The Walking Dead Returns With More of the Same

The Walking Dead returned last night with its mid-season premiere after a 2 month hiatus. If you were expecting something different than the season has offered so far though, you’ll likely be disappointed. I’ve had more than one conversation with a colleague, who is also a fan, about what didn’t work during the first half of season two, including character development and large pacing issues.

After a quick recap we pick back up where we left off with Rick, stone-faced and serious, after killing a zombified Sophia. We get some good gore in the form of a scythe through the head of Mama Green zombie who popped back into existence and clutched at Beth. Herschel’s daughter, clearly in a hysterical state, had gone over to check on her. After the smoke clears we get into the main theme of the first half of the episode, trying to process what happened. A lot of tension has been bubbling just under the surface and is ready to explode. We go all over the map with short scenes of everyone dealing with their respective feelings either by arguing with each other or sitting in fields ripping out clumps of flowers. It gets to seem slightly disjointed going from one person to another and not as cohesive as you might like.

Things start to look up during the second half as Herschel disappears and Rick and Glenn go off to find him. It starts to feel like the plot is finally beginning to move on and pick up. Laurie drives off to find Rick and gets into a car accident and we get a good scene with Rick and Herschel in the bar where they really start to get to the meat of things. Herschel is obviously broken up over his realization that his thinking on the matter was wrong. The end gets a little conflicted again. It’s a great character segment for Rick in terms of where his mind is headed the rest of the season but it also suffers from the shows curse of dragging things out. The three of them run into two new people and have a drink with them but things are so awkward, it gets to be a very uncomfortable and slow scene at points.

Executive producers have gotten a lot of flack during the hiatus of the pacing and not enough zombies etc. Pretty much every interview asked them about it and they have promised time and time again there are more zombies in the second half, things ramp up and there’s more action. This certainly could be seen as a transitional episode. The impact of finding Sophia and having to shoot her needed to be depicted and what that did to people couldn’t just be glossed over quickly. On the other hand, and this is one of the first thoughts I had after watching this episode, I don’t think this show is ever going to be what a lot of people want it to be. It can’t just be zombie killing for an hour because that’s not what it’s about. In the same way that Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn’t actually about vampires, The Walking Dead isn’t about zombies; it’s about the human condition at the centre of it. We’ll see what kind of balance is achieved and where they go from here over the next 5 episodes.

As usual lemme know what you think. Feedback, comment etc.