by Thom Yee

All images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels.

5×02: “Strangers”

Remember Dale? The old-guy voice of reason and supposed moral centre of the group until he just started being really annoying? Dale’s death was one of the most impactful in the show, not for its execution or how much we didn’t want to see him die (because we did want to see him die by that point in season two), but because it was a huge departure from the comicbooks. His death was the first real sign that we weren’t in Kansas anymore/Kansas is going bye-bye/some other Wizard of Oz-based affectation about Kansas representing home/somewhere we’re comfortable (though you could argue zombie Sophia was a big one too, but nobody cares about Sophia, who’s still still alive in the comics). In the comicbook, Dale lived past the farm, past the Governor and past the prison, and it finally looks like we’re catching up to his comicbook (or “real”) death.

Here’s a great shot of Dale in case you’ve already forgotten him: Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Why I’m watching… The Walking Dead season 5

All images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels.

So in a lot of ways, The Walking Dead has gotten progressively worse since its six-episode launch, all the way back in 2010.  Beginning with a strikingly shot, strongly paced and compelling first episode before settling into a tight, dramatic and fairly realistic overall arc (except for that one episode… you know the one), in many ways that first season was the high watermark for the entire series.

Now, when people tell you what’s good about The Walking Dead — that it’s exciting, that the action is well done, that nobody’s safe — they’re not entirely wrong.  On a technical level, the show does look like a post-apocalypse zombie world and all of the maiming and killing and set pieces look fully realized — the execution of the good parts is all very strong.  It’s just the storytelling that doesn’t add up.  We spend too long in places (the farm) and it really slows everything down, things are drawn out for way too long (letting the Governor live beyond the natural conclusion of his seasonal arc), we’re introduced to incorporeal threat (the virus), and we see characters hang around for three seasons without ever being fleshed out (T-Dog). Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC,  Fox International Channels, and Image Comics

4×16:  “A”

So the Jerks ended up being little more than that. Selfish, depraved, rapey jerks, with no long-term story implications and no impact beyond helping to drive home a point that, it turns out, may have actually been building this entire time even despite the seeming pointlessness of the individual season four episodes.

For all of season four’s faults in character, pacing, and truncated seasonal arcs, “A”, the sixteenth and final episode of the season, wound up being pretty good. There was no long-stirring threat that suddenly exploded, no prolonged action set pieces or main character deaths. Continue reading →