[Some Spoilers Within]

We’re now into the first episode of the second half of this initial season. The Walking Dead has been a definitive hit for cable network AMC who has been hyping up the show every week for months. The pilot episode has been hailed as one of the best premiere shows and it helped that showrunner Frank Darabont wrote and directed it. Then we had the follow-up episode which have been hit-or-miss for some people with the second one being a miss for some who began to question whether Robert Kirkman’s comic book series will have the legs to last several seasons and beyond. The third episode allayed some of those fears, but still some people were still doubting whether the show can truly balance the intense drama and character interaction with the zombie mayhem and gore.

Now we’re on the fourth episode and when people heard that creator Robert Kirkman would be writing the episode more doubts started to creep in. I say this because as critically-acclaimed and popular the comic book series is there’s a vocal segment of the fans who think the book succeeds despite Kirkman’s writing which tend to be heavy on the exposition. They see him not knowing the concept of “less is more”. As a long-time fan I can see what these fans mean, but I also think he’s quite good in creating the scenarios his characters must navigate through.

With this fourth episode titled “Vatos” we get Robert Kirkman writing not as a comic book writer but as someone who knows its a new medium and must write accordingly. In what I consider the best episode since the Darabont written and directed pilot, Robert Kirkman has shown just why millions of fans have flocked to read the comic book and why millions more have fallen in love with it’s tv adaptation.

The episode begins with a beautifully shot prologue of Amy and Andrea sitting in a boat fishing in the quarry lake and reminiscing about their father. It’s a nice tender moment which takes on a sad note as they finally voice every survivor’s fear. Are their parents alive? Maybe where they lived wasn’t hit hard. It’s survivor’s guilt to the nth degree as we and these characters know that the odds of any of the camp’s loved ones in far off places being alive are miniscule to none.

We also see a disturbing portent of what may yet come to pass as Jim, the mechanic from the past episode, seem to be losing his edge. It falls to Dale to notice Jim’s erratic behavior and then down to Shane to take care of things before Jim finally goes over the deep end and hurts not just himself but everyone else. I liked how Jim’s little revelation about what happened to his family arrived quite naturally and the effect it had on Lori and the others. Lori, Carol and Andrea may still have a semblance of a family, but Jim is the prime example of someone who has lost everything and may not have anything left to live for.

Now, we ended the third episode with Rick and his little band of Merle rescuers finding their quarry missing and not just from the roof but the hand he was cuffed with. We see the aftermath of Merle’s improbable, but quite the badass, escape from the roof. While we don’t see Michael Rooker as Merle in this episode his presence looms over everything and everyone. It’s during Rick and the groups attempt to find not just where Merle went but also the bag of guns Rick dropped in the pilot episode that we finally meet the episode’s title characters.

At first, it seemed like another attempt by Kirkman and the writers to drop stereotypical characters into an already crowded plate. Latino gangbangers becoming an immediate threat to Rick and his group. They even had a smooth-talking and intelligent leader that some may see as the show’s attempt on the typical drug lord. The confrontation between the two groups don’t come off so smoothly the first, second and third time, but it takes the intervention of the kindly grandma-type to ease the tensions. Tensions which reveals that people shouldn’t judge a book by it’s covers.

I definitely think this is like Kirkman’s shot across the bow of his detractors who think he cannot write beyond wordy exposition. The dialogue in this episode was some of the strongest and I’d say just slightly above of the pilot’s. There were more characters involved with two paralleling storylines to manage. Kirkman has shown with this episode that he actually knows the concept of “less is more” and that his true calling may not be writing comic books but writing teleplays for tv. I wouldn’t mind if all the episodes of The Walking Dead were written by just Darabont and Kirkman. I truly believe that this episode won’t be last time we see a Kirkman-written episode and that’s a good thing to look forward to.

In the end, “Vatos” more than lives up to the high standard the pilot episode set. It was an episode which was able to combine not just the dramatic interaction between character and groups (and not just conflicts, but the quieter moments) but also the very zombie mayhem and carnage fans of the genre expect the show to have. The episode which begins so calm and serene ends on a horrifying and sad way. This episode has finally illustrated what the comic book was all about. A story and journey of survivors living day by day trying to retain a semblance of their old lives only to have the ever-present threat of the zombie apocalypse shatter such misguided attempts.

Extras

* KNB EFX founder Greg Nicotera makes an appearance as a zombie in the second-half of the episode.

* Merle Dixon never appearing on-screen but still ends up being the badass of the episode.

* Guillermo’s (leader of the Vatos) hounds from hell.

* “Admit it, we only came back to Atlanta for the hat” (Glenn seeming to be the one person in every episode with the witty quip and remark to lighten things a bit)

* Breakin’ Bad veteran-director Johan Renck’s masterful handling of the episode’s climactic scene in the camp.

* The show loses a regular character and one of the cardboard ones.