“Everything we’ve been working so hard to keep out – it found its way in.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Things are looking grim indeed for the plucky band of survivors in another excellent ep of The Walking Dead. Scripted by original comic creator Robert Kirkman, if anything this outdid the previous two in terms of pacing, starting slow but building up the intensity and drama to a satisfying climax.
Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 4, Episode 3–Isolation”
“How can you die from a cold – in a day?”
Well, that period of idyllic calm didn’t last long. Thank goodness. Despite last week’s Walker mall attack, I had visions of the new, agrarian community at the prison becoming like the one seen in series 2 of the original Survivors, where all the drama seemed to revolve around farming dilemmas. Not unlike, in fact, season 2 of The Walking Dead, for that matter.
Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 4, Episode 2–Infected”
“Being afraid is what’s kept us alive.”
As The Walking Dead returns for its fourth season, we find ourselves in the hands of yet another showrunner. Glen Mazzara relinquished the reins of the show after the excellent third season to Scott Gimple; but that shouldn’t be a cause for worry, as Gimple’s been a producer and writer since the show’s second season. This season premiere confirmed that the show’s in safe hands. It’s very much found its stride after the action and dramatic punch of last year, and this ep continued that trend, with enough character development to work as serious drama while not stinting on the undead action.
Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 4, Episode 1 – 30 Days Without an Accident”
“You want me to stay – when I’m like this?”
All that repressed emotion, Northern stoicism and air of impending tragedy paid off in this week’s final episode of BBC3’s almost too brief In the Flesh, as all the resentment and prejudice the town of Roarton bore towards the ‘Partially Deceased’ boiled to the surface. The result, inevitably, was tragedy and heartache – and yet also some genuinely warm moments that were, curiously in a show about zombies, quite life-affirming.
The tragedy, inevitably, centred on unrepentant anti-Rotter bigot and HVF supremo Bill Macy (Steve Evets, superb). Even with his own son returned from the dead as a Partially Deceased sufferer, Bill couldn’t come to terms with his feelings towards the ‘Rotters’ he’d fought in the Rising; a fact not helped by Rick being every bit as in denial as his father. In a show full of allegories, Bill stood out as a war veteran unable to deal with the changed reality of peacetime. It was a status that put him on an unavoidable collision with the new world, and led to tragedy for all the characters we’d met so far.
Those characters were, without an exception, well-drawn. In many ways, they were familiar from many dramas set in small Northern towns, and there was fun to be had from seeing that juxtaposed with the unusual fantasy backdrop. Hence the amusingly awkward moment when Philip’s mum Shirley found him sneaking out from the house where he’d just slept with Rotter Amy, and each avoided telling the other the truth – despite the fact that it was painfully obvious to both of them.
The Walker family, meanwhile, were still eking out revelations about what had happened during and since the Rising, secrets that had festered for all of them, even Kieren. Luke Newberry showed how good he was this week, as the increasingly confident Kieren developed from timid recluse to a young man with his own sense of self-respect – even as he faced up to his own personal guilt. The flashbacks to his ‘rabid’ self killing young Lisa Lancaster were expanded as he remembered that his sister had been there, and been unable to kill him.
This gave Jem too a chance to resolve what was eating away at her. Not just her hatred of the Rotters, but her inability to put down one that had been her brother, and her own feeling of guilt at having failed to save Lisa. Thus reconciled, the Walker siblings went to tell Lisa’s parents the truth, in a scene that was both affecting and full of surprise. Not only did Mr and Mrs Lancaster unexpectedly forgive Kieren straight away, they refused to give up hope for their daughter, preferring to believe that she would return from the grave as a result of Kieren’s bite.
This allowed writer Dominic Mitchell to shed a bit more light on his mythology. We’d already heard last week that bites don’t cause you to turn; this week, Kieren sadly explained that it was only those who’d died in a particular period that came back.
It was telling that Jem sensitively downplayed this, to leave the couple with the hope that they might still see their daughter again. “You’ve got to have faith, haven’t you?” commented Mr Lancaster. Faith, it turned out, was a major theme of the story this week, and it was left very much ambiguous as to whether it was a good or a bad thing. You could argue that Jem’s sensitivity to the Lancasters left them incapable of moving on and accepting that their daughter wasn’t coming back.
Similarly, it was Rev Oddie’s faith (based on the sort of interpretation of the Bible that you’d expect) that there would be a second Rising, as predicted in Revelations, which would bring back the pure and the good. With no explanation forthcoming for the original Rising, you can see why that might seem plausible, particularly in a society that had seen a resurgence in religious belief.
All of these factors came into play in tying together the various plot threads we’d established for some hard-to-watch resolutions. Rick, pushed too far by his father into trying to kill Kieren, finally embraced what he was and confronted Bill in his true, unmade-up state.
This felt like another layer to the allegorical depiction of the zombies here – the scene was played very much like a young gay man coming out to his violently homophobic father. And indeed, the implication that Kieren and Rick were more than just friends hung heavy throughout. Kieren’s guilt and suicide over his best friend’s death, Bill’s hatred of him even before the Rising, the graffiti on the cave wall saying ‘Ren and Rick 4 Ever’ – if the pair of them weren’t supposed to have been lovers, I’d be very surprised. Kieren might have had a proposal of marriage from the flighty Amy, but he didn’t seem that jubilant about the idea…
As the defiant face of ‘zombie rights’ Amy had a hard time this episode. Having slept with ‘pillar of the community’ Philip, only to be told by him that nobody should find out, she had to contend with being assaulted in her own home by the HVF’s Gary, trying to slap her makeup on, after having painted ‘PDS’ on her door.
This latest development, apparently passed by the Parish Council, was another uncomfortable parallel with the ostracisation of certain social groups. Most notably, it reminded me of the way certain newspapers often call for all convicted offenders to be identified to their local communities, even if they’ve served their sentences in full and been rehabilitated. Here again, the script didn’t overtly condemn this sort of thing, though the use of the phrase “only obeying orders” made Mitchell’s feelings on the issue fairly clear.
No wonder Amy was fed up enough to leave Roarton and head off to the ‘commune’ of the Undead Prophet, as advertised on the ‘Undead Liberation Army’ website. This was an intriguing idea – could that really work? Amy was convinced there was plenty of Neurotryptiline there to keep the residents from turning rabid – but wasn’t that the defiant aim of the ULA? If the concept does stretch to a second series, that would be an interesting avenue to explore.
Though I’m not sure it will, as from a character perspective it felt like this story was pretty complete. Bill went into full-on denial, ‘killing’ what he assumed to be an ‘imposter’ rather than his son and dumping the body on Kieren’s driveway. Kieren went ballistic (kudos to Luke Newberry for that scene, which made me want to give him a great big hug) and stormed over to the Macy household for a cathartic shouting match with Bill, now so far removed from reality he was calmly watching football and claiming not to have seen his son for five years.
It was an intense scene that called out fine performances from all concerned, and again reminded us that this is a writer from a theatrical background – he knows how to make such emotional moments truly powerful in a small setting. Confronted by his wife’s sobbing hatred, Bill seemed to realise what he’d done – just in time to be blasted with a shotgun by the vengeful Ken Burton. The ever-excellent Ricky Tomlinson may have been used sparingly for this series, but always to great effect.
And as if that wasn’t intense (and grim) enough, it was followed by another ‘act’ in which we finally learned the circumstances of Kieren’s suicide, and his family began to come to terms with it.
Perhaps it’s because a few people I’ve known have committed suicide, and I’ve seen the wreckage left behind, but I found these scenes almost unbearably moving. They were, basically, what those left behind would always want to say to the one who’d died – but this time, he could answer them. It was the kind of resolution that, in real life, is effectively impossible. Seeing it played out like this was a kind of wish fulfilment that was simultaneously emotionally affecting and hard to watch.
It’s been a very good series, In the Flesh, despite its too-obvious similarity to the recently departed Being Human. Unlike that show, it was rather more grim and certainly slower-paced, but the characters and backstories built up were very convincing and well-played. There was always the sense that under the genre trappings was an original story that was more of a straight drama; but the fantasy backdrop gave it a resonance that, paradoxically, it might not have had without it.
As I say, it seems to me that this story is very definitely finished. I’ve no idea whether writer Dominic Mitchell is planning to write more of this world; perhaps, like George Romero’s zombie films, with different characters in the same situation. If he does, I’ll definitely be coming back for more. For all my misgivings about ‘humanising’ zombies, the premise here not only worked, but served to shed plenty of allegorical light on the real world. Only the best fantasy does that.
“In this life now, you kill or you die – or you die and you kill.”
And so, the generally enthralling third season of The Walking Dead has come to an end with a surprisingly low-key – even anticlimactic – finale. Matters finally came to a head between the armed forces of Rick and the armed forces of the Governor. And yet, despite a very heavy buildup in the preceding episodes to an apocalyptic final battle, this ep centred more on the characters than the action – and left unresolved the expected showdown between main hero and main villain.
Not necessarily a bad thing, but I have to admit, I was expecting a little more action than this. True, there was a battle, but it took place mid-episode and was, if anything, less tense than the Governor’s previous assault on the prison folk. Most of the story concerned itself with the ongoing intrigue in the Woodbury community, and for that at least there was some kind of resolution; though I’m not sure it really made sense.
Strategically, a lot of this made little sense, though the Governor at least had the excuse of being utterly unhinged. The ep began with some nice pov shots leading the viewer to believe he was beating and torturing Andrea, though it quickly became obvious that it was the treacherous Milton who was the object of his ire.
As Milton had become, effectively, Woodbury’s conscience, it was a foreshadowing of the Governor’s fast-crumbling sanity that he was prepared to torture his old friend, then force him to prove his loyalty by killing Andrea, still cuffed to the Dentist Chair of Doom. Predictably, Milton took the opportunity to turn the knife onto the Governor himself, who equally predictably used it to stab Milton. He then left him to die, so he would rise as a Walker and kill Andrea anyway – after last week, he’s plainly got a taste for that particular cruelty.
It was a setup for a tense series of scenes spread throughout the episode, as Andrea struggled to reach the unnoticed pair of pliers on the floor, while we wondered exactly how long it was going to take Milton to die and reanimate – as long as was convenient to wring the maximum tension from the scenario, as it turned out.
Rick and co, meanwhile, appeared to be preparing to abandon the prison – surely the only sensible decision when faced with the overwhelming numbers from Woodbury, however many guns they may have got from Morgan. It was at this point that I had an inkling the heavily implied pitched battle might not be in the offing after all, though abandoning the prison was the realistic, sensible thing to do.
So when the Governor did turn up, in armoured column with rocket launchers and grenades, it seemed like the explosive carnage he wreaked on the prison watchtowers and the Walkers between the fences might all be for naught. The pyrotechnics were cool, and it was fun seeing so many Walkers withering in a hail of high-calibre gunfire, but it seemed lacking in drama if Rick and the gang had already fled.
Except, as it turned out, they hadn’t. It was a good bit of misdirection to have so thoroughly convinced us they’d gone. And yet, it seemed a bit of an anticlimax that the Governor’s forces could be so easily routed once in the prison’s dingy corridors. A couple of the usual smoke bombs, a few Walkers and some loud sirens had them running like rabbits, at which point the armoured Glenn and Maggie let rip with some machine gun fire. Already confused, the fleeing Woodbury-ites went into full retreat.
OK, it’s a fair and realistic point that most of the Governor’s forces were not from the military, and would have been ill-prepared for actual combat. In that sense, their reaction was perfectly believable. But it didn’t jibe with their previous attempts, nor with the Governor’s established ability to whip them into a propaganda-inspired fervour, that they would give up quite so easily.
The Governor at least was more consistent. Faced with mutinous troops who wouldn’t carry out his personal vendetta for him, he took the predictable choice of every discerning psychopathic dictator and slaughtered the lot of them. The scene was less shocking than it could have been, as it had been telegraphed long before that the Governor was fast becoming utterly unhinged; under the circumstances, his “WTF?” strategy of destroying his own army didn’t come as too much of a surprise. It didn’t carry much dramatic weight either, as the only character in the group who we even knew by name was Allen, and he didn’t feel like much of a loss.
With that, we pretty much lost the only possibility of a major conflict; though I’ll admit that, had the expected apocalypse happened, I wouldn’t have expected many from Rick’s gang to survive. Nonetheless, it felt like a bit of a dramatic cheat that the Governor, accompanied by the ever-loyal Martinez and one other unquestioning henchman, then sped off into the distance, not to be seen again. I can understand the desire to keep him around; the comic has never managed to come up with an antagonist to match him. But surely, the finale of a season that’s been all about the conflict between him and Rick deserved at least some kind of dramatic payoff in the form of a showdown. This just felt disappointing.
The show has never clearly established exactly how many people were in Woodbury, and certainly the conflict must have taken its toll. But it seemed a little implausible (and convenient) that the only people left on watch in the town were Tyreese and Donna, especially since we’d already established that they were deeply suspicious of the Governor. So it was that Rick and co, trying to take the fight to the enemy, found first the massacred remains of their former foes and were then able to walk into their HQ with barely a shot fired.
Again, I had to quibble with the overall strategy. With most of the Governor’s forces committed to the prison attack, why didn’t Rick make his move on Woodbury then? He could have been in charge of the town before the Governor’s forces even got to the prison.
Still, cop he may be, but Rick’s not a soldier either. So I could forgive him having missed that option. But it seemed baffling that, with the Governor gone and Woodbury having pretty much welcomed Rick, Daryl and Michonne with virtually open arms, they all chose to move back to the dingy, less than secure prison, the town’s remaining population in tow. Why not move everyone into the still-fortified Woodbury? Do they actually want to make their lives as difficult as possible?
There were, at least, some good dramatic payoffs. Carl shockingly gunned down a scared young guy from Woodbury who was trying to surrender, much to Hershel’s disquiet. When Rick learned the circumstances, he was less than pleased either, but Carl was unrepentant. His argument – that Rick’s mercy in not killing Andrew had led to the death of Lori, and not killing the Governor had led to the death of Merle – made worrying sense. And was further evidence that the ruthless pragmatism formerly embodied by Shane hasn’t died with him. I suspect we’re going to see a very ‘dark’ Carl next year.
The biggest dramatic payoff, though, was of course Andrea. Having eked out the tension of her situation throughout the ep, director Ernest Dickerson cleverly let the action happen offscreen when Milton finally did revive as a Walker. Thus it was that when her erstwhile friends found her, with Milton’s corpse in the background, we still didn’t know whether she was alive or undead.
It turned out to be a bit of both; yes, she’d offed the Milton-Walker, but she’d been bitten and was in the feverish stage of dying from the bite. The ensuing last scene between her, Rick, Daryl and Michonne was not as moving as it could have been if Andrea hadn’t been so wilfully dumb all year long. She asserted that she’d just wanted to save everyone, even the Governor – that worked out well, then.
Michonne at least got one of her rare displays of actual emotion (beyond surly anger), and Danai Gurira was quite affecting as she cradled the head of her former friend. Points also for her managing to resist saying, “I told you so”, which certainly would have been most people’s temptation at this stage. Rick and Daryl left them alone for Andrea to perform the final act,though the inevitable gunshot was merely heard offscreen. I think we have seen the last of Andrea though, which despite her being so annoying this year seems a bit of a shamed; Laurie Holden is a talented actor given the right material.
The ep faded to black with everyone back at the prison, presumably about to rebuild. No cliffhanger, no sense of what might be due to happen next. It almost felt like the show was hedging its bets against not being renewed by providing an actual ending of sorts; though given its success this year, I’d be amazed if it wasn’t back for another season.
This year has been, generally, a superb season – I think that’s why such a low key season finale felt like a bit of a disappointment. With episode after episode having ramped up the dramatic stakes continuously, it was perhaps impossible for anything to top the season overall as a final payoff. Nevertheless, I have to say I found it curiously unsatisfying after the show has barely put a foot wrong all year. There was nothing really wrong with it, but somehow it felt like an anticlimax, and the lack of a Rick/Governor showdown is hard to forgive.
Overall, though, this year has let the show truly show what it can do given a decent budget and a reasonable season length. It’s become the weekly post-apocalypse zombie show I always hoped it would be. Reason enough for me to forgive a somewhat disappointing finale and still eagerly look forward to next year. It is hard to see where they can go from here, though…
“Maybe these people need someone like me around. To do their dirty work. The bad guy.”
It’s almost over. The penultimate episode of The Walking Dead’s third season was (as I expected) a catch up with the gang at the prison as the tension built for the inevitable season finale confrontation with the forces of Woodbury. But just as last week’s Woodbury episode was also an Andrea episode, this week’s prison ep was really all about Merle. And given the opportunity, Michael Rooker devoured the scenery all the way through. No disrespect to Laurie Holden in last week’s perfectly good episode, but an hour of Rooker as Merle was way more fun.
And emotionally resonant too. We’ve unexpectedly started to see a redeemable side to Merle these last few episodes; it started with his chat to Hershel about reading the Bible at Woodbury’s “damn fine library”. This episode was all about that redemption, or at least its possibility, and both the script and Rooker’s performance kept us guessing all the way through, making it a gripping ride.
We started out with Rick having a hush-hush meeting with Daryl and Hershel (his two chief lieutenants, it seems), in which he confided that he was going to give in to the Governor’s demands, and present him with Michonne. This seemed pretty foolish, given that a couple of weeks ago Rick seemed to have sussed out just how untrustworthy his neighbouring warlord is. But no, being Leader means making hard choices. Would Rick live up to them?
The answer (thankfully) was no – just as Merle guessed. Merle figured heavily from the outset; if he wasn’t actually in a scene, people were talking about him. Caustic he may be, but he also turned out to be pretty perceptive. About everyone but himself, anyway. He correctly surmised that Rick would be too decent to trade another person’s life for his own security, however ruthless he may seem to have become.
Also, he recognised a kindred spirit in the newly independent Carol, in a beautifully played scene between Rooker and Melissa McBride. Recognising how she’d grown out of the shadow of her abusive husband, Merle opined, “maybe you’re just a late bloomer”, to which Carol, seeing a man in search of redemption, replied, “maybe you are too.”
The possibility of Merle’s redemption from the no-good redneck thug we met back in season one hung heavy over the episode. Still of the (accurate) opinion that Rick wouldn’t go through with the deal, he took matters into his own hands by pre-emptively coshing the surprisingly trusting Michonne over the head. I’d have expected her to be more wary around the man who tried to hunt her down and kill her; but still it was a convenient way to get them travelling to Woodbury together for some quality character time.
This being The Walking Dead, the character interaction had to be spiced up with a bit of zombie thrills. So it was that, hotwiring a car (a neat trick with one hand), Merle inadvertently set off its alarm, sounding the dinner bell for every Walker in the vicinity. The ensuing fight saw he and Michonne working together – a taste of things to come, it turned out.
It also meant they had a car to cover the strangely mutable distance between the prison and Woodbury. Last week, Andrea managed the journey on foot in less than a day, even managing to find time for a game of cat and mouse with the Governor. This week, once again, it was a journey you needed to drive. Road trip!
Along the way, Michonne gradually needled at Merle’s conscience, getting him to unwillingly recognise that the Governor had turned him into a monster. All right, he wasn’t exactly a nice guy long before he met the Governor; but he wasn’t, it turned out, a murderer. Those “sixteen men” he’d killed had all been since he set up home in Woodbury.
Merle wasn’t exactly happy at having his conscience pricked, threatening to cut out Michonne’s tongue if she didn’t shut up. It’s a tribute to Rooker’s performance that, when he pulled the car over, I half-wondered if he was about to do just that. But no – in an equally surprising development, he cut her bonds and let her go. Then sped off with the assertion that he had “something to do”.
It wasn’t hard to guess what. The script had painstakingly pointed out that Merle was looking for somewhere to belong, and that he could have had a chance with Rick’s group. Realising this, he thought they needed him to be the hardman who does the dirty jobs; it’s all he knows how to do. But as he released Michonne, it was clear that his search for redemption was taking him down the road of heroic self-sacrifice. He was going to take out the Governor – even if it killed him.
Being Merle, this involved getting drunk and playing Motorhead at very high volume, to lure the Walkers into following his slow-moving car. This achieved, he led them straight to the appointed venue for the meeting with the Governor – and all hell broke loose. It was another of the show’s superb action sequences, gunfire from all sides and Walkers everywhere. A number of the Governor’s men bit the dust; but no-one we’d heard of. Oh, except Allen’s characterless son Ben. Not much of a loss, but presumably liable to enrage the already asshole-ish Allen – look out for that next week, though it may be hard to care.
All this intensity was counterpointed back at the prison with what, in this show, passes for light relief. Hershel led his daughters in prayer (Psalm 91, fact fans), while Rick was tormented by yet more visions of Lori, forcing him to realise he couldn’t go through with ‘the deal’. Glenn, meanwhile, offered a truly romantic proposal of marriage to Maggie – a ring he’d cut off the hand of a nearby Walker. He really knows how to charm a girl.
As the ep ended, so did the ‘Ricktatorship’, as our hero realised he couldn’t bear the burden of decision-making all alone. So it’s back to democracy for our heroes, just in time to be plunged into war – probably the worst time for group decision-making.
Classic tribute zombie
This is obviously getting to be a regular thing, after last week’s many Day of the Dead homages. This week, the zombie we saw lurching out of the bar where Merle was parked looked oddly familiar, if you’ve ever seen the original Dawn of the Dead:
Gore of the week
LOTS to choose from this week, in a veritable gore-nucopia – exactly what you’d expect in an episode directed by effects honcho Greg Nicotero, himself a veteran of Romero’s original Day of the Dead.
The Walker attack triggered by Merle’s car theft led to some of the usual head splattering, courtesy of Michonne’s boot. Perhaps Walker skulls are softer than those of the living due to decomposition:
There then followed an inventive use of the phone cord she was tied up with as a method of decapitation:
While Merle had to cope with a zombie that seemed to be quite literally falling apart:
And that was just the start of it, in an episode more bloodsoaked than we’ve seen in ages. Merle’s climactic ambush on the Governor’s forces led to head shots, entrail-chewing and death galore. But while it might not have been the ep’s goriest moment, nothing beat this shot as a sheer emotional gut-punch:
I should have guessed it really. When this show gives that much attention to any one character, it usually means they’re for the chop by the end of the episode. So it proved with Merle, as the heartbroken Daryl discovered. Last week, I postulated that the show wouldn’t dispose of a character as important as the Governor offscreen; this week, that’s exactly what happened with Merle.
Having already bitten two of the fingers off his sole remaining hand (another choice gore moment), the Governor wound up with the ultimate cruelty to his sometime henchman – shooting him, but not in the head. As he knew anyone who dies turns into a Walker, it was about the nastiest thing he could have done. Given that, by this point, we’d started to feel some actual sympathy for Merle, it was a double whammy – the loss of a well-liked character, which also served to underline just how psychopathically cruel the real villain is.
I had actually wondered how long the show would get to keep a big-name actor like Rooker, but I actually assumed he would go out in a blaze of glory in the season finale. What we got here was, in fact, far more devastating. And it means Rick and the crew have to go into battle next week without the wily Merle. At least they still have Daryl – Norman Reedus was at his most intense here, weeping as he stove in his loved/hated brother’s head, rather than let him shamble around as a Walker.
This was a storming episode in a season that’s been full of them this year. There was action, gore, thrills and real drama, and it kept you guessing throughout. Next week (presumably) it’s the Final Conflict. I’m betting on some big spectacle, but I have to wonder if it’ll have the emotional impact of some of the episodes we’ve seen recently. Tune in next week to find out…
“This family’s fucked.” – Jem
The second episode of new BBC3 zombie drama In the Flesh continued to expand on the intriguing mythology established last week, with yet more revelations about the nature of the ‘Partially Deceased’. Writer Dominic Mitchell is clearly taking the approach of eking out the exposition over the course of the three episodes; that said, as the mythology builds, I’m beginning to think this has enough substance to be given a rather longer running time.
Still, if Mitchell’s intended story only has the legs, in his opinion, for this short running time, who are we to argue? The BBC could always commission a second series, perhaps featuring entirely different characters but within the same established world. Just a thought…
This week, we saw some more interesting counterpoints to Kieren’s POV as an ‘ex-zombie’, with the introduction of two fellow Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferers. This was good; Mitchell has already established that not all the ‘Rotters’ want to live in harmony with society as Kieren does.
The two new characters provided some necessary contrast to that viewpoint. The first was Rick, the previously-assumed-dead son of zombie-hating HVF supremo Bill Macy, and best friend to Kieren. Indeed, the passion of their heart to heart chat in the car later on made me wonder if they had actually been more than friends in their pre-death existence…
We established last week that Macy and the HVF weren’t prepared to give the rehabilitated dead the benefit of the doubt. Ricky Tomlinson’s Ken was this week only to be seen briefly, staring grief-stricken at the black stain on the road where his Partially Deceased wife was ‘executed’. Now Macy had to deal with the fact that his military hero son was coming back as one of the Rotters himself.
As it turned out, both Bill and Rick seemed to deal with the problem basically the same way – by ignoring it. Bill (a convincingly dour Steve Evets) tersely announced to his HVF comrades that Rick was coming home, but not as one of the hated Rotters; though tongues were already wagging. When Rick did come home, steel sutures holding his face together, his approach was similar. He did some target shooting with his dad, then went off to have a few pints – regardless of the fact that any consumption of food or drink simply results in the ex-zombies vomiting up copious amounts of black ooze.
Kieren, meanwhile, having got bored of being stuck in the house constantly, paid a visit to his own grave. This led to a flashback of the night of the Rising, as corpses dug their way out of the ground; though it led me to question the make up a bit. As a full-on zombie, Kieren had the standard pseudo-corpse approach that mimics decomposition; sunken eyes, overhanging brow, jutting teeth. As a rehabilitated Partially Deceased, his physiognomy is normal (apart from the bloodless skin and colourless eyes). Does the Neurotryptiline reverse decomposition rather than just arresting it? If so, that would surely make the Partially Deceased virtually immortal.
A possibility that reared its head when Kieren encountered another Partially Deceased for the first time since leaving the Rehabilitation Centre. Amy (the magnificently sparky Emily Bevan) recognises Kieren at the graveside. Fearing the prejudice of the living, Kieren tries warding her off with a metal post, and is horrified when she ‘accidentally’ impales herself on it – only to have a good laugh at his expense. She’s a Rotter too, and apparently their condition includes the usual zombie resistance to pretty severe injuries. Mind you, if they’re all full of black ooze, as previously established, surely Amy would at least have to get the wound stitched up to stop it leaking. Or are these zombies capable of actual healing?
Whatever the case, Amy represents the other extreme from Rick – defiant about not hiding her state, and about carrying on as before regardless of the bigotry directed at her. So much so that she’s keen to wander around Roarton “au naturelle”, without her makeup or contact lenses – which she duly does when paying a surprise visit to Kieren (“I just knocked on every door till I found you”).
The ensuing scene, as Amy joined the Walkers for dinner, was blackly amusing. Kieren’s parents did their British best to avoid the subject of her condition and politely discuss other things, while little sister Jem, still unwilling to eat at the same table as one of the undead, gaped in disbelief.
The bravery of her defiance was obvious after she and Kieren had taken a fateful trip to a local funfair. Recognised as a Rotter by an acquaintance, Kieren had to take to his heels, pursued by the same sort of unthinking lynch mob that used to plague Frankenstein’s monster in the old Universal movies. Which made it all the more challenging when Amy suggested that they try to socialise, and start with the local HVF bar.
Rick may have been trying to ignore his own condition, but wasn’t so insensitive as to ignore that of his former best friend when he turned up with Amy and was banished to a back corridor by the frowning landlady. The increasingly obvious parallel to discriminated-against minority groups was less than subtle; the phrase “separate but equal” was even trotted out. Again, we’ve been here before, notably in True Blood. However well this was done, it had a weary, well-trodden air to it.
Still, we did get some nice conflict as the HVF (increasingly portrayed as incompetent amateurs) discovered an actual Rabid Rotter in the woods. Keen to at least acknowledge his friend, Rick insisted that Kieren should be allowed along on the ensuing hunt, which led to disagreements when the creature was actually discovered. Contrary to standard zombie operational procedure, he was fairly calmly chowing down on a dead animal rather than a person; and significantly, he appeared to be taking care of a little girl zombie, gently feeding her.
That was another interesting, sympathetic take on the zombies of old, amplifying the first episode’s hint that these are more intelligent than your usual ghouls. Clearly, they’re capable of both learning and compassion, attributes the zombies in Romero’s movies were also moving towards (before he ‘rebooted’ the series, anyway).
So Kieren was not altogether happy that Bill Macy wanted to summarily shoot them, rather than hand them over to the authorities for rehabilitation. On top of that, he wanted his son to prove his loyalty and do the actual shooting. It was a classic clash of loyalties – would Rick heed his best friend and show compassion, or would he be true to his father, and in denial of his own condition, ‘murder’ those like him?
It was an interesting moral dilemma – though surely if zombies can be ‘healed’, shooting them summarily would have been made against the law? Again, though, this appears to be a society in flux, which still hasn’t fully adjusted to the post-Rising world. And thanks to the financial greed of the HVF’s very own ‘dumb and dumber’, Dean and Phil (emerging as the comic relief characters this week) the zombies were saved for rehabilitation. Along the way, we also learnt another interesting tidbit of information about these particular zombies; contrary to popular belief, being bitten doesn’t cause you to turn into one. The fact that most people do seem to believe this surely sets up conflicts to come.
Last week, I wondered whether the show’s genesis as a more conventional drama might leave its supernatural mythos fairly sketchy. Plainly this isn’t the case. It looks as though Dominic Mitchell has done a lot of thinking about the ramifications of the scenario he envisioned, and there’s till more to learn about it yet. As a drama, it’s undoubtedly effective, but as a genre piece it’s also more successful than I thought it might be. It still comes off as derivative – notably of Being Human, although the premise that society at large knows about and fears the humanised monsters is equally reminiscent of True Blood.
That said, if you can take the fact that we’ve been here before with other horror archetypes, In the Flesh is shaping up to be a genuinely intriguing bit of fantasy drama. As I said at the outset, I’m now wondering whether its limited run will allow it to fully realise the potential of its concepts. Still, let’s see what next week’s final instalment reveals…
“I knew Philip before he was the Governor. That man still exists.” – Milton
After In the Flesh, it was back to more conventional zombie fare with the latest instalment of this year’s much-improved Walking Dead. Watching the show after BBC3’s innovative version of the zombie myth brings home what a trad take on zombies The Walking Dead is, more so even than George Romero’s later instalments. Contrary to whatever Milton and the Governor may think, these zombies are simply mindless killers, with no ‘spark’ left of their former selves.
Not that this is a bad thing; The Walking Dead is still one of the best dramas on TV right now, and certainly the most indepth exploration of a premise that’s normally confined to 2 hour feature films. Still, as my friend Matt pointed out the other day, it’s getting so involved in the conflict between the human characters that the Walkers are getting treated rather inconsistently. They vacillate between being major threats or minor inconveniences as the story demands.
Hence, this week, Andrea was able to stroll around among them without much of a problem, but when a bit of tension was required, suddenly she found herself grabbed by one and unable to get free. Except by ramming her knife into the other ones attacking her that is. And that’s another thing; aren’t they getting easier to kill? I’ve alluded to this before, but the human skull is actually quite hard. Pushing a knife through it seems easier here than it should be (eye sockets excepted). Still later in the ep though, they became a major threat once again…
But I’m getting ahead of myself. This week was primarily about the machinations in Woodbury, and very involving it was too. So much so that, in fact, it wasn’t until near the end that I realised we hadn’t actually seen any of the gang from the prison this week.
True, we did see Michonne in a pre-credits flashback, which threw a few more hints about the origin of her now properly deceased Walker companions (“They deserved what they got. They weren’t human to begin with”). And Rick popped up for about ten seconds, but didn’t get any dialogue. No, we were definitely focused on one side of the coming war this week; I’d guess that next week we’ll see the prison group’s side of the preparations, and that the finale will be The Final Conflict. It has a degree of predictability, true, but it’s fun to watch it unfold.
As is often the case, the machinations of the ‘villains’ were more intriguing than the arguments and angst of the ‘heroes’ (though one of this show’s strengths is that neither group strictly fits into either category). Over in Woodbury, the Governor was gearing up for war, with Martinez loading an awful lot of heavy weaponry onto a truck – just as a “precaution”.
But the Governor’s followers aren’t quite the mindless puppets they were, and this week he faced discontent from several directions. Tyreese, plainly more perceptive than Andrea, has already begun to smell a rat (and a pit full of Walkers). Milton, perhaps bolstered by his chat with Hershel, appears to have grown a spine, and is no longer shy about telling his maniac boss that the upcoming fight is a Bad Idea. With predictable results.
And Andrea (finally!) has realised that her boyfriend is a psychotic nutter. What clued you in, Andrea? The zombie daughter in a cupboard, the fish tanks full of served heads, the constant propaganda lies? No, it was Milton’s shaky revelation that the Governor has a dentist chair equipped with handcuffs. The relish with which our eyepatched antagonist fondled his torture tools was truly disturbing – especially his lingering delight at the dental pick. Perhaps the first question he’s going to ask is, “is it safe?”
Anyway, this was the final straw for Andrea, a woman who apparently takes a lot of pushing, and she reached for her gun. Unfortunately, Milton wasn’t prepared to let her go that far; fortunately for us, as it would deprive the viewers of the Big Finale. No, Milton still thinks there’s a decent man in there somewhere. Thankfully, Andrea finally doesn’t, so she was straight on to Plan B – leg it to the prison and warn Rick that the proposed deal was off.
Tyreese, meanwhile, was somewhat disturbed at the proposed tactic of letting another phalanx of Walkers loose at the prison. Rick may not have impressed him, but he wasn’t keen on turning a group including women and children into zombie chow. Allen (even more of a dick here than his counterpart in the comics) didn’t agree, and plainly has issues with Tyreese – issues relating to his recently-deceased wife.
It was good to get a bit more background on this gang; we still haven’t learned much about them, and if the comics are anything to go by, Tyreese at least will be a major player. And he’s currently fulfilling the show’s apparent quota of one black male allowed as a major character – let’s hope for his sake that Morgan doesn’t turn up to join the cast as a regular.
Thankfully, the resentment between Tyreese and Allen didn’t simmer on for countless episodes as with Rick and Shane. They got straight to addressing their differences, by means of Tyreese dangling Allen over the pit of Walkers.
I’m guessing that showrunner Glen Mazzara, who co-wrote this episode, has recently watched Romero’s 1986 classic Day of the Dead, as this was obviously a moment lifted from that movie – specifically, the bit where the angry Steel dangles Miguel over – yes – a pit of Walkers. And it wasn’t the only moment lifted from that movie this week – I counted three.
The others came in a genuinely tense sequence as the increasingly barmy Governor chased Andrea down to an abandoned factory infested with Walkers. I thought I’d had my fill of people stalking each other round abandoned factories after 24 and Homeland, but director Stefan Schwartz managed to wring some real tension out of it. The Governor had a spade, and plainly was going to use it; his hollow attempts at persuasion (“Come back… Woodbury is your home now.”) being pretty unconvincing.
Andrea, for her part, kept having to deal with those inconvenient Walkers. Until they swung once again from being an inconvenience to a genuine threat. Having discovered a stairwell chock full of them, she pulled the door open and hid behind it to unleash them on the Governor, in an obvious ‘homage’ to the moment in Day of the Dead when villainous Captain Rhodes opens a door to find a horde of zombies ready to engulf him.
It was a tense sequence, spiced up by the knowledge that in this show, anyone can die at any time. So for a while, I wondered if the Governor genuinely was going to bash in his former girlfriend’s head; then I wondered whether he’d find himself overwhelmed and bitten or eaten. The script cleverly cut to another scene before we found out, eking out the tension. But no, the Governor’s too good a villain to die offscreen, and he was back just as Andrea reached the prison (which obviously is within walking distance), in time to grab her before she had a chance to call out to Rick. And with the inevitability of a Chekov’s Gun, she ended the episode strapped into the dentist chair. That’ll teach her not to notice she’s shacked up with a sociopath.
Gore of the week
I wasn’t expecting much gore this week, in an episode where it seemed that the humans were the real threat. Thankfully, this year the show has remembered to include some actual zombies in every episode, and in the end I found myself torn between two choice gore moments.
The first was yet another Day of the Dead tribute, as the Governor borrowed one of that movie’s methods of zombie dispatch and offed a Walker with a nicely-aimed shovel through the mouth:
But that was rivalled a mere few minutes later, as we saw the aftermath of a mysterious ‘somebody’ (let’s face it, it was Milton) having torched the Walker pit. A tangled mass of charbroiled zombies were still feebly flopping around in a scene that probably topped the mouth/shovel interface:
Only two more episodes to go, and the show’s plainly ramping up for the final act. This was another gripping instalment, with David Morrissey at the top of his game as the Governor’s façade of sanity began to seriously crack. The way he’s crumbling cleverly mirrors what happened to Rick, but Rick seems to be pulling himself together in the face of a seemingly overwhelming threat. Perhaps his only chance is if the Governor (or the ‘AntiRick’) loses it altogether. But I wouldn’t count on that happening before the season finale…
“I am a Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferer, and what I did in my untreated state was not my fault.”
Zombies! They’re everywhere these days, aren’t they? Since Danny Boyle managed to reinvigorate them with 2002’s 28 Days Later, it seems we can’t get enough of the flesh-eating shufflers, and they’re now in danger of rivalling vampires for most over-exposed horror monster.
Speaking of which, about three years ago I wrote a rant bemoaning the current ‘de-fanging’ of the vampire into a tortured plaything for mopey teenage girls. At the end of it, I sarcastically suggested they pick on another monster, and “try going on a date with a flesh eating zombie”.
I guess the joke was on me; little did I know that, even as I wrote that, author Isaac Marion was finishing off the novel Warm Bodies – basically Twilight with zombies. The movie adaptation has just come out, and dubious though I am about the premise, I will watch it at some point to see what I think. And also because I’m always happy just looking at Nicholas Hoult, even if he’s undead.
Still, the trend of ‘humanising’ monsters, for me, tends to remove the power they have to scare. It’s notable that Star Trek’s Borg, as they became increasingly more human, became increasingly less interesting. The power of the zombie apocalypse archetype, as established in George Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead, derives from a clever combination of primal fears – the dead have returned, they’re brainless monsters that want to eat you, and it’s going to cause the end of civilisation. Three very profound terrors that, combined, make a premise that is enjoyably nihilistic. You don’t expect a happy ending in a zombie story.
But even Romero liked to ‘humanise’ his monsters, in line with the vampire villains of his inspiration, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend. The fourth entry in Romero’s Dead series proper, Land of the Dead, basically puts the zombies in the role of heroes, as they try dimly to return to their half-remembered lives while the nasty old humans keep shooting them in the head.
All of which is a roundabout way of setting the scene to talk about BBC3’s new bandwagon-hopping zombie drama In the Flesh. Scheduled conveniently in the slot just vacated by the much-loved Being Human, it perhaps suffers from too much similarity to that show. Being Human, you’ll recall, already did a sympathetic zombie in series 3’s episode Type 4. Rotting Welsh party girl Sasha didn’t eat human flesh, but the US Being Human currently has that covered; former ghost Sally has returned from the grave with the inconvenient need to eat flesh in order to avoid decomposing. So far she’s only onto small animals, but at least one of her ex-ghost friends has already taken the plunge with humans.
In the Flesh covers similar territory, with perhaps a dash of True Blood also. The premise is simple; after a narrowly averted zombie apocalypse (the ‘Rising’), the authorities, in tandem with a shady pharmaceutical company, have discovered a way to chemically ‘rehabilitate’ the captured zombies, and re-integrate them back into society as ‘Partially Deceased Syndrome Sufferers’. The trouble is, quite a lot of ‘society’ is understandably less than keen to have the creatures that used to try and eat their brains living alongside them in their communities.
With, plainly, a fairly limited budget, the show set about establishing this world with admirable economy, eking out the exposition over the episode rather than trying to dump it on us all at once. So, we learned that there are ‘Rehabilitation Centres’ for the undead, run by the army; there’s a fanatical force of zombie-hating vigilantes called the ‘Human Volunteer Force’; there’s a mysterious drug called ‘Blue Oblivion’ that turns reluctant rehabilitees back to their former ‘rabid’ state; and the date is fast approaching when the ‘Partially Deceased Syndrome Sufferers’ are to be released back into the care of their formerly grieving relatives.
The hook for all this is our viewpoint ‘hero’, recovering teenage zombie Kieren (Luke Newberry). Kieren’s about to be placed into the care of his parents, back in his hometown of Roarton, somewhere in the generic rural north. Trouble is, Roarton’s a centre for the anti-zombie HVF, and Kieren’s own sister Jem (Harriet Cains) is a member. Plainly, integrating back into society is not going to be smooth sailing.
The community of Roarton was well-drawn, with a welter of good character actors filling it out. Hence, there’s a fire-and-brimstone preacher played by Kenneth Cranham, fanning the anti-zombie movement, and a pillar of the community (Ricky Tomlinson) whose hatred of the zombies is not all it seems. The show subtly established a revival of that ol’ time religion in the aftermath of a near-apocalypse; Kieren’s room at the Rehabilitation Centre has a cross on the wall, the TV is showing documentaries about Jerusalem, and Cranham’s preacher is a far more powerful figure in the community than you’d currently expect.
From Kieren, we got to learn about the kind of ‘zombies’ we’re dealing with here, though I at least still had plenty of questions. Apparently, like the zombies in Return of the Living Dead, they only like to eat brains; and again like those zombies, they retain a certain amount of intelligence even when ‘rabid’ – enough to coordinate hunting in pairs anyway. They have to be dosed daily with ‘Neurotriptyline’ to remain intelligent (through a gruesome looking hole at the base of their necks). They don’t eat, leading to some amusing scenes in which Kieren pretends to chew his family dinner rather than upset his parents. And they have to wear make-up and contact lenses to more closely resemble their formerly-living appearance.
OK fine – but if they don’t eat ‘food’, how do they sustain themselves? Do they age? And what about decomposition – at one point, we establish that they used to eat brains to stave this off, so does the drug now do that for them?
It does seem ironic to be arguing about points of logic for a fictional creature that’s returned from the grave to eat brains, but if we’re tinkering with the myth, it’s a good idea to get in-universe ground rules in place. I like that the show is taking its time over the exposition, but with only three episodes, perhaps it should establish exactly what we’re dealing with early on. Unless writer Dominic Mitchell is intentionally leaving these things ambiguous, which I don’t think will do the show any favours.
However, the show’s basic USP – showing ‘outsiders’ and their struggle to be accepted into ‘normal society’ – is well enough done (if all too reminiscent of True Blood). Kieren is a likeable, sympathetic character, but the motivations of those who hate zombies are sympathetically drawn too. The Human Volunteer Force was formed to deal with the zombie Rising in the face of total inaction from the authorities (represented here by a mealy-mouthed minister who was all too believable, given the current Government). Many of their friends were killed; so it’s understandable that they’re not ready to welcome the former harbingers of the apocalypse back into their living rooms.
There was a lot of imagination on display here, along with some genuinely dramatic character interaction. Kieren’s sister Jem was perhaps too easily swayed back into caring about her brother, given her convictions earlier, but it allowed for a nice conflict of loyalties to be set up as she uncomfortably accompanied her HVF comrades on a raid to find a ‘Rotter’ living among them.
That scene was cleverly set up to make us assume they’d found out about Kieren, leading to the amusing spectacle of his parents tooling themselves up with a nail-studded cricket bat and a chainsaw. Little details like that were a nice visual shorthand to the way society had changed in the aftermath of the Rising.
But it wasn’t Kieren they were after. It turned out to be genial old Ricky Tomlinson’s wife, neatly characterised as a loveable little old lady to make the HVF’s actions seem even more monstrous. They shot her in the head, of course – though here again, do we know that that’s the only way to kill a ‘Rotter’ in this universe?
As an opening episode, this had a lot to set up, and (mostly) did it well, avoiding the infodumps of clumsy exposition in similar shows. Despite some nice visuals in various establishing shots though, it played out rather stagily, with most scenes being tense character interactions in rooms. A sign, perhaps of writer Dominic Mitchell’s theatrical background – or perhaps that this actually started life as a stage play?
I’m not sure what metaphor – if any – Mitchell’s reaching for with the zombies. Vampires are often made blatantly analogous to homosexuals (True Blood) or drug addicts (Being Human). The HVF at least, bear more than a passing similarity to certain Northern Irish paramilitary groups, but if there’s a point being made there, I’m not sure what it is.
Like Being Human, this started life as a non-genre piece, in this case about a mentally ill young man trying to come to terms with the aftermath of a violent attack he’d carried out. I wonder if Mitchell is quite prepared for the level of attention his script will get now it’s under the merciless scrutiny of genre fans?
But dramatic though the show undoubtedly is, it still has room for some wry black humour. The concept of rebranding zombies as the ‘Partially Deceased’ smacks all too accurately of modern media spin, and I also liked the idea of zombies undergoing group therapy to come to terms with the guilt from their former carnivorous activities. It was also interesting to see that some of the Rotters, far from regretting their actions, felt resentful at being forced into passivity – nicely embodied with an all too brief turn from the ever-likeable Alex Arnold (Skins) as Kieren’s rebellious roommate.
In the Flesh was interesting and imaginative – but in a field already occupied by the likes of True Blood and Being Human, it did feel a little redundant. Still, it’s well-written and entertaining enough, and with three episodes, it’s unlikely to outstay its welcome. I’ll be back for more next week.
“I wanted you to talk. Too many people have died for no reason. Let’s end this.”
Let the summit begin! After last week’s intriguing diversion, The Walking Dead was back to this year’s story proper, which is increasingly beginning to resemble a classic war movie. With that in mind, this episode was very much the lull before the storm, as the two leaders met for a clearly-doomed peace summit arranged by the ever-optimistic Andrea.
It was far more of a character based instalment than we’ve been used to this year, with the gore and zombie action taking a back seat to moments of intrigue and interaction. Last year, it often felt like that was all the show did, and it eventually became tiresome. After this year’s near-unrelenting action, though, it felt like a breath of fresh air. And these characters have been so well-drawn that it was a pleasure to watch them together, many of them meeting for the first time.
Principal among those, of course, were Rick and the Governor. We’ve seen them onscreen together before, but only shooting at each other from a distance. This episode gave the show’s two alpha males a chance to properly meet face to face, and it was electrifying. Keeping the visuals mostly down to tight close ups heightened the claustrophobic feel of the scene.
Summoned to a remote barn by arrangement of Andrea, the two leaders circled each other warily before sitting down to a talk that felt every bit as combative as gunfire. Both Andrew Lincoln and David Morrissey were at the top of their game here; rightly, their exchange took centre stage in the episode. As with last week, it was another example of a US drama being dominated by two British actors pretending to be American – we may have Damian Lewis to thank for starting that trend, with Band of Brothers back in 2001.
Rick was as taciturn as we’ve come to expect these days, staring warily at his opponent, who was presenting his usual genial, charming façade. You got the feeling this was not going to go well from the start, as the Governor raised his hands to show he was weaponless, but we saw a gun taped to his side of the table. With one of his opening gambits being to needle Rick about the possibility that Lori’s child was actually Shane’s, they were clearly not going to get on.
Still, the Governor was all smiles as he presented his case – he was the victim, the problems had all started with Merle, and Woodbury had been the subject of an unprovoked attack against its innocent population. Fortunately, Rick wasn’t as gullible as Andrea, and plainly didn’t believe a word of it. But getting down to brass tacks, the Governor conceded that he could have already killed everyone in the prison. The fact that he hadn’t was evidence that he was prepared to leave them alone if he got what he wanted.
And what he wanted (unsurprisingly) was Michonne. Not only has she ‘killed’ his daughter, she’s also the one responsible for his current Cyclopean state – a lift of the eyepatch to reveal the mess below ramming that home. The ice between him and Rick thawed a little when he related the story of his wife’s (pre-apocalypse) death, which shed some light into his mental state and why he was so attached to his daughter.
It’s a measure of how much Rick has shifted from his pre-apocalypse morality towards the survivalist pragmatism embodied by Shane that he didn’t appear to be entirely ruling out the idea of giving up Michonne. And just when she’s getting properly accepted by the group too. But he’s canny enough to realise that most of what the Governor says is a pack of lies, so surely he won’t just trustingly turn up at their next meeting with Michonne and expect the deal to hold?
Even with those two holding centre stage, there was nevertheless some screen time available for some of the other characters. Both Rick and the Governor had turned up with a small retinue of henchmen, who were obliged to wait outside with Andrea while negotiations took place.
In standard war movie fashion, said henchmen discovered that they were Not So Different, and even bonded a bit. With a certain amount of contrivance, both parties had brought characters who were roughly equivalent in their respective roles. Rick had brought Daryl and Hershel (how did he drive that car with only a left leg?), while the Governor had brought Martinez and Milton.
Predictably perhaps, each paired off for a bit of bonding with their opposite numbers, and found they had More In Common Than They Realised. After starting off growling at each other, Daryl and Martinez ended up having a Legolas/Gimli style contest over who could violently kill the most Walkers, ending up (sort of) friends. It was nice to see a bit more depth given to Martinez than just Principal Henchman, as he and Daryl had a smoke together and fatalistically concluded that they’d soon be on opposite sides of a battlefield.
Hershel and Milton too found some common ground, as Men of Learning. They’re also the respective consciences of their groups, though Milton lacks the courage to stand up to his glorious leader the way Hershel does with Rick. Andrea, meanwhile, suffered the indignity of being ejected from the peace talks and faced, yet again, a choice between luxury with a psychopath or hard living with a decent man. Evidently still wearing blinders, it was the Governor she ended up heading off with when proceedings were adjourned.
There was some character conflict going on back at the prison too, as the newly butch Glenn butted heads with loose cannon Merle. Merle was all for taking out the Governor while they knew where he was; Glenn didn’t want to put their friends in danger. Significantly, it took the women to break up their territorial pissing contest, Beth firing a gun to separate them.
Glenn also found time to reconcile with Maggie after their recent disagreements, leading to one of the show’s rare sex scenes. Mind you, given that he was supposed to be on watch at the time, it seemed a pretty dumb moment to let his and Maggie’s youthful passions run free. Another sign, perhaps, that for all his newfound manliness, he’s not quite up to leading the group yet.
Gore of the week
Not much gore this week, given that the ep centred on the characters. That said, there were still plenty of Walkers in evidence (unlike last year), with lots of them clawing at the prison fence. Gore prize, however, has to go to Martinez for his skilful use of a baseball bat to inflict head wounds. Less artful than Daryl’s precisely aimed crossbow bolts, the bat made a right old mess of several Walkers. Who’d have thought the human skull could be pulped quite so easily?
Despite this being a more thoughtful, slow-burning episode than many of late, it was no less riveting. The parallels to classic war movies were perhaps a little too overt – at one point I wondered whether Daryl and Martinez would suggest a game of football – but still enjoyable for all that.
Nonetheless, the end felt like a foregone conclusion. This war isn’t going to be averted; the Governor’s already setting up plans to ambush Rick at their next meeting. In any case, dramatic convention dictates that after all this buildup, there’s got to be a spectacular climax. Still, this was a quality bit of drama, giving the characters a chance to interact well without interruption from gunfire or zombies. With only three episodes left to go, don’t expect that uneasy calm to last.
Simon’s Incoherent Blog 