The Walking Dead - "Beside the Dying Fire"

Something. That's what finally happens on The Walking Dead Season 2 finale, "Beside the Dying Fire." After a season that was littered with wasted time on conversations that never went anywhere and solved nothing, the surviving group, led by Rick Grimes faces a giant zombie horde. The horde, it seems, comes all the way from Atlanta, following a helicopter that we never get a follow-up on, but will certainly play an integral part in Season 3. We hope. The helicopter could be nothing, but it is a sign that there are survivors out there, and that they have access to fuel for such a machine, so that, in itself, seems promising, at least on a cursory level. The opening scene, all zombies, all traveling, all over, is well shot and pristine. Especially when the horde pushes through a fence marked "Trespass, it's your ass." The clear implication is that fences don't mean anything when there's a force that cannot be stopped. But then, that's what is always so terrifying about this concept of the undead. They don't stop. They have no interest in self-preservation. They have no self. And an enemy without any concept of self simply won't tire, simply won't be dissuaded, and simply won't stop.

When Rick and Carl throw themselves into the barn, and the horde tears the door down, no doubt rending the dead flesh on their hands in the process, they don't stop. That builds tension. And real tension is what this show needs, and needed, all along. Rick and Carl are having a father-son moment when they realize the horde is coming. Carl wants to know when Shane got bit, but Rick can't tell him. And the zombies provide a quality reason to delay that reveal. Instead, they run, burn the zombies by burning the barn, and everyone on the farm battles in true siege fashion. The downside, the stakes are emptied because none of the people we care about are ever in true risk. Only two characters die. And both were people in Hershel's group we had seen once or twice, but never had a real affinity for. To make these deaths count, as I stated in the last review, the writers need to show these people as somehow valuable and interesting. These two weren't, and while Jimmy and Patricia had names, they didn't have characters, so their deaths, while gruesome, mean little.

After the siege, the episode slows down. Glenn tells Maggie he loves her, and that it had been true for a long time. Time in this show is confusing. Sometimes it's a string of days per season, other times, we're meant to believe that there's been a greater passage. Everyone else ultimately rendezvous at the highway, where the season started with Sophia's running away. The show tries to put a lot of weight on that, but it only works a little. Really, like at the end of Season 1, we are right back where we started. There's out with the old and in with the new, but not too much else. Excepting two key incidents:

1. Andrea gets left behind, runs away, and is about to be killed when a mysterious veiled samurai beheads the zombie that's afflicting her. We don't find out who that is, though, the character's name appears to be Michonne. And the character appears to be an effective bad ass. Also, Andrea is confirmed as a bad ass here too. She fights hard and while she would have died without intervention, her marksmanship and strength are impressive. Plus, now she has a reason to mistrust the others because they left her. Who knows what psychological drama will occur as a result.

2. Rick's admissions to the group. When he tells Lori that he killed Shane, she freaks, characteristically uncharacteristic as her character always is. It doesn't make sense because she wanted Shane dead. And it makes sense because right after that, she didn't. Lori is a messy character. But, Rick tells the group three tidbits after that mean the most. First, that he killed Shane, that he had to, and that he was bad for the group. They are all fearful after that, but will come around. Second, they are all infected. He reveals that Dr. Jenner told him that before the CDC blew up in Season 1. It doesn't seem to be an issue as long as no one dies, but everyone becomes very agitated by it. Why does it matter? We don't know yet... though if Lori miscarries that baby... holy shit that would be some gory zombie fetus action. Oh, and then Rick says that it's not a democracy anymore. He's in charge. Fuck all the debate. They want to survive, he'll help them, if not, he's out.

"Beside the Dying Fire" is this season's best episode, and while still by no means perfect, it gives us a feeling of dread that many of the others did not. Especially with the large prison standing tall over the landscape just beyond their camp. It's a place they can hold up, but they'll have to clear it out first. And even then, nothing is that easy. But, hey, maybe it will call into effective question whether prisons are meant to keep the bad people in, or the good people out. Or vice versa. I'll get back with this next year, more than likely. Thanks The Walking Dead for another season of ups and downs. May you always improve.

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The Walking Dead - Pretty Much Dead Already

Out of fatigue, I'm only finally getting around to the first-half finale of AMC's The Walking Dead. There have been a lot of disappointments this half of the season, but luckily, and well, frankly surprisingly, "Pretty Much Dead Already" pulls out everything it needs to make the show compelling for its extended holiday break. Parts of the episode speak to a sort of utopia, not entirely unlike Plato's Republic, wherein the living, breathing, thinking humans, now the best of their species by proxy, could attempt to at least respectfully store and protect their zombie counterparts, their walkers, their former friends now turned to fools with blood-rage by whatever mystery caused all of this in the first place. But the climax, another twist, but this time a good one, comes in the form of a boiling-over of negative energy, a great outpouring of fear, that means those with the minds to think and choose take out those who have long since lost their true humanity. While it provides a titillating bit of zombie gun-violence, it also feels strangely evil; an act of execution undertaken by those who fear what they still don't really understand.

There are threads that continue, Dale confronts Shane, even needling him about killing Otis. Lori is still pregnant. Rick tries to convince Hershel to let them stay, both to have normal lives, but also to preserve his unborn child's chance at survival. And while Rick and Hershel go off to round up some of the walkers who were trapped in bog mud, Shane falls entirely off his proverbial rocker. And sadly, Carol and Daryl go off to search for Sophia (who has long been a bit of a joke, but whose story takes a tragic and incredibly effective turn here).

But the big storm comes right at the end. Shane, freshly angry at Dale for even considering ditching their weapons to preserve some kind of truce with Hershel and his family, catches a glimpse of Rick and Hershel bringing in two walkers humanely. They intend, of course, to put them in the barn. But Shane can't take that. The world is dangerous. He is out of patience and out of belief. He is all fear. And he charges, shooting one of the walkers and then cracking open the barn. I have to commend the writers and the director for making the final battle, a sort of no-holds-barred gun-violence-orgy, so emotionally effective and poignant. As the walkers leave the barn one-by-one. Shane shoots one. Then Andrea jumps in and shoots. Then Daryl. Then T-Dog, and finally, reluctantly, Glenn. Rick does not shoot. And Hershel falls to his knees, heartbroken that the people he believed he could save were now destroyed. It's only once they've taken down 15 - 20 adult walkers that we get the slow reveal.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!!

Sophia, the long lost somewhat joke of a side-story little girl emerges. She's a walker. She's gone. And she still looks mostly like herself. It's a horribly emotional reveal. And possibly the greatest thing The Walking Dead has done since its premiere. She walks out slowly. Crossing the pile of corpses, heading for the group. And as Carl hides. And no one else can move, everyone so fucking shocked. Rick steps up, set to do the truly noble thing. If the walkers are beyond cure, then he is one who is willing to euthanize. It's almost a perfect mirror of the scene in Season One when he shoots a little girl near the gas station. Or when he shoots the half-a-body-walker from the premiere. He takes no pleasure in it. That's Shane's thing. He kills for the sport, out of fear, to feel alive. Rick, though, shoots Sophia with a careful aim. She falls. The End.

For a show that has been such a mixed bag, "Pretty Much Dead Already" gave us some good pay-offs. Sophia's becoming a zombie felt reasonable, if only because Hershel wanted to save her too and couldn't bear to break what had happened to her. He almost certainly would have when he and Rick brought in the zombies they "caught." But this episode calls into question the nature of humanity more than most of these episodes have. Despite appearing only briefly, and to be shot down, the walkers seem to represent a lesser class, or at least, simply the result of our grasp on order suddenly removed. Are we that far away from them, really? Is Shane? Those are the questions that I hope the series will answer after the hiatus. And I hope to feel like reviewing the show then too. As long as it doesn't drag like it can.

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