[Some Spoilers Within]
The second episode of The Walking Dead just aired and while it didn’t have the emotional impact the Frank Darabont-directed pilot episode had it still more than held its own. It was an episode that more than lived up to it’s title and for zombie fans and gorehounds this episode should assuage any thoughts that the series will be heavy on emotional themes and scenes while lacking on any sort of zombie mayhem and bloody good horror (shout out to the Bloody Good Horror Crew). With an apt title of “Guts” the follow-up episode of this series looks to move the story forward now that we’ve gotten some of the basics of this new zombie apocalyptic world and its rules out of the way in the pilot episode.
When last we left our intrepid hero, Rick Grimes, he had gotten himself into quite a pickle. Mode of transportation was now chow for the zombies he had cantered into and he was now stuck inside a tank with no idea of how to get himself out of the situation until he hears a voice over the tank’s radio. One would think that we’d see the start of the second episode starting up from this very last moment in the pilot, but instead we get a quieter, but more disturbing sequence to begin the show. It involves Rick’s wife Lori out in the woods near their make-shift camp outside Atlanta. The scene is set-up to almost be a jump scare scene and for some I’m sure the pay-off in the end probably made them jump, but instead we get another glimpse into Lori Grimes’ current situation and expands on what she has been doing since leaving their Kentucky town with her son Carl and Shane Walsh, Rick’s partner. This opening scenes really paints Lori in a bad light and I’m not sure it needed to be handled so heavily. I’ll reserve a bit of judgement on this development on Lori and Shane as characters. The pilot episode seem to have hinted to something like this maybe happening already before the zombie apocalypse dropped in their laps which would definitely diverge this series from the original comic book source. Only time will tell if the planned triangle-drama will pay off in the long-run or ruin a major character’s growth with audiences in this show’s future.
This brief interlude leads up to where we last left Rick and his mysterious friend on the other end of the tank’s radio. From the moment this scene starts the show puts the episode on high gear and never lets up. The pilot episode was all about quiet desolation and isolation for our main character. This second offering is all about adrenalin and desperation as Rick goes from one dangerous situation into another. We also get to meet his benefactor who had been helping him by way of radio. In a role that should make Steven Yeun a fan favorite at comic book and fan conventions starting now, we meet a fan favorite of the comic book.
The character of Glenn has always been one of the constants in the comic book series. He has been with Rick since the very beginning and while his character doesn’t have the emotional and/or dramatic gravitas as the others he does prove himself to be voice of reason when everyone around him seem to be on the verge of losing their minds from the constant barrage of danger not just from the zombies but from other people as well. It was good to see Glenn portrayed early on as the snarky character the original source material had him before he become just a tad domesticated as the series went along. The fact that he was the one who seem to know how to truly survive in this new world while those around him seem to be making mistakes after mistakes should make fans of his character very happy.
We meet the rest of Glenn’s group which includes original character from the comic book in Andrea with four new additions created just for the series. All these new characters almost have “red-shirt yeoman” tattoed to their foreheads with the exception of Michael Rooker’s blatant racist redneck role of Merle Dixon. Rooker takes this over-the-top character and drives it into the ground. I thought the character could’ve used just a tad bit of subtlely in how he was written, but Rooker definitely looked liked he was having fun with the character. In any other actor’s hand the character of Merle Dixon would’ve looked just foolish, but the Rook’s manic intensity in playing the role made me hope the situation the group left him in wouldn’t be the last we see of Merle. Rook needs to get some more screen time to either play his character’s racist personlaity to the very end or at least time to round him out a bit before he finally gets his just desserts.
Laurie Holden as Andrea seemed like she was still searching for her character’s main focus. We find out that her younger sister is back at the camp with Lori and Shane and that she’s very knowledgeable with firearms. Her Andrea also seem to be slightly prone to panicking (though with zombies having destroyed one’s world panicking seems like a natural thing to do). I hope Daradont and his writers (Robert Kirkman being one of them) don’t mess with Andrea too much, but just expand on the type of person she is and how it will grow in time to be the Andrea everyone who are fans of the comics see as one kick-ass lady.
Now, the aforementioned episode title and what it means. It literally means guts. One could see the word used metaphorically to describe Glenn’s character finding his inner courage to follow Rick into one crazy and dangerous plan to save everyone in the group. Or one could see it in the way everyone who saw the episode saw it. Rick, Glenn and their group hacking a zombie to pieces to use it’s guts to camouflage themselves. This sequence is in line with how the comic book handled it but was moved up in the story’s timeline. This slight adjustment tells me that Darabont and crew look to be mixing and matching some of the original source’s narrative to create something more dramatic on the tv screen. Either way the sequence was the best one in the episode. It had the gross out factor zombie and gorehounds love. It also had tension and white-knuckle terror as we wonder if their trick will fool the zombies and when nature throws a curvebal their way while their in the middle of a horde I could almost sense millions of viewers shouting at Glenn and Rick to drop their shit and run (for people in the same situation they may literally drop their shit before running).
While the second episode didn’t have the quieter and emotional moments as the pilot episode it did have the adrenalin boost some horror fans were missing from the first one. Some have called this episode a let-down from the pilot because it played off as your typical zombie siege story. From group members bickering to rehashing scenes from other zombie films to solve their problem. I can’t say I disagree with them, but I didn’t see it as being a bad thing. I understand some critics and non-zombie fans want something new and fresh to be done in the zombie genre. Again I wholeheartedly agree, but one also cannot forget that this is a zombie horror series and zombies will still be on the forefront of what makes the show tick. A zombie story with no guts and in-group bickering is not a zombie story. How they handled it in this episode show that the writers know how to take the usual zombie story tropes and do it well.
Now, if the series is just all about gore or interpersonal drama then it will lose people. The writers definitely have their work cut out for them about balancing what horror fans want and what fans of dramatic storytelling want. So far, they’ve done a good job, but with four more episodes left in this freshman season the question now is will they be able to pull it off and end the season on a high note. Official word that AMC has announced the series has been renewed for a second 13-episode season should make fans of the show happy and make the writers get somne of the burden off their shoulders. They now have some leeway in terms of time to go at their pace. I do think even episode that skew more towards the dramatic need at least a couple exploding headshots and one gore scene just to keep the horror fans sated til the next gore-heavy episode.
Extras
This episode also had some memorable lines to remember and repeat…
Glenn: “He’s also an organ donor.” (right before Rick takes a fireaxe into one of the truely dead “walkers”)
T-Dog: “Yeah, dead puppies and kittens.” (after Rick tells a visibly sick Glenn to think of puppies and kittens to take his mind off the gore)
Rick: “We need more guts.” (realizing that he and Glenn need more zombie guts and viscera after already wearing almost a full body suit of it. Still best line of the episode.)
Through the Shattered Lens 
At this point, I don’t like this Shane dude at all. In the first episode, his little diatribe about women made him seem like a…what’s that term Ms. Bowman uses…dumbfug? I hate hearing guys like that talk. And now he’s rather quickly hooked up with Lori. The way he is being portrayed makes him seem as if he’s thinking, “Hey, this zombie apocalypse thing ain’t such a bad thing.”. I didn’t catch anything that necessarily indicated that he and Lori were involved prior to the infestation, but he seems quite comfortable with the way things turned out. I don’t know how he is presented in the comic book. Maybe we will get more insight into him as the series progresses. Either way, I hope this situation is resolved sooner than later. It is too much of a soap opera type of plot dynamic, and for me, at least, is just melodramatic dead weight (so to speak) in the story.
I do suspect that we will see more of Merle. I’d just as soon not. I suppose such people still exist, but he’s just annoying. And I can already see his resentful and vengeful confrontation with the current group of survivors. He just seems like a predictable plot device – something else with which the protagonists must deal, along with the zombies. Maybe the writers will come up with something more creative and interesting to do with him.
I am not surprised that the second episode was not quite up to the level of the first. That is almost unavoidable. It was still strong, and pulled no punches. And we are beginning to see that Rick takes charge and gets things done, while being respectful of those he is working with. I definitely like his character. I’m glad to learn that there will be at least one more season to thicken the plot.
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Yes, Merle is definitely annoying, but one thing struck me about why people reacted so negatively against the Rook’s character. It’s a zombie apocalypse and people want to believe — demand it even — that such an event would end any thoughts of racism or any of the many negative “isms” which plague human interactions. That’s a noble and hopeful thing to want, but I have to say that I don’t agree with it. Merle as a character might be over-the-top but such people exist. I don’t mean racist people but over-the-top racist people.
While Darabont and his writers need to use the next four episodes to add a bit ore layers to one Mr. Merle Dixon I like the fact that they’re not trying to write a hippie, love-in commune of a group of survivors. They’ve put the foundation on a group of survivors that spans the spectrum of personalities and such a spectrum includes types of people we would rather not have to deal with. Like I said in the review, Rook had fun with the role and in making Merle such an unabashed and unapologetic racist. That helped in at least making the character entertaining to a certain degree. The introduction of Norman Reedus as his brother back in the camp should make for an interesting development for Merle.
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As I said on twitter, my opinion of episode 2 was that the middle dragged but that it had a good opening and a great ending and those really are the only two things that matter.
(Actually, I have an ex-boyfriend who is fond of saying the same thing about…well, anyway, he’s an ex and he reminds me a bit of Shane.)
To be honest, I didn’t find the beginning to be disturbing as much as I found it to be a truthful. Lori has no way of knowing that Rick isn’t dead and basic human needs aren’t going to vanish just because of a zombie uprising. That said, if I knew that the living dead were just randomly wandering about outside, I probably would have at least found an abandoned car to do it in as opposed to an open field. But that’s just me. 🙂
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I think you got it right about Lori and that beginning. People who seem to really have issue with how Lori is dealing with the zombie apocalypse want her to deal with it how “they would” in her place. While her behavior may seem repulsive and not right to some it does look to be one made out of necessity and need rather than outright malice. I know in the pilot episode Rick had told Shane how things between Lori and himself was on the rocks, but I can’t see her hooking up with Shane outside Atlanta as a way to stick it to Rick. She probably thinks Rick is already dead back in the hospital and she might be feeling guilty about having to make the decision to leave him behind.
Shane, on the other hand, looks to be someone whose personality has expanded from the comics. I can’t say for sure if its for the better, but his misogynistic tendencies in the first two episode does explain why he would be the type of person to take advantage of the situation. To be the welcoming arms for the wife of a friend he also thinks might be dead back in Kentucky. There’s a theory being bandied about that the woman Shane was talking about in his conversation with Rick in the pilot could be Lori. So, if Shane and Lori were already having an affair behind Rick’s back even before the zombie apocalypse began then their actions in the first two episodes wouldn’t be out of character.
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