The Walking Dead

Season 1 Episode 1: Days Gone Bye

***DISCLAIMER- I’ll be reviewing this show every week. Two episodes have aired already, and I’ll be posting a review for episode 2 later this week.***

***DISCLAIMER #2- Yes. I know this isn’t a movie. I’m also aware this blog is called “That Movie Sucked”, not “That TV Show Sucked”. Do I give a shit? No. Alrighty then. Let’s proceed.”***

I love zombies. Slow, fast, medium paced, I love them all. Give me a good story set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse and I’m in. However, as much as I may love them, I also agree that Hollywood is milking it for all it’s worth. Not quite sure how it all started, but the point is that many people are starting to get sick of it, and I can’t really say I blame you. You can only do a story about a group of survivors barricaded in *insert random location here* trying to stay alive so many times before it’s worn out its welcome and it’s time to move onto the next threat against humanity (I’m predicting robots. Or aliens. Or ROBOT ALIENS). Lucky for us, Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead comics, knows zombies. He, like George Romero did back in 1968, knows that the threat of being eaten by the living dead isn’t nearly as scary as the toll that it takes on those that are living. He understands that zombies aren’t what make a good zombie movie, but that it’s about the people and how they deal with the situation, how they adapt, and how they grow as human beings. Luckily for us, Frank Darabont (director of The Shawshank Redemption) decided to take up the mantle as executive producer of the show, and directed the pilot episode. He understands human emotion during the most dire of situations (as evidenced in both Shawshank and the horribly underrated The Mist, which none of you fuckers probably saw).

The pilot did a great job of setting up the plot of the series: cop by the name of Rick Grimes wakes up in a hospital from a coma to find that the world has been overrun by, guess what….the Walking Dead. After stumbling into this strange world, he encounters Morgan and Duane, a father and son that are holed up in Rick’s old neighbor’s house. After Morgan provides the necessary background information to Rick, and also the audience, they part ways, and Rick begins the search for his wife and son.

What I loved most about the pilot was how slow it was (hear me out you bloodthirsty savages). The episode took it’s time introducing us to all the characters. It made us care for them, from a man looking for his wife and son, to a man haunted by the inability to shoot his wife after she comes back from the dead. Now don’t get me wrong: I loved the blood and gore, and believe me, there was plenty of it. But like I said before, I care more about the emotion in a scene than how bad ass it is. What’s the point of murdering someone if it has no emotional depth to it? Why should we care? Darabont accomplishes the nearly impossible task of making us sympathize with the zombies themselves. He makes us realize that they’re not just dead people who have come back to life. They’re also husbands, sons, mothers, and wives, and no character in any piece of zombie fiction ever created feels this pain more than Morgan. It was bad enough seeing the love of your life, the mother of your child, die in front of you and your son. Now he has to decide whether to let her go on forever as a zombie or to put her down? Yikes. That was easily the best scene of the entire pilot, and the reason I instantly loved the show. I can’t wait to see what Frank Darabont has in store for us in the next 5 episodes. If this pilot is any indication, we’re in for one hell of a ride.

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