by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

4×04:  “Indifference”

Mirroring its title, “Indifference” is a boring, downer of an episode.  It’s also an important one.

I’ve always maintained that if I were caught in some sort of post-apocalyptic world with clear and present dangers, where everything is worse, and there’s no chance of going back to the way things were, that I would give up pretty quickly.  What’s the point of survival if surviving is so bad, in continuing in a world where the living would envy the (non-walking) dead?  Right now, that seems to be the point where most of our characters are.  They’ve gotten past the point of base survival in the relative security of the prison, they’ve overcome the great human threat that was (and still is) the Governor, and now they’re facing down the fact that this life will probably just keep getting worse.  If it’s not the virus, it’ll just be something else.

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by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

4×03:  “Isolation”

Carol has quietly become one of my favourite characters in The Walking Dead.  Starting as a put-upon housewife, she’s one of the few characters who’s grown stronger and steadier over the course of the series in spite of having lost her husband and daughter (plus zombies being everywhere).  This is in sharp contrast to her comic book counterpart who gradually goes nuts and kills herself, leaving her daughter behind (and yes, in the comics, Sophia is still alive and well and doing nothing of consequence).  She even temporarily hooked up with Tyreese.  Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen on the show.

“Isolation” deals with the aftermath of the virus’s discovery as it quickly engulfs the prison and even lays claim to an important character:  Glenn.  Having discovered the remains of Karen and David last episode, Tyreese goes nuts on Rick and Daryl, swearing that Rick needs to find who killed them.  A plan is hatched by the council to raid a veterinary clinic 50 miles away for its antibiotics to treat the growing quarantine population.  And that’s the setup.

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by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

4×02:  “Infected”

So that’s why Rick let all those Woodbury people join his group:  so more people can die.  Clearly this disease is going to take some level of centrality in the story going forward, and in some ways it’s surprising that the topic hasn’t really come up yet.  I guess the timeline isn’t really clear (unless we’re using what seems to be Carl’s apparent age as an indicator, because he does look a lot older than at the beginning of the series), and we did acknowledge disease with the CDC season one closing arc, but at some point, if “we’re all infected”, some people are just going to drop dead and come back as walkers without ever having been bit.  And now we’ve got a whole town’s worth of people to use as disease fodder.

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by Thom Yee

Why I’m watching… The Walking Dead

All Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

Everybody’s watching The Walking Dead.  It’s a cultural phenomenon so strong that it’s managed to attract people to the original comicbooks and is actually bringing regular people into comicbook stores, and that’s an incredibly momentous thing (and something that even Marvel’s movies generally fail to do).  What creator Robert Kirkman has managed to do is create a perfect storm of commercial success, with massive viewerships, over and above usual cable network metrics, and rapid sellouts of print material available in all fine comic and book stores.  If you want to watch The Walking Dead, there’s Sunday nights on AMC.  If you want to talk The Walking Dead, Talking Dead, a show built entirely around fans discussions follows right after (and gets better ratings than many of its timeslot competitors).  If you want to read The Walking Dead, there’s 118 issues (and counting) of comicbook.  If you want to gift The Walking Dead, the comics are conveniently reprinted in collected edition trade paperbacks and massive prestige-format hardcover collections.  And there’s just enough difference in these formats that people are compelled to watch and read all of it.  I’ve been reading the comicbook almost since the beginning (this month is the comics’ 10^th anniversary), and it’s remained consistently surprising, consistently inventive, and consistently compelling.

But the show is kind of a crapfest.

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