While the apocalyptic introduction to the zombies in this series shares a lot in common with the opening to 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead did a fantastic job at bringing us into this horrible world. We can feel the same terror and disgust the characters feel, but we still want to keep coming back for more.
The very first scene happens in the middle of the episode's timeline, but it simply had to be the very first scene of the show. This isn't the darkly humorous, action-packed Dawn of the Dead remake, when Sarah Polley's zombie husband lets her escape to go munch on a neighbor. When a show opens with a visibly shaken grown man shooting a 4 year old girl zombie in the forehead, it's not gonna keep you on the edge of your seat in excitement; it's gonna make you squirm while it weighs morality and humanity with outright survival.
Having seen some previews before the show, though I have not read the comic, and I will not until the series has fully ended, so I don't have to weigh the two and I can just enjoy the show as it is, I knew that Rick was going to wake up in the apocalypse from a coma. With that in mind, I was fully expecting the conversation between him and Shane to take place in his subconscious, especially when Rick was explaining how his wife just wanted him to "speak."
Instead of a dream, it turned out to be reality, where Rick was just coasting through, seeming detached from at least his wife, if not from the whole world. Then he's shot, and lies in a coma for who knows how long, and wakes up to a nightmare. There's a lot to be said about comparing Rick to the zombies: he "dies" and then comes back different, though how different is a question we'll be exploring, I'm sure. In this episode, we learn that he changed as far as his attachment to life, and even that seemed to waiver at points.
This episode was very cinematic, from the pastoral scene after Rick leaves the father and son, to the slow exit from the hospital, both of which I'll get to soon. With that in mind, however, I feel like there should be more to say about the criminals that attacked Rick and the other police, but all I can think of for them is just an example of the ills that plagued society before the zombies. Did one of them somehow manage to live to survive into the zombie apocalypse? Was one of them an original carrier? Maybe they're just a plot device, but I think it would be a little cool if there was something more there.
Rick's exit from the hospital was intense, and it led to two of the episodes scariest images: the girl spread out on the hospital hallway floor, and the "Don't Open; Dead Inside" door. I don't know how long a door like that would hold, but thankfully it held long enough for Rick to escape. As he left the building, we learned a lot from just him walking down the steps and up the hill. First, we learned a lot of people died and there was an attempt to take care of the bodies, like a field hospital situation. Second, the military was involved. I'm curious to see the government's attempts at containing the outbreak.
Before I talk about the torso zombie, I want to cover the father and son. I really liked the "slice of life" we got from Rick's day with the two of them. We learned quite a bit from them, like they left with the man's wife, who then turned, and they were on their way to Atlanta. We grew to actually take stock in these two, but we never learned their names, and I'm actually hoping we never see them again. I want to fill in the blank on their future: did the father's sniping drive them to be overrun? Or did they make it out of that house alive?
I would have to say Rick's scene with the torso zombie was my favorite in the entire episode. First of all, this was the best zombie I've ever seen; the hair, the mouth, and especially the eyes were downright perfect. It was disgusting, and horrifying, and most importantly, pathetic. This zombie would be lucky to trip someone who's not looking, but otherwise, it's doomed to crawl to the ends of the earth.
It's the perfect zombie for Rick to euthanize, and perfect antithesis to the father's attempt to euthanize his wife. The father can't cross that line, he can't come to some moral balance between killing a zombie and killing what was once human. Rick has found a coping mechanism. He tells the torso zombie "I'm sorry this happened to you," and then he shoots it in the head. He still feels uncomfortable killing human forms, as we saw with the little girl, but he knows he needs to kill them in order to continue with his journey. He knows how he can forgive himself for killing the mobs, the children, even his old friends, like the cop outside the sheriff's station, but will he falter if it comes to his wife and child, like the father did with his wife's face in his scope?
The scenery for this scene was perfect, too. Rick didn't need to kill the torso zombie, he could have let her crawl and moved on. He came to give her rest, though, and a pastoral scene, like that beautiful prairie, was the best place to do so.
When Rick was radioing for survivors, we were introduced to the camp that contains Rick's wife Lori and his son Carl, as well as his friend Shane. I have to admit, my least favorite parts of most zombie movies is when the survivors find themselves in relative safety, like this camp. With it comes the drama that leadership inherently brings. Someone will always disagree, always, and more often than not it brings about the end of the group, typically with most, if not all, of them dying. When the girls were fighting with Shane on whether or not to put up a sign, this was, fortunately, a fight where reason was on both sides: either they save other survivors, or they save themselves.
When Lori volunteers to put up the sign, we get to know a bit about her, and I don't like where her character is going. When we see her kiss Shane in the tent, fine, that I can accept. They not only thought Rick was dead, but she and Rick were on a bad road to begin with, so I understand why she would go into Shane's arms. What I don't understand yet is why she is so ignorant of her own son. Rick complains at the beginning of the episode of how she accused him of not caring about them right in front of Carl, which Rick is fuming over. He thinks that Carl doesn't need to be privy to things like that. Then she volunteers and even argues with Shane about going into the thick of the zombies just to put up a sign warning others. It's like she even forgets Carl exists, much less that he needs more than just to be alive; he needs hope, and guidance, and love. I hope Lori shapes up. Maybe once we learn more about her, we'll learn why she seems to ignore Carl, and maybe it will make more sense. In the meantime, she is the series' most important female character, and she's a horrible mother. That is not cool in my book.
Shane, on the other hand, actually redeems himself in the tent scene. He was extremely misogynistic in the cop car scene at the beginning, with his tirade against his girlfriend's light switch habits. I was a little worried when he seemed to be a little tyrannous over the rest of the camp, but when he chastised Lori not for criticizing and disagreeing with him, but for seeming to want to throw her life away in front of her own son, I was glad that he is keeping Rick in mind, by making sure Carl isn't left without a mother.
The farmhouse was another disturbing image, of the couple in the living room, and it was fantastic. I did like that he took the horse into town as well, but was that really the best way to carry those guns? It looked like they were about to fall off of his back!
The scene on the highway was shown in a lot of promotional material, but it was still effective, and a good warning of what was to come. Atlanta itself was great zombie apocalypse as well. From what we could tell from the scenery, however, it seemed that the zombie plague hasn't been around for too long, at least not long enough to let the city start to burn. Of course, it also has been long enough for the army to have arrived and failed already. This leads to the most intense scene of the episode.
Was the scene under the tank intense and terrifying? Yes. Was it believable that he simply missed the hatch until that last second before he ended himself? Yes. Does that make it any less cheap on the viewers? No. I found myself very upset that there was a hatch underneath the tank and we didn't know it existed until after he climbed through it at the very last second. I keep thinking of ways the director cheated us, but unfortunately, it is entirely in the realm of plausibility that Rick did not see that hatch until he was about to pull the trigger. I felt cheated, but whine as I might, it still technically works. Dammit.
I think all zombie survivors should make a rule to destroy the head of any dead body they find. Otherwise you could end up dead, like Rick almost did.
The final scene of Rick and the gun, right before the radio starts crackling, showed one of the struggles I'm sure he's going to cope with, as much as any other character on the show: why keep on living? He almost ended it under the tank, because he was almost zombie kibble, and he almost did it again in the tank. Maybe he didn't put it to his head like he did under the tank, but I'm sure that's what he was thinking as the zombies slammed on him from above and below and all around. I am glad the radio crackled, though, and called him a cocksucker, though. Any leader can tell you that although many people are swayed by nice leadership, sometimes demeaning them is just what they need. And I think that more than just a voice, Rick needed one that both recognized him and called him out on a very dangerous course of action. Then we get the rather upbeat song playing as the zombies swarmed the tank and the horse. A great way to end the episode. Leave us with a cliffhanger and some hope.
Any zombie fan knows that there are all types of zombies and reasons for the plague. The plagues can range from chemicals to radioactivity to even mystical forces, and the zombies can be anything between Romero's shamblers to 28 Days Later's runners, and so I find it good sport to learn about The Walking Dead's zombies. I'm sure the comic explains it all, but I'm going to tackle it on my own.
We learn from the little girl that these zombies can pack some speed. She starts to jog to Rick, instead of a simple shamble. We also see a few zombies in Atlanta pick up the pace as well. Could this mean they are a different type of zombie, or that this particular plague takes advantage of the zombies who are not severely decomposed?
We learn from the father and son duo that it can be spread through both bite and scratch, and it led to a burning hot fever. The bites and scratches are normal, but I find the comment on the fever interesting. The father calls the infected "furnaces," and says they burn way hotter than any fever should. I have seen some infected people in other zombie movies deal with a fever, but none have ever commented on how incapacitatingly bad the fever got.
Finally, we learn in Atlanta that animals are not immune from the zombies. In Dawn of the Dead, for example, the zombies ignored the dog that ran supplies. Unless I am sorely lacking in knowledge over the similarities between horses and humans, these zombies like animals. Does this mean we'll get to see zombie horses later, if not other zombie animals? This would be a little awesome, and more than a little expensive for the effects budget, wouldn't it?
GRADE: A-
A fantastic opening to what is sure to be a riveting series. I take points for the bad mother, but otherwise this was exactly what I was hoping for from a zombie TV series.
MVP Andrew Lincoln. As the main character, I'm sure he's going to be taking this title a lot.
Runner-Up Melissa Cowen (according to IMDb.com) for the torso/"Bicycle Girl" zombie. Zombie actors dont need to do much to shamble and moan, but to crawl, moan, and be completely sympathetic? Good job.
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