[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.
Through the Shattered Lens 
To be honest, I had some SERIOUS worries when the Vatos first popped up. I sat there and I stared at the screen and I said, “Really? Really, Walking Dead, we’re actually going to go there?” I continues to complain until Erin told me to shut up. And I’m glad she did because the show went on to redeem itself.
As I think I’ve said before, the two things that really matter about television shows is how an episode begins and how it ends. As long as it has a good beginning and a good ending, you can pretty much do anything you want in the middle. So far, all four episodes of the Walking Dead have had good openings and killer endings.
This episode had a great opening, with the very blue water almost tricking me into believing that I was watching a dream sequence. And the ending was incredible with some of the scariest zombies I’ve ever seen. As for the middle, I found it to be uneven (largely because of the vatos) but I love Glenn and the desolate urban landscape was handled quite well.
To be honest, I think the show still struggles a bit when it attempts to present life back at the camp. A lot of this, of course, comes from the fact that 1) there’s a lot of characters wandering around the camp and 2) it takes a while for any tv show’s ensemble to truly gel as a group. (Case in point: Lost. For the first few episodes, it was diffilcult to really get emotionally involved with any of the many characters so Lost would throw in the occassional smoke monster to keep people watching while the ensemble gelled. This show, I think, uses zombie attacks for much the same purpose.) Still, what Walking Dead lacks is a Sawyer type of character — a bad boy who is one of the heroes but not quite as morally upright as Rick Grimes (because moral certainty gets old after a while).
Still, all in all, a triumphant episode that would keep me watching even if I wasn’t already a little zombie-crazed. 🙂
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I think this episode had one of the strongest middle act since the pilot which is why I place it just below it in overall quality.
I like how Kirkman was able to play with the audiences’ racial preconceptions to set-up a nice reveal before beginning the final act. Like everyone else when I first saw the title of the episode last week and scenes of young Latino men my first thought was gangmembers. Yeah, I’m not immune from stereotyping, but as that middle section unfolded I began to suspect that there might be something about the title and the new survivor group that was more than just what the audience sees at first.
Technically, the word vatos is just slang for men. I thought the episode worked in one lesson from Romero’s Dawn of the Dead about cooperation and trying to stop the killing if one was to win the war against the undead. The middle section showed how misconceptions from both sides almost led to a bloodbath, but once la abuela showed up I knew the jig was up and that this group Rick and his group thought was being a gang of hoodlums turned up to be so different. The same could be said to how Guillermo and his vatos thought the worst of Rick and his group.
Your point about Lost is why I’m sometimes frustrated by how people have been reacting to some of the extraneous people in the show, so far. People seem to have forgotten how many character that show had and how many of them were quite throw-away. This show has been beaten to the ground about how some of the characters were so one-dimensional, cardboard cutouts or stereotypes. Every new ensemble has such things and it’s up to the show to clear away the chaff to reveal the inner core. So far, the show has done that and this episode’s climactic finish definitely lowers the group count quite a bit.
I will admit that the last few minutes of this episode had my heart-rate racing and it takes much for anything zombie-related to do that to me anymore.
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I must say (well, I don’t really have to. but I will, as I don’t want to disappoint my fans), I, too, liked this episode more than the previous two, and agree that it was close to the first in quality. As Ms. Bowman reiterated, this was due largely to a strong beginning and ending, especially the ending. Sudden, intense, and not least, “realistic”, in that this is what could happen at any moment, and it did. And people died, horribly. Appropriately and satisfyingly intense scene.
It would be interesting and amusing to watch this episode with someone who didn’t know the premise (or the title) of the show, and see their reaction to the final scene.
I found the Vatos thing to be somewhat awkwardly-presented and contrived. If Kirkman was trying to teach us something about preconception and assumption, he should have been more subtle. If Guillermo, et al were really as ultimately revealed, they would have been foolish to have behaved the way they did. And once again, no one seems to care that Rick is in full police uniform and armed. I get the idea that “the world has ended” vibe is prevalent, but no one really knows how far gone society actually is. Some of the characters would be at least a little deferential or hesitant to challenge a cop. In this case, a cop was telling Guillermo that the guns were his. Guillermo would have had little reason to doubt it. Where did he think they came from?
Nonetheless, if “The Walking Dead” continues to give us reminders as effective as those in Episode 4 that it is, whatever else it may also be, a zombie series, and does it frequently enough, I think we are in for a fun ride.
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Aye, the drama between Rick and Guillermo was a bit staged, but I think we all got the idea. Both sides want the guns, both sides think the other is bad for good reasons. Except one threatened to throw an unarmed man off a very tall building right after his terrorist-victim mask was removed. They certainly played up the “vatos are bad” angle, and not nearly as much of the “oh, so they are cool after all.” It was still a great episode, but every one has had several flaws. Overall this was my favorite episode so far, and I hope the next one is even better 😀
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I needed to watch the episode a few more times to see if what I got out of the episode was so different from most.
While it’s true that Kirkman and, to a certain degree, all the writers on the show have been somewhat blunt with their pushing of moral themes in the show I think it doesn’t detract from how effective they are. I think with zombie films and stories such themes tend to come at the audience like a sledgehammer. Whether it’s from Romero’s Dead films to even Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead they all seem heavy-handed on one level or another.
I think your assumption that Guillermo and his “vatos” should have reacted differently comes from someone looking from the outside in and not having full context at what has happened to make these people react the way they have. Guillermo actually mentions that they’ve had to react in a forceful manner due to past encounters with other groups whose intentions were not as noble as Rick’s. You have to remember that when Felipe and one of his friends came to his cousin’s shout in the alley they saw Daryl, a stranger, holding down the young man with a crossbow trained on him. This is where the assumptions led to the “Mexican stand-off” in the warehouse.
Daryl thought the young man knew where his brother Merle was and the man’s friend thought Daryl was a looter and raider about to “jack” one of their own. Things just began to escalate from there and it didn’t help that both Rick and Guillermo were deadset on protecting their own. Rick didn’t know that these “vatos” were actually pretty harmless and were actually just trying to protect the weakest in their collective. Guillermo didn’t know that Rick was just trying to get Glenn back.
In a perfect world the two could’ve talked things out, but that’s not the world “The Walking Dead” inhabits. It’s a world where rules have set a dog-eat-dog and only the strong survive mentality. It’s why, as forced as the opening scene seem to some, Amy was foreshadowed to be the first main character to die. Her behavior since being introduced was one who was lost and helpless. She didn’t seem to have the steel to survive on her own while her sister Andrea was willing to do anything to try and survive (hence pulling the gun on Rick in episode 2) when threatened.
Also, in a zombie apocalypse where law and order has collapsed and amost forms of civil authority have stopped working even cops would become suspect at first meet. I only say this because it has happened and recent to history. During the Katrina Hurricane aftermath when New Orleans was flooded and people went to whatever was safe there were looters and not all of them were civilians. It’s been documented and proven that some who had looted (not for necessary food, water and supplies but for luxury items) were members of the local law enforcement. While they were an extreme minority it still proves a point that when order collapses, even for a momentary period, even those who were sworn to protect civilians and property would themselves become the danger.
I’ve liked all the episodes, so far. If I have any complaints about the show it’s that the 6-episodes is too little to give the writers a bit more leeway to be subtle with their writing and get their point across. I think if it was an 8-episode inaugural season then the heavy-handedness of the writing would be somewhat eased with some subtlety.
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Your invocation of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina supports your point very well. I recently saw a documentary about an even worse manifestation of “the law” becoming the lawless. There were instances where cops killed unarmed civilians, and covered it up. Neither of the situations you and I have referenced is very well-known by the public, but people in New Orleans are probably more aware of it. I would imagine that they have some “trust issues” as a result.
Maybe it is “accurate” to have Vatos-type scenes (even if they do serve as red herrings), and characters like Merle and Ed. If such events and people are highly possible, or even likely, then perhaps the writers should include them in the story. It’s just that, realistic or not, I find these things annoying.
Did you ever see any of the “Billy Jack” movies from the early 70’s? I suppose they reflected the time in which they were made, and they weren’t really bad. Burt they were irritating to watch. They continuously depicted ignorant people doing ignorant things. Bigotry, sexual assault, non-sexual assault, and I’m pretty sure there was a murder or two. Unfortunately, there actually were (and are) people who do such things and these characters lived in such a place and time. But it was still irritating to watch.
For similar reasons, I have no interest in watching shows like “Oz: or “The Wire”, regardless of how realistic or critically-acclaimed they were.
So I guess some of my comments about the various episodes of “The Walking Dead” were expressing the hope that the writers find a way to account for the very real possibilities or likelihoods that would exist in a civilization under attack (from within and without), make their observations about human nature, and still make a fun and scary zombie series. No mean feat, I will admit.
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Ahhh, then I can see where you’re coming at. There are certain stylistic writing choices writers make that I don’t like either, but when I look at things objectively most of the time they don’t hinder the strength of the story being told. They were done by the writer/writers for a purpose which may or may not match my own personal sensibilities.
In the end, all that matters is whether the story being told (or in this case an episode) still remains to be entertaining and informative despite some parts of it not agreeing with one’s own personal bias. I think for the most part the show has done that.
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KO, I notice you brought up the Billy Jack movies. I saw one of them on DVD earlier this year — The Trial of Billy Jack and oh my God, what an incredibly long, boring movie that turned out to be. Plus, the entire movie seemed to be Billy Jack going “Live in Peace everybody, except for me because I know how to kick ass…” I’m in the process of getting the other three Billy Jack movies so I can write a review of the series.
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Yeah, the Billy Jack series is the perfect example of the adage: “Do as I say and not as I do.” 🙂
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Yes, well, I can’t really remember the specific plots (or even the titles) of the sequels. “Trial” may have been the last of the series. There was one where Billy went on some kind of Native American “vision quest” out in the desert. Was that “Trial”?
As I recall, the first two had a lot of the aforementioned ignorant people doing ignorant things, and Billy getting martial arts-facilitated vengeance. I think he may have killed some of the folks he “corrected”. At the time, I thought they deserved what they got, so I was okay with Billy’s violence. He was f’-ing up jerks.
So they were rather manipulative films, I suppose. They set up frustration and disdain for the antagonists, and then delivered visceral satisfaction with the righteous ass-whoopings. But I think there was some attempt at a civil rights message in there, as well. On one level, they could be categorized as exploitation films, in their own right.
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I was planning on using this weekend’s trailer posting to pay tribute to the late Ingrid Pitt but I may have to toss in a Blly Jack trailer or two. 🙂
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Again, it’s been a long time, but I think if you watch the first two (one was called “Born Losers”, I believe), you may not perceive as much hypocrisy in BJ’s actions. I’m not saying that the films were necessarily good, but there was more action, much of it of the jerks will be jerks variety, and the rest consisting of BJ kicking people really hard. While it was heavy-handed in its presentation, even more so than the criticized “Walking Dead” scenes, it did effectively distinguish BJ’s actions from those of the jerks – provoked vs. unprovoked.
One could decry the vigilantism of the titular character, but then you get into a variation on the concept that Arleigh had referenced related to Katrina. In the BJ movies, I’m not sure that the cops were much better than the degenerate townsfolk. So the writers had that covered.
Anyway, I will be curious to read what you think of the trilogy. (Actually, I think there was a fourth in the late 70’s. That one may have been even more boring than “Trial”.)
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The fourth one was called Billy Jack Goes To Washington. 🙂
Billy Jack is appointed to the U.S. Senate. The film was apparently also a remake of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.
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Well, that makes perfect sense. Everyone remembers Jimmy Stewart delivering roundhouse kicks as he made his way through the halls of Congress. “Filibuster, my ass, you mothers!”
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