by Thom Yee

The Walking Dead Images courtesy of AMC

6×10: “The Next World”

There’s a version of The Walking Dead, once posited by creator Robert Kirkman well before it was a TV show, that would have seen the series conclude with Carl being the last survivor of our group.  And in a way, that makes a lot of sense and provides a surprisingly satisfying catharsis in a series where Rick has pretty much always been the lead.  The passing of the torch, the student becomes the master, the son becomes the father and like that, so it’s also sensible that Carl would be the ultimate untouchable character in the show if only because of what he represents. And then he gets shot right in the eye.  Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

The Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC

6×09: “No Way Out”

I don’t know why, but for some reason I felt compelled to watch some old episodes of The Walking Dead during this year’s midseason break, and somehow, in the midst of all of the Holiday festivities, family togetherness, celebratory warmth, and zombie gore, I realized that I’ve really grown fond of the show. That might seem obvious from my having written recap reviews of the show since season four, but it’s a show that I’ve had a lot of problems with over its lifespan, and at its critically bleakest points, it was often a show I hate watched more than actually enjoyed.  Since I took that chance to look back at where the show’s been and where it is now and have really been able to consider what a big part of my TV-watching life it’s become, I feel like I’ve reached a point of contentment and comfort with the show, and it’s become something I actively want to watch and actually kind of miss when it’s gone. Even though I pretty much already know where everything’s going. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

The Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC.

6×08: “Start to Finish”

For a variety of reasons, The Walking Dead can be a tough show to judge objectively. It’s really popular, there are a lot of things going on at once, some of which you might love and some of which you’ll just as easily hate, it’s not a situation most of us can fundamentally relate to (at least not at this extreme a level), and as a prestige-format specialty cable series, it runs on a shortened schedule that doesn’t stick around all year like most 22-24-episode shows on the major networks. For me, especially as a viewer of the show and a reader of the comicbook, it feels like we’ve been in Alexandria forever, but here at the midseason finale, it’s only been the last few episodes of last season and the first half of this season, and everything from this season has really only taken place over the course of a day so far. In that context, it’s kind of shocking the that things have changed so much in this little Safe-Zone since Rick and co. decided to drop in.

Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

The Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC.

6×07: “Heads Up”

Between the Jon Snow Game of Thrones season six poster that debuted today and last night’s Walking Dead episode, what is this, the season of people not being dead? I mean, who else is gonna turn out to not be dead, Ned Stark? Derek Shepherd? Omar from The Wire?

So hands up, who’s surprised Glenn’s not dead? No one? No hands up? That’s what I thought. We were all hit pretty hard by Glenn’s seeming demise towards the end of “Thank You”, the third episode of this season, though there was a fair amount of skepticism about his death even back then, but the way not knowing what happened to Glenn has been strung out over the last four weeks made it increasingly clear to most of us that he wasn’t dead. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

The Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC.

6×06: “Always Accountable”

It may have taken a full five seasons, but it was last season’s final episode that finally sold me on The Walking Dead as a television series. It was the sudden appearance of Morgan, saving Daryl and Aaron with a serenity and a respect for life and humanity, that finally convinced me that the show was, at least this one time, capable of selling some of the higher-minded thematic ideals it’s been trying (and too often failing) to play with throughout its run. And yes, I’m starting this recap talking about a character that doesn’t even appear in the episode.

Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

The Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC.

6×05: “Now”

Party’s over, everyone.  We now return to your regularly scheduled The Walking Dead.

I don’t think anybody could reasonably expect the type of pacing we’ve seen since the beginning of this season to continue indefinitely, and it was more than reasonable to expect a breather episode sometime around now, but all of the forward momentum we’d gained from the first three episodes of season six really just ground to a full-stop hault in “Now”, and it’s that comparative storytelling inertia that made it hard to care or latch on to any of the stories being told this week. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

The Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC.

6×04: “Here’s Not Here”

Boring!

It was clear from the moment that Morgan showed back up in our television-viewing lives to save Daryl and Aaron from that zombie-horde trap in last season’s finale that he’d been through a lot since the last time we saw him. The character had gone from crazy, bitter, vengeful, and barely there after the death of his son at the hands of the zombified wife he had, till that point, been unable to put down, to some sort of staff-wielding, peace-loving Zen master, spouting lines like, “all life is precious”. At the time it was a breath of fresh air, not only for the character, but for this continually downtrodden show that we’ve been watching for the past five years, but that was before seeing things like the Wolves attack on Alexandria and how every one of the people that Morgan left alive tended to come back and hurt or kill (or at least try to hurt or kill) our heroes. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

The Walking Dead images courtesy of AMC.

6×03: “Thank You”

I don’t think it takes that much thought to reach the conclusion that being eaten alive until you die (and obviously we’re talking about being eaten in pieces, not just swallowed whole) probably isn’t a great way to go. A lot of people died this week on The Walking Dead… not as many as last week, but a little more personally… and a lot less quickly. Obviously we’ve seen people bitten, eviscerated, and dismembered by walkers before on this show, but with how detailed these onscreen deaths are becoming as the show’s effects budget increases alongside its ratings, it’s getting tough to sit through these prolonged death scenes and not think about the value of mercy killing. When you’re in a situation where almost all of you made it to the other side of the fence, don’t just watch the one unlucky member of your group that didn’t make it die. Shoot him in the head or something, he’s being eaten alive! That’s gotta hurt! Continue reading →