Currently browsing Posts Published February 2012

In Sunday Night’s episode of The Walking Dead entitled ‘TriggerFinger’, both the living and the dead begin to showcase a problem for Rick, Herschel and Glen, whilst Lori struggles with surviving after her car accident and those on the farm begin to choose sides between Shane and Rick.By all accounts, The Walking Dead is a show that is full of suspense, action and drama, and by episodes end, like always, one is excited for the next episode. But after mulling over what you’ve watched after a few minutes, it’s quick to see there are still flaws in the series as a whole. An episode like ‘Triggerfinger’ exposes what is both great and lacking in the series.

And it’s really more execution than anything, as The Walking Dead on the surface is a fantastic show; despite our initial instincts as viewers is to see more action and zombies and less character development, the show does the latter anyway, in an attempt to give us something or more importantly someone to care about.Therein lies the rub though; besides a select few of characters, who do we really care about on the show?A lot of goodwill for the character of Daryl (and even Carol) felt mostly squandered tonight after a nice build-up over most of Season 2. While the general trope of lashing out ‘in the only way they knows how’ is okay, it feels, along with Carol’s treatment of Daryl, a bit out of place. While it creates tension between the characters, it feels false and unjustified upon further scrutiny, especially in their exchange in ‘Triggerfinger’.The most of ‘Triggerfinger’ despite it’s gun-toting action in town, really came down to the overall arc between Nature vs. Nurture, or more succinctly Shane vs. Rick as the one true leader the group in this post-apocalyptic-hell. In retrospect, Shane’s ideas are correct, but when it comes down to it, you, and myself, as a viewer, are on the side of Rick. The problem is ultimately is that Rick lives in a world where he tries to maintain a sense of balance, a sense of rules that the modern world (that no longer exists) used to hold as the standard. Another problem with the series, which relates to the Rick vs. Shane situation, is that Shane is more bark than he is bite as a villain on the show.

There was a nice “You are there” feel to all of this mayhem, especially as the shootout — which ultimately was added to by the presence of plenty of zombies — progressed at that bar – the guy Hershel shot moaning in pain for so long after he was shot (until he got zombie-swarmed) felt very real, as did Hershel and Glenn not exactly being badasses in this scenario and either regretfully doing what needed to be done (Hershel) or simply freezing up (Glenn). All of that, plus we had the scenario with Randall, the guy left behind by these other folks, with his leg impaled. Rick continued to show his “calm under pressure” style and I loved both him pulling out his knife and asking Hershel, “Will this cut through the bone?” and then how he simply yanked Randall’s leg off that post when there was no other option.
There was one truly maddening piece of writing here: Glenn and Maggie and their big conflict late in the episode. Glenn lashing out at Maggie and blaming her for him freezing up earlier (which, again, I was fine with, until this explanation) was just stupid. “It’s because of what you said,” he exclaimed, actually guilt-tripping her for saying she loved him. Really, Glenn?! “You said you loved me and now I’m worried how you’d react to me getting killed so I didn’t help my friends, which is why I’m mad at you” was his basic argument. His very idiotic argument. Come on!

The show does more than make up for these little snafus in little moments. The idea that Lori in a very Shakespearean way is leading Rick further to a confrontation with Shane, and the duality between people who for the sake of love cower and those who run towards danger (like the differences between Rick and Glenn) were all well done. The Walking Dead succeeds on many levels and as a show does make me beg the question as next Sunday rolls around…. What is going to happen next?