Original Air Date: November 13, 2011
Five things: (Full SPOILERS)
1. Darryl’s incredibly crappy day. Man….that’s a bad day at the office, huh? About halfway through the show, I tweeted that they should have called the episode “Darryl’s really shitty day”. Fall off a horse (bad stunt work. No one falls off a horse that way, but whatever), fall down the hill, stabbed by bolt, climb up the hill, fall BACK down, attacked by zombies, hallucinate your mean-ass big brother, stagger back to camp and THEN get kinda shot in the head. But, I enjoyed this because Darryl is one of the more enjoyable actors on the show. He’s probably among the more expensive too, so they better use him. We even got to see Merle! I was really excited to see Michael Rooker’s name in the opening credits and even if that wasn’t really Merle, we at least know that the show’s producers haven’t lost Rooker’s phone number.
2. Sticking to the comic for a couple of key points. A fun thing about the TV series is that we’re hitting most of the same story beats as the comic, but we’re getting there in slightly different ways. Of course, I’m talking about THE BARN and the impending clash between Rick and Herschel over how long they can loiter on the farm. The scene with the barn was really hot with the way they revealed it. I don’t know about you, but as soon as Maggie started to pull out that scrap of paper, I knew it was going to say, “Meet me in the barn” even before they showed the word “Hayloft” on the screen. I’ve given the producers of this show a lot of crap for screwing up scenes, but this was well done.
3. The Rick-Shane scene. This scene was interesting in a couple of ways. For one thing, I get nervous every time Rick and Shane head off into the woods with guns. The producers have been too loyal to the overall source material for me to believe that they’re just going to waste that element of the comic books. But the scene also showed something else. In comics, an artist can make a really wordy scene more visually appealing just by making the characters “talk while walking” versus sitting in chairs or standing around. This scene was the same way, while Shane and Rick talk-and-walk, it’s compelling and interesting because more is going on. But, once they stop to get “serious” about the conversation, the energy completely leaves the scene because I’m no longer worried that Shane might try to shoot Rick in the back or that they might find Sophia or they might find a zombie. As for the central argument itself, it’s nice to have a dissenting voice in the group who thinks that maybe they need to cut their losses on Sophia AND this also ties nicely to the conversation between Shane and Lori later where she tells him that he’s just using Lori/Carl as an excuse to cut-and-run.
4. Small successes, but a few missed opportunities. One other scene the director nailed was when Glen confronts Lori about being pregnant and they instantly cut to Rick and Shane walking back up the driveway. Wow, well done. What better way to illustrate that she may not know who the father is and that friction between the three of them? But, there were a few losers too that hold this show back a bit. The whole scene where Darryl gets thrown from his horse was an anticlimax. All those low camera angles and moving shots with leaves in the foreground combined with foreboding music, and the payoff is a snake in the path??? That could have been better. It’s like the writers argued about whether it should be a zombie jumping out or an evil survivor who has turned to cannibalism and when they couldn’t decide they just made it a snake out of spite. The other major MISS is that they could have done more with Merle’s appearance. They made it so clear in the first appearance that he had his hands, so you knew it wasn’t really Merle. But what if in that second appearance they had done something different? Like have Darryl’s vision go foggy (since he’s hurt), have him look up at Merle silhouetted against the sky and have a blurry Merle walk away and have it appear that he only had ONE hand so that it was arguably really Merle the second time. Tell me that wouldn’t have caused chatter and excitement!
5. Little stuff (mostly negative and/or funny). Loved the flashback intro. The comics never showed us that “fleeing to Atlanta” timeframe when people still had hope. Loved Maggie a LOT (“11 condoms equals 11 minutes”). Why didn’t Darryl pull the bolt out sooner? Was it just so the zombie scene would be more dramatic if he had to pull it out THEN? Great zombie scene, btw! How did that zombie not bite Darryl? Glad it took three weeks to show us Herschel’s generator! Man, Herschel is pissy and he doesn’t like “Asian boys” because they have to make him less sympathetic for when he kicks Rick off his property next week. Why do 5 men have to run out there to deal with a lone walker? Why are they sprinting across the field to take care of a lone walker? Andrea is never getting her gun back now! Why didn’t they wipe Darryl off better before putting him in the bed?
Conclusion: Pretty good. It may seem like I’m harping on a lot of negatives, but that’s just because I find it very frustrating when I read negative stuff online that isn’t specific. This show is really good. I’m kinda bored with the Sophia plotline, but that’ll surely wrap up next week and the show has a lot of other good things going on: Darryl being Darryl, Rick/Shane/Lori tension, Herschel tension, Glenn/Maggie chemistry, the Barn, etc. Good times!
Grade: B+
-Dean Stell
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Dean Stell, review, The Walking Dead, The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 5, The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 5 review, TV, Zombies
is it just me or the screenwriters are teasing us that they’re gonna make governor out of marle? I mean deryll collecting the ear from the zombie which just a second ago was his brother in his blurry vision? also he obviously holds a grudge to rick for cutting his hand off. eye for an eye, hand for a hand?
yeat again – maybe I’m seeing something that’s just not there
It is certainly possible. Merle would make a pretty good Governor-like villain, huh?
I’ve got my doubts though. At the pace the show is moving, the Governor wouldn’t even show up until Season 3 and wouldn’t be the fully evil presence that he is until Season 4. I just wonder if they’d keep teasing it for that long or if it is more likely that Merle will show up again in some other capacity. Merle also didn’t have the air of competence that the Governor had. Merle was just big and mean….the Governor was a good leader and that was the fun of the character because if you consider society a tradeoff between safety and freedom, then the people of Woodbury had made the choice for safety with the Governor. I just can’t see Merle in THAT role.
But….the show is different than the comic in a lot of ways. Who knows. But it is fun to have things to speculate about.
I have to say I find the show to be kind of boring. For the most part the characters all seem way too safe. In the comic, death seemed to be lurking around every corner for virtually any one character. The best part of the episode was when I thought Daryl was a goner. I was so disappointed with the outcome, but at least there was a couple of minutes of excitement.
Whether its Lori running out unguarded in the middle of the night or something as trivial as a group doing laundry outside with no protection I found the characters to be just kind of camping out rather than living in a dystopia.
Also, besides the Sophia subplot, I think the show’s subplot with regards to gun control is completely misplaced in a world that has gone to hell. It just doesnt make any sense.
As a huge fan of the comic I feel like I should watch the show and I want to love it but I just can’t get through a show without rolling my eyes. Though I do recognize that a lot of people online seem to love it. I personally don’t get why that is.
I see a lot of what you’re saying. The show hasn’t yet established that main character’s can die at any time. So far, we’ve had a bunch of background characters getting killed, but that’s it. In the comics, we all know how the first story arc ended. The comics also got more impact out of “the barn” because Herschel’s family was better developed. The show has only developed Maggie.
Actually, the show reminds me a little bit of how the comic feels right now. No one important has died in the comic in ~30 issues, and they’re all starting to feel “safe”.
I have mixed feelings about the gun issue. I’m a huge fan of firearms and have been around them my entire life, huge 2nd amendment supporter, etc. But, it still would give me the heebie-jeebies to have a bunch of people who have barely handled guns ever and are all emotional running around with pistols. That’s how accidents happen.
But, you are very right that there isn’t enough of a feeling of danger.
Agreed about the comic and the recent safe-ness of the characters. The recent ones that died felt kind of like “filler” characters. Even Douglas felt sort of expendable from the start. It does mirror the show now.
Maybe I am being defensive about the gun issue but I feel like the show is trying to ram a political debate into a place that it no longer matters. They all are unsafe by virtue of the environment (they should be anyway) so what level-headed person would give up their protection? At least carry a sword or a machette….or a lasso if you are Herchel and you want to herd the zombies into the barn.
I don’t think the gun control subplot is exactly being put in as political debate, I think it’s got to do more with the way Kirkman writes about how society gets twisted in times of crisis. The characters still in transition from the safe, old world to the unsafe, new world and I think the gun control subplot might be a part of that to remind the viewers.
IMHO only, so take that for what it’s worth (precisely 0¢).
That’s a great point actually. I hadnt made that connection that they are still in transition.