Lots of Words About This Season of “The Walking Dead”

For those of you who also listen to “No Podcast for Old Men” you’ll hear me on the latest one lamenting the fact that I was recording it when I could’ve been watching the East Coast premiere of the season finale.  Three hours after that and I’m sitting on my couch, impressed at the finale and overall quality of these six episodes.  It didn’t follow the comic exactly, but that’s not a problem as they incorporated a lot of the best elements of the first volume into this season.  The majority came from Rick’s awakening and first steps into this new world in the pilot, but the zombie attack in episode four and Jim’s slow demise in episode five were both handled very well.

Most importantly, all of the changes and additions they made felt true to the spirit of the comic.  One of the core themes of the comics is how do you hold on to your humanity in an inhuman world and there were a lot of elements that dealt with that issue.  Seeing Rick and co. go back to save Merle, even though he was an angry racist was one example, and watching Andrea’s long vigil over her sister’s corpse to make sure she got the rest she deserved was particularly gut-wrenching.  You could also see it in Dr. Jenner’s actions in the last half of the finale — even though they felt like they came more from the genre handbook, the scenes with the cast trapped in the lab with him were at least elevated by the uniformly excellent cast.  There is not a weak link amongst them.

Speaking of the cast, the best of the new characters is Darryl (as played by Norman Reedus) that they’ve created for the TV series.  While he’s just as cultured as his brother Merle, his actions are tempered by his unspoken understanding of the fact that he’ll get farther by working with these people than he would alone.  He may be hotheaded and reckless, but it’s done in a way that feels credible and adds to the drama of any scene that he’s in.

I also liked the conversation between Dale and Andrea towards the end of the finale when he tries to convince her to leave the facility.  Though I’ve witnessed scenarios play out like this before, it still felt believable thanks to the efforts of the actors (particularly Jeffrey DeMunn as Dale) and how it built on their previous conversation earlier in the series.  It also paves the way for their relationship in the comic, should the creators decide to go in that direction.

As for Shane living through the season, I’m interested to see where they go with his character.  Series creator/writer Robert Kirkman told “Entertainment Weekly” that he did want to do more with the character, but also wanted to cover as much ground as possible in the first six issues.  After all, he didn’t know how long the series was going to last.  Now that they have the opportunity to do more with him, I hope that they don’t go the obvious route and send him further down the spiral of despair and rage that he’s currently on.  Maybe hook him up with Michonne when she shows up.  Anything to avoid the obvious.

And on the subject of obvious plot developments…

The big rumor for next season is that Merle will turn up later as The Governor.  Now, the more I think about that idea, the more I believe that they’d be stupid not to do it.  My biggest complaint about the comic was how the first settlement of humans our protagonists encounter is run by a crazy madman.  God forbid that they encounter some nice people, they have to encounter a man who not only plans to feed them to the zombies, but also cuts off Rick’s hand, rapes Michonne, and wants to take over their prison for the benefit of his community.  It’s exactly what you’d expect, and all the more disappointing for it.

Putting Merle in The Governor’s role is not only plausible, as we know he’s a man who can GET THINGS DONE and MAKE THE HARD CHOICES, but also create lots of problems for Rick and co. when they finally encounter him.  He’d actually have motivation for wanting to hurt them (as I’m sure that he wants to pay Rick back for the hand he lost) and there’d be some nice drama in his reunion with his brother.  I can’t see Darryl becoming “nice” anytime soon, but I don’t think that a) he’ll be happy to see his companions tortured and b) Merle will be enthused about how he’s made friends with the people who left him to die.  Merle’s inevitable return already has the potential for great drama, and putting him in The Governor’s role would only add gas to that fire.

So I’m very happy with these six episodes and I’ll be making time to watch the second season when it premieres next year.  While Heidi MacDonald has pondered “Has ‘The Walking Dead’ jumped the shark before they even built the shark tank?” I’m willing to give Kirkman the benefit of the doubt since he claims that the recent writing staff changes aren’t the result of behind the scenes turmoil.  Which is good, since the show is set for a long and successful run much like that of the comic that spawned it.