. As well, the budding relationship between Carol and Daryl seems more a matter of plot convenience than, by comparison, the relationship between Maggie and Glen.

Like all worthwhile shows and movies, The Walking Dead is really about characters. In the second season of The Walking Dead, the principle characters are:

Rick Grimes – A former sheriff and now the leader of a band of survivors that includes his wife and young son, he is fighting hard to retain his humanity following the destruction of the world he knew. The bearer of a great secret from the surviving member of the CDC, Rick feels exceptionally guilty for leaving Sophia and is devastated when Carl gets shot. He tries to maintain order and respect Hershel’s rules, tasks made much more difficult by Shane,

Lori Grimes – Rick’s wife, she is shocked when Carl is shot and takes up residence in the house beside his bed for almost his entire convalescence. She works to put distance between herself and Shane, but that is made difficult when Shane becomes convinced her unborn baby must be his,

Carl Grimes – After being shot, he learns to shoot. With each passing day, he becomes more cold and even mean, following Shane’s example, as opposed to Rick’s. When he steals Darryl’s gun, he goes off into the woods and sets the survivors on a disastrous course,

Dale – The voice of reason and humanity, after saving Andrea from a Walker by only giving her access to a screwdriver, he tries to convince her not to following in Shane’s footsteps. Threatened by Shane, he quickly realizes that Shane’s accounting of how Walkers overran Otis when getting the medical supplies to save Carl is probably not true. He fights to ensure that the survivors keep ethical so if they survive, the society they create is not a cold, mean one. When Randall is captured, he fights to save the boy from being executed,

Hershel – The elderly owner of the farm, he is deeply conservative and very much out of touch with what is happening in the outside world. Believing there will be a cure, he has the Walkers in the barn so when the cure comes, he can save his wife and stepson. But when he witnesses a Walker attacking, he is shaken to his core and cedes his judgment to Rick,

Maggie – The farmer’s daughter, she is instantly attracted to Glen. The two start a relationship and she works to encourage him to be more than what the group uses him for,

Glen – Inspired to think like a leader, he objects to his duties after he is used as Walker bait when a Walker is found in a well on the property. He comes to fall in love with Maggie, but discovers that may be a liability when he freezes during the shootout with Randall’s people,

Carol – Desperate to find her daughter, Sophia, she relies more and more upon Darryl for comfort and protection,

T-Dog – He shows up. After cutting his arm while fleeing Walkers, he does surprisingly little,

Darryl – The resident redneck, he reforms quite a bit, despite being plagued by a vision of his lost brother. Going on tireless searches for Sophia, he finds the most concrete evidence of her continued existence. As Rick and Shane go head to head more, he shows surprising loyalty to Rick and starts to warm up to Carol,

Andrea – Despite being pissed off at Dale, she quickly learns to shoot and in the process forms a relationship with Shane. But troubled by how dark Shane is becoming, she actually stands with Dale during the critical vote on Randall’s fate,

and Shane Walsh – Feeling usurped by Rick in every way, he sees the farm as a potential way to settle down and bunker in. Despite forging ahead with a relationship with Andrea, when he learns Lori is pregnant, he becomes obsessed with her again. He continues to guide Carl as well, much to Rick’s chagrin. In order to save Carl’s life, he makes a tough choice and that puts him at odds with Dale and several other members of the survivor’s camp.

What sells the The Walking Dead Season Two – outside the phenomenal special effects and universally engaging directing (even when it is gross!) – is the acting. In the second season of The Walking Dead, the full cast shows up and makes exceptional use of their time on screen. Norman Reedus plays Darryl with more and more humanity that makes the potentially loathsome character interesting to watch. The fact that he humanizes the outsider in degrees works wonderfully and Reedus deserves a lot of credit for that. At the other end of the spectrum, Jeffrey DeMunn does an excellent job of articulating moral opinions without ever sounding like a jerk or a tool. As Dale, DeMunn is perfectly cast as the soul of the group and that is presented exceptionally well throughout the season.

Steven Yeun and Lauren Cohan, as Glen and Maggie, have exceptionally good chemistry in the second season of The Walking Dead. Cohan and Scott Wilson, who plays Hershel, effortlessly merge with the existing cast to feel like they have been present the whole time. There is never a moment while watching either of them perform that the viewer feels they are not buying into the reality of the The Walking Dead universe.

Most of the second season of The Walking Dead comes down to performances by Jon Bernthal and Andrew Lincoln. Bernthal steals most of the second season simply by being so unsettling as to make his character of Shane entirely unpleasant to watch. Shane is dangerous and mean and Bernthal plays him with an angry core that simmers wonderfully throughout almost every scene he is in!

On DVD and Blu-Ray, The Walking Dead Season Two comes with a plethora of bonus features, including special effects featurettes and commentary tracks. There are plenty of goodies to make it well worth picking up the discs of The Walking Dead Season Two!

For other horror television shows, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Millennium
Twin Peaks
True Blood - Season 4

8/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the shows I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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