by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

4×08:  “After”

For me, after a more-than-two-month absence and a status-quo-shattering midseason finale, the thought of more Walking Dead elicits almost equal parts desire and dread.  No matter how you feel about the show, no matter which of its strengths and flaws you acknowledge or deny, you have to admit that The Walking Dead is an exhausting show.  When Robert Kirkman initially set out to write a continuing story about what happens after the horror movie, as compelling a premise as that may have been, I don’t know if he knew that the results could sometimes be so awful.  What this shows us is that, at the end of the day, as much as people’s instincts may lead to jealousy, rage, hatred and murder under the right circumstances  (and that may make for some interesting stories), most people aren’t any of those things so much as they are… just fundamentally awful to be around (at least in the long term).

Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

4×08:  “Too Far Gone”

One of the big surprises from last season’s conclusion is that the Governor got away.  He wasn’t shot, eaten, or tortured to death, and remained at large no matter what fate he seemed to have earned.  That’s something we all knew was going to come up at some point, and I’m happy to see that his return has been largely fulfilling.

The first moment we see Rick and Daryl arguing over Rick’s decision to abandon Carol was a sobering one for me.  Remember, Carol had been the one that killed the first two people with the virus, and… oh, who cares!  Man, I was tired of that storyline, and if we hadn’t had two episodes away from the prison, I think I would’ve been pretty sick of the whole show by now.  Sure, the last two Governor-centric episodes may have made the overall arc of the first half of this season a little uneven, but by now the affairs of the prison had become so overdrawn that seeing them all blown away by a tank (rather than worked through with reason or logic or “talking about our problems”) is a welcome relief.

Continue reading →

 by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

4×07:  “Dead Weight”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  if I ever find myself in a post-apocalyptic zombie world, I will give up almost immediately.  None of this running around, gathering supplies, forming uneasy alliances with groups that clearly have their own interests at heart until the whole thing goes belly up in a final confrontation between the good and evil that stirs within all men’s hearts (because who are the real monsters?).  Supposedly there are innate patterns of behaviour we follow given certain stimuli, instincts that tell us — right or wrong — what to do.  Instinctively, we can sense danger.  Instinctively, we’d run if a zombie were after us.  Most of us, instinctively, would reach out to help someone running from a zombie if we could do so without putting ourselves in too much danger.  I still maintain that in a world of the walking dead I would find my way to the top of a tall building and jump, my instincts having told me that survival in such a world wouldn’t be worth it.

Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

4×06:  “Live Bait”

After what, in retrospect, turned out to be an exhausting series of season-opening episodes based around the comparatively invisible threat of a virus, “Live Bait” turned out to be a pretty big relief.  The show may have come back in a big way with last week’s “Internment”, a surprisingly action-packed installment, but a break away from our normal setting turned out to be a welcome respite from the normal doom and gloom of a dreary prison and an even drearier people.

“Internment” concluded with this season’s debut of the Governor, menacingly staring at the prison just outside the forestry surrounding it.  We’ll have to wait at least another week to see how that reunion goes, as this week (and next) we have the continuing adventures of the Governor, aka Philip Blake, aka Brian Heriot, aka Snake Plissken on the road.  Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

4×05:  “Internment”

There was a moment of sheer terror as I watched Hershel, Glenn and Sasha help yet another heretofore unidentified virus-stricken person stay alive for a few more hours, and I thought to myself, “… is this going to be a bottle episode?”  It was starting to feel like the kind of episode that would rely heavily on introspection as we faced even more (boring) realities of fighting a virus and not much action.  For those not blessed enough to have lived significant parts of their lives watching Community, a bottle episode is an episode designed to be produced cheaply, relying on sets already built, main characters, and as little preparation and outside work as possible.  But holy sh*t, this was not a bottle episode.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →