The Walking Dead
By Wyatt Earp | October 31, 2010
Oooooh baby!
The undead goodness begins tonight at 10pm on AMC.
UPDATE: First scene with the little girl? AWESOME!
Topics: The Walking Dead | 36 Comments »
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October 31st, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Walking Dead? I was expecting photos of Reid and Pelosi…
October 31st, 2010 at 2:35 pm
WOOHOO!! I can’t wait.
Happy Halloween everyone!
October 31st, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Proof – No, these zombies have better skin.
DL474 – You, too! We’ll be heading out in about an hour.
October 31st, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Me too. This has been a really good comic. I am going to wait for the later airing–no fancy dvr action here–and enjoy it thoroughly while the family is asleep.
October 31st, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Hurry up 10 o’clock!
October 31st, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Centaur – First episode was fantastic. Can’t wait until next Sunday!
Randal – I thought it was excellent, but maybe I am over-selling.
October 31st, 2010 at 11:37 pm
It was very good and the upcoming previews look great. I wonder if he’s going to run into the black guy and his son again?
October 31st, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Randal – Hope so. I was so waiting for him to pull the trigger on the second floor.
November 1st, 2010 at 2:10 am
Oh God, the horse!
What an awesome series!!
November 1st, 2010 at 7:45 am
DL474 – You mean, ex-horse. Yeah, this series is definitely a keeper.
November 1st, 2010 at 9:20 am
Can I just say that, as a nurse, I have experience with people pulling out their IV’s. There’s usually blood.
And I like that the only line in that clip is, “NURSE!”
November 1st, 2010 at 9:28 am
I didn’t watch the episode (thanks Wyatt..didn’t post this until yesterday…some warning. I look to you for all my entertainment needs, man!). It’s not on Hulu, and AMC.com just gives a text summary.
Also, why is it that zombie movies/shows always show the zombies as lumbering, slow moving imbeciles with leprosy? Seriously. Their one advantage is numbers. Numbers and persistence. Their chief advantages….nevermind.
You know what would be a good zombie movie would be one where you can’t tell if the guy next to you behind the barrier is a zombie or not. Creepy.
November 1st, 2010 at 9:33 am
Ok, one more comment. The line is actually “Nurse, help!” We nurses can’t even get a break when we’re dead!!
PS: Did you notice the dead people were in the hospital cafeteria? (puts finger to side of nose). Yep.
November 1st, 2010 at 9:33 am
Picky – AoS had a pretty good rundown – and not many spoliers – here. Also a decent nitpicking session. The part in the hospital was the only real thing they had an issue with. I agree.
November 1st, 2010 at 9:36 am
Picky,
They don’t write the zombies like that because you would not be able to tell the difference between the zombies and democrats until you started talking about Obamacare….
November 1st, 2010 at 9:37 am
I give it a C+ B-. It has a lot of potential, but it isn’t quite living up to it.
The zombies look great. With that girl in the park, with half her lower body missing, you can tell that they aren’t going to try any of that “it’s a virus causing this, so we can cure it” crap. These are straight up living dead zombies. No chaser.
But the personal interactions are kinda weak.
OK, I get that he’s (Deputy) been in a coma for a while, so he doesn’t know what’s going on. But when he first met that black father/son duo, the writers did a poor job of conveying the info dump this guy is going to get.
Second, the Deputy leaving to go find his wife and kid. OK, a necessary plot driver. But it wasn’t really sold. A month after the zombie apocalypse, it is going to be tough to psych yourself up to move out of a safe place with friendly faces. Does it have to happen? Of course, to keep the plot moving. But if you want me to believe someone is going to leave a safe place when Zombies are running arround, you will have to sell me on that. Just saying Atlanta was the refugee center prior to the big radio silence isn’t going to do it.
I get the sense that this series is trying to put a lot of focus on the living characters and how they interact with each other and scarcity in a zombie over-run world. And I appreciate that. But they need to work on that some more.
Instead of just a stupid ass gore fest, or a George Romero style “we are worse than the zombies” retard philosophy.
I will say this in the series favor: I like the sense of compassion that is there for the zombies. Or rather, the people they *used* to be, prior to them being damned. For example, when the Deputy actually took the time to do that mercy killing of the girl in the park, and said “I’m sorry this happened to you” prior to the fatal bullet was strong. That made the deputy a better character. It gave him a moral compass that goes along with the “To Protect and Serve” cop ethos.
Same with the black father. He could put down a stranger zombie no problem. But his wife? That was tough. Which is really how it would be. Yeah, she’s a zombie. You gotta do what you gotta do. But in real life, it’s tough to terminate life support on a husband or mother or son in the hospital. Same with a zombie family mercy killing.
Of course, when the zombie mob comes at you, no mercy. Head shots for everyone.
I also like how they make using firearms risky, because the sound of the gunshot draws even more zombies. A damned if you do, damned if you don’t dillema.
Last but not least, Wyatt, were you as pissed off at that beginning car chase shoot-out as I was? Deputy gets shot, is lucky his vest stops it, then starts jaw-jacking like a retard, turning around and his back to the crime car, and then promptly gets shot again?!?!? What the hell? He is both tactically retarded and an unlucky bullet magnet?
I mean, in the trailer, it looked great. Car chase, heroic deputy catches a bullet in vicious fire fight, wakes up about two weeks later in zombie wrecked hospital. Great set up.
But instead we get Deputy Flappy McRetard hopping around begging to get shot, getting shot, not learning his lesson, getting shot *again*, and then this guy has the nerve to state that the Zombie Deputy at the station was careless, and that’s why he never liked him?
Anyway, I sure hope the character developement gets better. That could make this a great series.
But I doubt it will. I think it will stay at a C+ level.
November 1st, 2010 at 9:47 am
“Tactically retarded.” Snork. I’d think that also described Our Hero’s entry into downtown Atlanta pretty well…
Oh well: Horror movies would be a lot shorter if the principal characters actually used common sense, wouldn’t they?
Myself, I thought the show was great. Can’t wait for the next episode…
November 1st, 2010 at 9:49 am
Ed – You picked at it more than I did, but I see your points. The empathy factor was excellent, and while I wanted to see the father shoot the missus, I could understand why he couldn’t. Same thing with Rick, who apologized. Great scenes – and the crawling girl’s FX were phenomenal.
The gun point is fantastic, IMO. It rules out the fact that it’ll be shotgun blasts throughout the series. The baseball bat scene added some variety.
I chalk up the character build-up and plot points being a little weak to it being the series premiere. I think they’ll flesh it out more down the road.
As for Rick being shot. Yeah, dumb bitching while the scene isn’t cleared. They would have been better off going the Saving Private Ryan route. Have Rick get shot, see him thankful the vest caught it, then see him shot again. More believable.
Wes – Overall, I did, too. Although I read at Ace that it’s only six episodes long. I hope this is just a filler season and that it will become a full series afterward.
November 1st, 2010 at 9:50 am
…In related news, some of our troops in Afghanistan have been actively developing a contingency plan for dealing with the zombie threat.
Seriously. Well, sort of.
http://www.stripes.com/news/downrange-with-the-living-dead-1.123731
November 1st, 2010 at 9:54 am
Why does this talk about empathy for zombies make me think of Star Trek TNG and the Borg? At least the zombies don’t make you work or something after they eat you.
Which also begs the question: what kind of retarded zombies are out there that forgot how to eat properly? I mean, isn’t the means of propagating the species “bite but do not consume.”? Seems to me that, assuming the virus hit ten people, those 10 zombies would start eating uninfected people at the rate of one per day, after two days there would be 10 zombies and 20 missing persons. I think the non-infected would go all Rambo on the slow, lumbering horde. See: explosive arrows.
November 1st, 2010 at 9:59 am
Wes – I know I feel better! (Oh, and according to IMDb, AMC is considering further seasons of 13 episodes apiece. I assume the ratings for last night were pretty good, so we should be seeing more zombie goodness.)
Picky – Exploding arrows. I think every police department needs a few of those.
November 1st, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Okay, so a few things irritated me too…
1. After waking up from a coma and realizing something horrible happened in the hospital why hell was he walking around without finding some sort of weapon?
2. When the boy and his father met the deputy, why they didn’t they communicate clearly? When he asked how he got hurt, why didn’t he just tell him right off the bat? And when he was tied to the bed, why didn’t the deputy simply tell him his story, when asked again how he got hurt?
3. What kind of moron goes riding into Atlanta on horseback, by himself, during a zombie holocaust?
4. When the man was attempting to shoot his zombie wife, the makeup around her eyes was terrible.
November 1st, 2010 at 12:33 pm
DL474 – 1. Devil’s advocate? He didn’t know what was going on yet.
2. I’m with you on that one. Although he may have assumed everyone knew about the zombie apocalypse, and didn’t think there were people who were out of the loop.
3. Again, I’m with you. Siphon the fuel from the old people’s truck and drive in.
4. She looked like she had bags under her eyes, not zombie blood running through her brain.
November 1st, 2010 at 1:11 pm
@ #1…there was blood all over the walls! lol
November 1st, 2010 at 1:20 pm
DL474 – (Trying to cover his arse.) Oh, you see that in every hospital!
November 1st, 2010 at 1:49 pm
In the last scene, when he is trapped in the tank, I thought I heard someone say over the tank radio…”*****, are you in the tank?” But I’m not 100% sure…
So it sounds like maybe someone is actually watching what just happened. Interesting. And there was that helicopter that flew overhead just prior.
So what is Rick going to do? Wait for the dead to wander off in a day or so and sneak off un-noticed? Try to start up the tank and bulldoze his way through Atlanta? Wait for rescue from who-ever either saw him or the mysterious helicopter? There is a .50 cal mounted on top of that tank. Let’s hope Rick has some prior military experience that he can call on here!
November 1st, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Ed – I heard that, too. Someone was definitely watching. So either we see a rescue, or he fires up the .50 cal. But remember “ammo goes fast” and the guns draw the walkers, so that may not be the best plan.
November 1st, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Am I the only one who was waiting for his hospital johnny to get caught in the bicycle chain flipping him head over heels? But, hey, nice shot of the gown streaming behind him as he peddles down hill.
November 1st, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Wyatt, remember when Rick gave Morgan that scoped rifle? As soon as I saw it, I thought “man, that scope is going to make shooting the wife so much tougher.”
The AMC trailer showed us he was going to have to face shooting her. And with that scope, it really was “face to face.” No iron sights to put between you and the target.
November 1st, 2010 at 2:34 pm
ArkieRN – I was half-expecting that, too. Flipped over a bike naked is no way to go through life.
Ed – Making it much harder to do. I was almost screaming, “Shoot her! Shoot her!”
November 1st, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Anyway, I’m definitely going to watch part 2.
I’ve criticized some of this show, but I’m not gonna stop watching.
Zombies…man, they creep me out.
November 1st, 2010 at 2:37 pm
I was almost screaming, “Shoot her! Shoot her!”
Yeah, me too.
It’s kinda like how when Old Yeller dies. You know it NEEDS to happen.
But it sure sucks when it happens.
November 1st, 2010 at 3:00 pm
I was ready to grab the gun and shoot her myself. lol
November 1st, 2010 at 7:49 pm
The show was terrific. And the reason for the horse is, well, besides providing cool imagery, I believe the thought is that a horse is easier to maintain; easier for the horse to forage than to constantly try finding gasoline, for example. Also, there are lots of places a horse can go that a car cannot go. Of course, zombies won’t eat your car, so there’s that.
November 2nd, 2010 at 12:04 am
Ed – I, too, had to pick apart the pursuit/shooting scenes. They were just terrible. There is hope for the series, IMO.
November 2nd, 2010 at 9:09 am
Wyatt:
I blogged about this on Monday as well…I call it JUSTIFIED meets ZOMBIEVILLE (only edgier)…lol.
I loved it, in spite of some minor gaffs!
(Now, if he could ONLY hang onto the ordnance)