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| "Zombie occupied Atlanta, the final frontier. These are the renegade shoot 'em up stories of Rick Grimes and his comrades. They're continuing mission? To demolish ratings against everything else in their timeslot. To seek out new characters, new civilizations. To boldly kill every character you've ever loved!" |
Happy New Year, 2024, and happy HAPPY Friday! Welcome back to Spoiler Alert! The blog specifically written by me... and basically written for me. Hey, that's a nifty self-deprecating tagline. I can dig it!
Last year about this time, we kicked off "James Camer-thon". This year, we're kicking off a "thon" of a whole 'nother species. From the large silver screen domination to the little digital screen we have in our homes. I'm talking about a TV show. A very important TV show. One specific show that features mutilated, snarling creatures wreaking havoc on a helpless society seeking to destroy life as we know it! That's right. Welcome to my review of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. A rapidly deflating vacuum bag presentation targeting our most non-contributing members to society, a steaming doormat surprise that's desperate for ratings, one that prides itself on parading around the tired, ol' trope of showcasing the "drama" mentally-handicapped, rich, white people face on a daily basis for your viewing torture--... wait, wait, my phone is ringing. One moment.
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| "Glenn, are you sure you know where you're going?" "I'm not sure at all Rick, but I'll tell you one thing--we are definitely rummaging through this derelict Taco Bell!" |
*Technical Difficulties, writer of blog may be impaired*
Well this is embarrassing, it would appear my notes were mixed up by the mail carrier. I was instead supposed to receive a dusted-off Family Video DVD case that contains the first six first season episodes of The Walking Dead. What is The Walking Dead? Well it is a TV show that in Spring 2011 quite frankly took fledgling, desperate for a hit cable network AMC and made them a hit. It parades around... you guessed it, the walking dead! Zombies. The corpses of re-animated loved ones. You thought that was the last you'd ever see of grandma? THINK AGAIN. Now she's back and ready to feast on your brains!
The Walking Dead is adapted from the Image Comics comic book publication of the same name that began in 2003. Written/created by Robert Kirkman and Illustrated (initially) by Tony Moore and later Cliff Rathburn & Charlie Adlard, The Walking Dead comic book was a unique concept. As described by Kirkman in the opening volume (or issue if you started at the beginning)... he didn't care for "zombie movies that lasted for two hours" where you maybe got to know the main character and then wondered what happened next? The Walking Dead's intention was to instead tell an ongoing story as the apocalypse wore on. Who would live? Who would die? Who would see society to the end? Who would reinvent what we know and love? Who would fall in love with whom? Who would be born? Who would battle who? All these questions as the years wore on. Ultimately trying to be a story that lacked "end credits".
The Walking Dead TV series aired as a late-season starter, as I mentioned, with six episodes debuting in Spring 2011. Summing much of it up quickly: When sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) of King County, Georgia, wakes from a coma, he discovers the world has been overrun by zombies ("walkers"). After befriending Morgan Jones (Lennie James), Rick travels alone to Atlanta before finding his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies), son Carl (Chandler Riggs), and his police partner and best friend Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal) in the woods with other survivors. Several characters here would become future staples and iconic characters for seasons to come... such as fan-favorite and future poster-boy for everyone picking a crossbow as an apocalyptic defense weapon, Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus)... pizza delivery boy turned farmer's-daughter eye-candy Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) (see Season 2)... the initially timid but later badass abused housewife Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride), the wise old sage and camping enthusiast Dale Horvath (Jeffrey DeMunn) and yes, even Daryl's dickhead hick brother Merle (Michael Rooker)... This group goes through its ups and downs in this season already alone, including Rick handcuffing Merle to the roof after an altercation and then having to go back for him only to find his hand and nothing else. Rick having to fight a bunch of possible Mexican warlords for guns he brought from his King County police station only to find out they're good natured Samaritans that didn't ditch a bunch of nursing home inhabitants. While they return from trying to retrieve the meth-addicted good ol' boy, their group's is attacked by walkers at night. Following a regroup and cutting their losses, our heroes travel back to Atlanta to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) building, but find from the sole remaining scientist Dr. Edwin Jenner (Noah Emmerich) that no cure yet exists for the pandemic. He offers to suicide everybody to the afterlife, but instead most of the group chooses to escape and press-on for a new life as Jenner stays behind and blows himself and the CDC building sky high.
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| "Oh man, I don't like the looks of those teenagers. I also don't like the looks of those dead teenagers... and I certainly don't like the look of those dead teenagers eating the screaming, live teenagers!" |
Now that's the first six episodes to this show. Pretty standard and down to Earth right? Well, it adapts mostly the first volume of the comic book labeled "Days Gone Bye", which is the same title of the first episode of the series. What I like most about the show thus far is the characters, the atmosphere, and the setting. This indeed feels like a very true-to-life zombie apocalyptic setting, and the missions the group faces episode-to-episode capture the essence of that beautifully. The peril, the suffering, the group dilemmas; even the plan-making. All of that just makes it a very stellar first season, and a strong start to the show. You really get a sense of how grim their situation is. Dale's the owner of the RV and the one of only two mechanics in the camp, later only one after Jim (Andrew Rothenberg) gets bit and left behind in the episode "Wildfire". It's a kill or be killed world out there, and as Dale puts it--well never mind, that's in season two. Don't want to spoil that much yet!
My favorite character is an obvious one in this season it's Rick. He's the stereotypical protagonist and hero, and he comes off like Superman who can do no wrong and I don't know it's just a comfortable choice. I can see why Daryl became the fan favorite, right off the bat he's a badass that does badass stuff, but he acts like a jerk. He doesn't really start earning the fans' respect until season two, where he begins doing heroic things. In a stark and hilarious contrast, in my opinion, the character in this I really can't stand is Lori, lol Rick's wife, and this is tame Lori. Lori gets more and more annoying as the show wears on. Or rather as her time on the show wears on; spoiler alert, name of the blog. She just nags, and annoys, and gets emotional, and nags, not to mention uh the first big plot point bangs Rick's best friend Shane while Rick is comatose in a hospital! I suppose they had to have a reason for tension in the show, but goddamn do I find love triangles hokey! Especially in S1E6 where Shane gets drunk and tries to force himself on her and then she just continues like he didn't just try to do that.
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| "Say, Jim, what are you doing?" "Digging to China." "Why the hell are you digging to China?" "My character needed a small arc before you all just cut me from the show and leave me to the unemployment line!" |
My favorite episode from this season is the second one, where Rick finds Glenn, Andrea (Laurie Holden), and the others and they have to fight their way out of Atlanta by procuring a stolen moving van and getting everyone inside. In fact it's the episode where Merle is left on the roof. I don't know, it just tells a great escape story, has great dialogue and banter between the characters, and is a terrific setting and situation. I don't know what my least favorite episode of the season is, it could be "Wildfire" S1E5 because stuff barely happens, and it's a lot of arguing and disagreeing. Not quite sure, hard to nail down. I like the CDC episode "CS-19" and the finale of the season, so yeah... I'll settle on "Wildfire".
I'm not sure if I have any one favorite moment from this season or not. There were a few I love to enjoy every time I come back around to give the show another try. Merle getting left behind on the roof and then all of S1E3 "Tell it to the Frogs" about whether or not he's alive and Rick requesting people's help to go back into Atlanta and get him had me genuinely wondering when I first watched it if Merle was even alive or what they'd possibly find on the roof. Would it be Merle? Would Merle be reanimated? See, the Dixons weren't in the comic book; they were an invention for the show. For them and their story, anything went. I love it when a TV keeps me guessing. I'd say probably my favorite moment is when Rick reunites with Lori and Carl. I mean that's what the whole first season started with, Rick's dilemma of finding out where his family went and wondering what the hell happened to society. I was wondering when I first watched it if it was going to be an all-season thing or not, and thankfully they pulled the band-aid off right at the start of just the third episode. Saved me a lot of time and worry wondering if this reunion was ever going to happen.
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| "I sure do wish I had my Spotify and headphones for this walk... wait, would music still stream? Wait, would I even get a signal still? WAIT... do we in this world even know what a smartphone is?!" |
Probably another favorite moment is when Lori starts sniping at Shane for supposedly lying to her about Rick being dead (even though Shane only told her Rick was dead because he genuinely did not know and could not save him, as in the flashback at the start of S1E6 we see Shane witness military personnel gun down doctors and nurse in an overrun hospital)... and Shane decides to take his anger out on Carol's abusive chain-smoking husband Ed (Adam Minarovich), beating the ever loving shit out of him and mashing his face up something fierce... and then at the end of the next episode "Chupacabra" he gets eaten alive by the invading walkers. Lovely stuff, great comeuppance.
My least favorite moment is Amy (Emma Bell), Andrea's little sister getting mauled by the surprise zombie horde invading their camp and then Andrea having to be the one to put her down with a gunshot to the head. Gut wrenching. Ickk, I even hated thinking about it again while typing that.
I was going to point out some silly tropes started in this season that go the way of the Dodo in later seasons, but I think I'll end it here and let those tropes show themselves in later seasons and then retroactively mock this season in return. I'm kind of a forward thinker like that. Anywho, yep, I think that's all I wanted to cover regarding this season. If more comes up, I'll cover it in future posts. Kind of a short post for this one, but I'm not really sure how to review a full season of a TV show, ha. There isn't much to the actual synopsis of the show that I then can step through and break down. I can tell you that with The Walking Dead, the first season is a great start. It isn't complicated nor is it trying to be edgy or inventive; it's just cut-and-dry zombie apocalypse. No human villains quite yet, though "Vatos" S1E3 teases you with some. It's all just Rick and crew against zombies, and zombies are all we need for a show called The Walking Dead. If I can recommend at least one season to try, why not start with season one? I have tried to get to this show, and it definitely will lose its luster here and there... believe me we will get to that, but I can for sure say you'll probably enjoy and maybe even get hooked by season one.
Once again, welcome to 2024, and hopefully we'll step through this series piece by piece up until the end. In real life I only have a season and a half to go! I'm the farthest I've ever gotten, and I aim to finish it and give you my fresh take on the whole show! Let's go!
