Sunday night posed a viewing quandary for many folks. When time came. Of course the ZSC Command Center TV was turned to AMC for the newest episode of “The Walking Dead.” Unlike any other episode in the series, this week’s featured only two of the main cast for the duration. Kudos to Norman Reedus and Emily Kinney for their performances. It couldn’t have been easy to carry an episode on their own—with a little help from not-so-friendly neighborhood walkers.
Wait a minute . . . . Have you watched the episode? There’s spoilers below.
The overall theme for season four seems to be acceptance. Not necessarily of others, as we saw in this episode, but of the circumstances life’s thrown their way and the deaths they’ve witnessed along the way. Everyone in this world had to step back and look at their lives objectively. What good would it do to be pissed at the world? Would anger put food on the table? Could it bring back their loved ones? Anger certainly can come in handy when it comes to killing walkers, as we saw with Daryl’s hole-in-one tee-off in the locker room during the middle of the episode.
But anger can also make one sloppy, careless. Beth has been working through the stages of grief since her father’s murder and the attack on the prison. The anger stage set her off on a mission—she wanted booze. It wasn’t an end to their problems she desired, just a drink to take the edge off everything she’s avoided confronting emotionally.
“All I wanted to do today was lay down and cry, but we don’t get to do that.”
Beth’s ignored her feelings since early on at the prison. After they lost the farm, she switched her focus from what she needed to what others needed. It gave her a somewhat healthy distraction, but also didn’t allow her time to mourn her losses properly. Until now when it’s just her and a growly redneck traipsing through the woods. Now she’s got all the time in the world. There’s no kids to take care of. No food to cook. No home to clean. No one to talk to—let’s face it, Daryl is not Chatty Cathy. She’s stuck mourning all her losses at the same time, most notably losing the home she thought they’d remain in until someone somewhere came up for a solution for the undead problem.
Her mission for a “real” drink took them to a country club. Right off the bat, the place feels hinky. As they clear the building, picking up needed items along the way, it becomes apparent something horrible happened inside the club’s main building. Something not done at the hands of walkers. Even when death knocked at their door, the class structures inherent in a place like a country club—where the wealthy are given free rein to lord over the employees—were still in play. Through the dead Beth and Daryl found, we start to weave together a story told through the ages. The wealthy, when caught unprepared for disaster, were obliterated by those who felt their money made them less than human. How could anyone who never had to beg and scrape to pay the bills have any feelings? The reasoning isn’t sound. Frankly, it’s insane. The stress of survival does bad things to people. We’ve seen it time and time again in four seasons of the show.
Daryl doesn’t often show typical signs of stress. He’s like a duck in water, letting everything roll off his back. Sadly, it’s always been this way for him. This week we finally learned what exactly Daryl did before the walkers came—not a dang thing, apparently. He tooled around with his brother Merle, causing mischief and doing nothing productive with his life. Daryl didn’t call the shots. He acted as a lackey for his drug-addled, loud-mouthed older brother. Possibly the most shocking part of the episode wasn’t any of the walker kills, or even Daryl’s borderline abusive attempt to teach Beth how to use a cross bow. Daryl talked about Merle and his father. He never talks about his family, and hasn’t mentioned his brother since Merle was turned walker and Daryl killed him. Dwelling on the past is not his favorite pastime.
Escaping the past isn’t so easy, though. The prison attack, all those needless deaths, it’s eating away at Daryl. He finally made something out of his life, finally stepped out free from his brother’s long shadow to fashion himself into an apocalyptic hero of sorts. Only to lose the majority of the people he’d agreed to protect. Beth told him, “I know you look at me and see another dead girl.” Because that’s all they’ve left in their wake from Atlanta to the farm to the prison, dead girls who couldn’t hack it. He saw this and tried like hell to save them. And failed. Listening to Beth’s resigned statements about her final fate, how he’ll be the only one of their group to survive, hurts Daryl on a level he’s not comfortable showing her. He doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t want to fail the family he’s chosen and fought for. Failing his blood family was bad enough.
Daryl and Beth vented, fought, drank, and finally came to understand what makes each other tick. This is vital to their continued survival. Beth won’t throw a fit and wander off to nearly be eaten. Daryl won’t try to take on too many walkers and end up at the wrong end of all those rotting teeth. They’ve got each other, now. No one else. They need to make it work or die trying to find a new place to call home.
What did you think about having an episode with only two cast members? Let us know in the comments below.
The second half of Walking Dead’s forth season should, by all rights, be slow-paced. Right? There’s no way with the huge cast cut down to manageable chunks to manage huge, tension-filled scenes chalk full of blood, guts, and grief.
Wrong.
So far the second half of the season moves smoothly, with a few hiccups mostly to cut out unneeded moments best covered in dialog later. This episode focused on the new folks—Sgt. Abraham Ford, Rosita Espinosa, and Eugene Porter—along with Tara and Glenn, and Rick, Carl, and Michonne’s plan to get their bearings before moving on from their little slice of normality.
Last week, we were introduced to Sgt. Abraham Ford and his companions, but didn’t get much further than, “Hey, who the heck are these people?” In episode 411, there’s a lot more time spent with Ford, in particular. Right out of the gate, it’s disturbing how much he enjoys a fight. Tara called him on it when she noticed his smile during a walker (biter) attack. Ford is a formidable fighter—mean and silent until he’s sure he’s got the upper hand. He wastes little energy on showmanship. And boy does he enjoy T.C.o.B. – Taking Care of Business when it comes to the walkers. What drives him? A personal vendetta against the undead? Or is he more like Lizzie, someone who kills because they enjoy it? Unlike the show’s pint-sized sociopath, Ford at least appears to care what happens to the people he’s taken under his wing. Not to mention, being totally gung-ho to deliver Eugene to whatever semblance of government survived this far past the original walker swarm. Yet Ford somehow fails to acknowledge Rosita’s emotional attachment. He’s isolated himself, drew everything in until he’s a laser, focused on the mission at hand.
For his part, Eugene doesn’t seem as concerned with reaching Washington as Ford. He’s smart. Smart enough to know they can’t travel alone and hope to survive. Does he really have the answers Rick and his crew struggled to find back in season one when their last-ditch effort landed them at the doors of the CDC? This far in, there’s no way to know what’s going on in Eugene’s head. Or on his head. What is up with the mullet? It makes me not want to trust this guy at all.
Glenn doesn’t seem to trust them, either. He’s still weak from the flu, liable to pass out again at any moment. But when it comes to finding Maggie, he’ll walk straight into Mordor and knock on Sauron’s front door. Which he very well could be doing. There are no guarantees he’ll find his wife again. The hope instilled in Glenn from his time with Hershel shines through like the sun through storm clouds. How far can he walk fueled by hope alone? Three hours by truck is a far way to backtrack on foot. By then, Maggie could be anywhere. She’s not going to sit idle, hoping he’ll come across the bus. Glenn is ruled by his emotions, blindly walking toward whatever future rises over the horizon. The only way they’re going to have hope of finding each other is if one stops and makes a plan. Obviously, Glenn isn’t the one thinking about tomorrow. Only today.
Better to live in the moment instead of haunted by the past. Michonne’s existence since the day she was introduced on the show has been dogged by what happened to her at the onset of the undead outbreak. Never once has she opened up about how she became the hardened fighter she is now. Not even to Andrea, with whom she spent months traveling and killing to survive. “I’m done taking breaks,” she told Rick. Michonne is finally ready to stop running from her past and embrace the future. A future she sees alongside Carl and Rick, apparently. For the first time ever, she reached out to someone else and vocalized her internal pain. Carl, for all his bravado, is actually a good shoulder to lean on. He’s eager to learn anything about his friend, to the point of badgering her. But he also knows she needs to do this. She needs to touch someone on an emotional level in order to ground herself against the tidal waves of pain the past sends her way. While in the process of bleeding the rot from her soul, Michonne doesn’t forget who she’s dealing with. She turns her soul cleansing into a game for Carl. In return for her mental growth, he learned how to better forage for essential supplies. Seems like a fair deal.
Unfortunately Rick doesn’t get a chance to witness the bonding between Michonne and Carl. He’s supposed to rest and heal after his beating from the Governor. Instead, he’s forced into flight-or-fight mode by a group of piggish intruders. These guys are bad news and we never really see them. The camera work during the moments when Rick dodges from room to room trying to avoid detection is well done, but slightly disorienting which detracts from the tension. Still, a very well done moment. It proved Rick isn’t ready to be put down like an old dog. He’s still in the fight, limping but committed to making it to tomorrow.
Several of the smaller survivor groups are headed in the same direction now. Dare we hope the crew will be whole once again? True fans of the show know better. Hope was decapitated long ago.
Why do you think Michonne lied to Carl about what she found in the pink room? Let us know in the comments below.
Talk about some tense moments. Pretty sure there’s holes in the Command Center’s couch after the newest episode of “The Walking Dead.” Well, holes not put there by scavenging zombie bunnies. They’ll eat anything, much like the walkers in this episode. Note to dead guys: flames are not food. Fire bad, bleeding corpse pretty. Okay?
You shall not pass . . . if you wish to avoid show spoilers.
This week, viewers caught up with the remainder of the main characters, starting with Daryl and Beth. During their stay at the prison, Beth fell back in the habit of journaling and covered their journey to make a home in the apocalypse—something we never saw, but once her entries were read in the episode, they struck a nerve. Listening to Beth’s strained hope after they found the prison in contrast with her and Daryl’s mad dash through zombie-infested woodlands twisted the knife still firmly implanted in viewer’s hearts after the mid-season finale. Beth’s hope stemmed from her father. From the idea that normalcy was once again obtainable after so long on the run once the farm fell to the undead. From the simple idea of having a bed to call her own. The prison is gone, a smoldering graveyard. Her bed left to provide rats and bugs with homes. And Hershel . . . there’s no hope left in his unseeing eyes.
Daryl isn’t packing much hope, either. He’s got the stare of a man waiting for the split second he isn’t good enough to make it in the wild. For him, that may be weeks out. Daryl also understands, without him, Beth and her journal of hopes and dreams would be chow, much like the pile of dead walkers and human chunks they found near the train tracks. In a way, she’s become his motivation. Before Daryl had Merle, then little a** kicker, and later when everything looked good he opened his home and heart to any stray people he encountered who needed help. Regret is a powerful drug. As is guilt. How many deaths does Daryl hold over his head? He personally rescued a good portion of the prison’s inhabitants, put them directly in the line of the Governor’s tank fire.
Luckily for Daryl, and Carl and Rick, Judith is alive. Tyreese is the kiddo pied piper. Not only did he rescue Judith from becoming a yummy snack, but he’s also toting around Lizzie and Mika. Much to his delight. Tyreese is all heart. There’s limits to it when faced with a screaming infant, eternally frightened Mika, and the picture of sociopath behavior Lizzie. Any saint would turn to Satan for help dealing. Tyreese doesn’t. He convinces himself he’ll see the three girls to safety, even if it means relying on the darkness in Lizzie to be his backup. That’s a dog that’ll come back to bite everyone. Lizzie is too unstable. Too unpredictable. The type of person who’d murder anyone and everyone to see to her own survival. Does that extend to her sister? For now. It certainly doesn’t extend to Judith. The only reason the baby survived the episode is because someone else stepped in.
Carol is back. Actually, according to her she never left. Which everyone should’ve expected. As far off the reservation as Carol went in the days before Rick told her to never return to the prison, she always acted in a way she thought would protect others. The good of the many outweigh the perils of the few. Since Sophia passed, Carol hardened her will. Forced herself to tap into the internal strength she’d built enduring her abusive husband’s verbal and physical attacks. Unfortunately, her extreme survivor’s point of view clashed with how Rick operated. Will Carol’s strength come in handy? Can she work with Tyreese to keep the girls alive? Most importantly, is there any way she can pull Lizzie back from the abyss?
Glenn and Maggie fans have it the roughest right now. They’re separated. Maggie faced a gauntlet of walkers to make sure her husband didn’t die when walkers overwhelmed the escape bus from the prison. Not alone, she’s supported by Sasha and Bob. They’re help, but not the succor she needs. Maggie won’t be whole or sane until she’s reunited with Glenn. Speaking of, the man has a well-intentioned death wish. Out of everyone who should’ve left the prison in the dust, he’s still there. Weakened from his bout with the super flu. And completely alone, or so he thinks. Glenn isn’t a helpless lamb. He’s learned how to toughen up since they abandoned the quarry. He’s also the only one of the main survivor group, aside from Carol, possessing any supplies not shoved in their pockets when they bolted. Supplies he’s now agreed to share with Tara because he knows his limits. He isn’t like Shane or Daryl. Glenn’s strength is in his heart and mind. Both of which he’ll se to find Maggie, no doubt.
There’s some new faces coming to the show. How they’ll mesh with the survivors is completely unknown.
Were all your questions from the mid-season finale answered? Tell us in the comments below.
These Walking Dead mid-season breaks seem to take longer and longer to pass. But here we are, back in the saddle . . . or rather, clinging to the couch cushions alongside 15.8 million viewers and partaking in the intimate, tense mid-season premiere.
Spoiler Warning! There, you’ve been warned. Proceed at your own risk.
Like the first half of season four, the second half is taking a step back from the grand full-cast episodes to focus on a handful of characters, delve deeper into what keeps them moving despite the fact that they’re at rock bottom. Starting from scratch after the prison battle won’t be easy, especially for those who relied on the council and Rick to keep them safe. This episode focused on Rick, Carl, and Michonne.
For the first time since her introduction at the end of season two, Michonne gets a little depth of soul. We’ve seen glimpses, primarily with Andrea and again after her friend’s death when Michonne reluctantly held baby Judith. Her dream/nightmare said more in three minutes about the south’s deadliest woman with a sword than a season and a half, filled primarily with her seemingly mindless zombie slaughter. It wasn’t until now that we know for sure she had a child, a lover, a friend she felt comfortable and joked around with. Most importantly, Michonne knew how to smile. How to love. A facet of the woman we’ve yet to see clearly. Even when she came around with gifts for Carl, they were found on hunts for the Governor. When she stayed with Andrea to keep the seriously ill woman safe before they went to Woodbury the first time, it was part kindness, part selfishness—she didn’t want to be alone any more.
Michonne came close to losing herself. And why not? She’d watched the people she came to trust and care for under attack from artillery and walkers. Some of those people died. Some survived. But she has no way to know who walked away from the mass grave that was once their home. Andrea left her. Michonne put a sword through Hershel’s decapitated head. Every single person she opened up to deserted her. Even though they didn’t do it by choice, after so much loss a person begins to wonder if there is something inherently wrong with them, they’re the catalyst to their own pain. Somehow pushing their loved ones away to deaden themselves to the horrors around them. Michonne is a pro at this. Until now. She fell into her old routine. Made a new pair of walker friends to lead her safely through a herd of undead. All it took was a glimmer of hope, a muddy boot print, to shake her mind loose of the numb blanket she’d wrapped it in after saying her final goodbye to Hershel. Her moment of clarity didn’t come with a light bulb. It came in a blood bath where she slaughtered twenty-three walkers to keep herself from physically joining them. She’d already joined them mentally.
On the flip side, Carl left the prison slaughter ready to live, to kill anything and everyone posing a threat to him. And his father. Not that he’d admit it. Carl’s sullen teenager act hit a high during the episode. He had good reason—his father’s near-death at the hands of the Governor, friends scattered to the winds, Judith most likely a walker hors d’œuvre, and the loss of the only home he’d known since the day Shane and Lori dragged him out of his childhood home in King County, Georgia. Necessity put Carl in the role of protector, provider. Using the skills he gleaned from Shane and Daryl, he embraced the sociopathy his idols exhibited to secure not only a house, but an entire neighborhood. Throwing it in his father’s face, using Shane to yet again grind in the salt Rick’s deceased best friend poured in his emotional wounds, wasn’t exactly Carl’s shining moment. Everyone has a breaking point. Michonne’s came when she saw herself as a walker. Carl’s came when he thought he’d be forced to live alone. Watching Chandler grow into the large shoes Carl will wear on the show often leaves fans stunned. He digs into a pit of emotion most kids his age can’t access and leaves it all there for us on the screen. Major kudos to Chandler on his work in this episode. It is above and beyond his best, with better things to come, for sure.
We didn’t see much from Rick in the episode. His injuries were too bad. He needed time to recover and fell into something mirroring the coma he’d been in when the series began. Which is fine. Rick has been the show’s punching bag from the get-go. He physically could not be the top dog this time around. Couldn’t even bring down a walker when armed with an ax. Falling short in sight of his impressionable and rebellious son ate at Rick. What could he do? Nothing. For once, the right thing for Rick involved a couch and an extremely long nap. Arguing with Carl would’ve been a waste of words. The kid was in his own zone—a stubborn refusal to listen he ironically inherited from his father.
Next week, it looks like we’ll catch up with Beth, Daryl, Glenn, and Maggie. Get used to the small cast episodes. Robert Kirkman has said they’re playing with the show’s format, keeping the focus on a few characters at a time so fans aren’t cheated out of what makes them tick.
Who else do you think survived the prison attack that we haven’t seen yet? Let us know in the comments below.
Review of “The Walking Dead” 407 – “Dead Weight” By RC Murphy
Having a double helping of something good isn’t always a pleasure. After five episodes without the Governor, watching two episodes focused solely on him chokes the pacing of “The Walking Dead” halfway through season four. The energy viewers get from characters like Daryl and Michonne is impossible to duplicate for the parallel story line following Phillip as he finds himself again after setting Woodbury ablaze. Unfortunately, what seemed like something viewers would enjoy, isn’t paying out as expected. While there are some stand-up-and-yell-at-the-TV moments, they’re too few and far between to keep the momentum rolling into the mid-season climax on December 1st.
Don’t go into the light! It’s the vast brightness of the many spoilers lurking below.
A couple times during the episode, it became painfully apparent that Phillip had forgotten who, exactly, he’s dealing with as his “family.” The way he looks at Meghan is a look reserved for someone who’s watched a child learn and grow since the day they were born. He’s only known the Chamblers for a couple of weeks, a month maximum. There’s no way his connection to Meghan is that rock solid. Toward the middle of the episode, Phillip tells Lilly that he can’t lose them again. Only, he’s never lost them. He lost his wife and Penny—the walker he kept captive in hopes of finding a way to fix her short of putting a bullet in her head. Phillip’s attachment to the Chamblers, namely Lilly and Meghan, is disturbing. He’s out of sync with reality, leaning on two people he hardly knows to keep his humanity in check. It didn’t work.
Martinez’s days were numbered. There’s no use lying to ourselves. Once he made it crystal clear that he was in charge of the camp, things were already set in motion. When he asked Phillip to help him, work for him, there was only ever going to be one outcome. The Governor fully returned to power. He’s so desperate to keep Lilly and Meghan safe, he’ll jump back into the darkness he used to keep Woodbury going during the last weeks of its existence. Even though he repeatedly says, “I don’t want it.” Doesn’t want what, the responsibility of leadership or the blood on his hands from securing his place at the top of the food chain? Does it cost Phillip anything to kill anymore? Anytime we see Rick pull the trigger, you see a piece of his soul wither. With Phillip, who knows? He’s a hard read, a violent man with sociopathic tendencies. However, he makes this impossible connection with a woman and her child that goes against everything known about sociopathic behavior. Is it an act? But to whose benefit? Surely he can’t be trying to fool himself after all this time.
How difficult is it to form a functioning society when everyday Joes are forced to become murderers? Since day one we’ve seen survivors struggle to regain some semblance of normality by coming together to form little neighborhoods. Places where they should feel safe enough to relax, let their kids play. But they don’t in most of these camps. Everyone ends up on edge, watching the one or two people who enjoy the death and destruction around them a little too much. The apocalypse is the maniac’s playground, guns their toys of choice. And since they’re so willing to kill, inevitably, they’re the ones to gain power, become the person to look up to. It corrupts the people in the camp eventually. Look at Woodbury, at how many of the soldiers willingly followed the Governor into battle against Rick and the prison crew. And it is happening all over again next week. Why? Because Phillip knows how to work people. He told Mitch, “You’ll never have to worry if you’re doing the right thing or the wrong thing. We will do the only thing.” That was exactly what the other man needed to hear. He needed a way to absolve the guilt he felt for first, not securing the supplies for the camp, then killing the injured old man, and lastly not killing Phillip after he murdered his brother, Pete. Fighting for the safety of the camp gives Mitch his Get Out of Jail Free card.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown . . . covered in the blood of his predecessors. Can Phillip succeed this time? Will this new group of survivors secure the golden egg—the prison? Tell us what you think in the comments.
Review of “The Walking Dead” episode 406 – “Live Bait”
Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC
In a jarring turn of direction, the writer’s for “The Walking Dead” took viewers completely out of the prison and the lives of the people inhabiting the safe haven within the failing fences. We spent an hour catching up with the Governor, Phillip, Brian—whatever name he’s going by this week. The man changes his name as often as a woman changes her clothes an hour before a hot date. His identity changes with each new name, as well. We met a new version of the Governor in this week’s episode. But how much of that was for show?
Don’t look now, but there’s spoilers sneaking up behind you. Dangit! I told you not to look.
We picked up with Phillip right were we’d left him at the end of season three—standing over the corpses of the men and women from his personal army he’d slain after the failed attack on the prison. From there, it jumps to the next night, or possibly a week later, or a month. Hard to tell with the way the time line jumped back and forth at the beginning. Anyway, it becomes obvious something in Phillip is broken after the mass slaughter of his people. Disgusted, the two living members of his army pack up and leave him on his own. Over time, Phillip stopped taking care of himself. He grew The Beard. You know, the mangy, dead beast looking thing that seems to signify on the show when a male character has given up. Rick grew an impressive one before Michonne brought him a beard trimmer and not-so-subtly hinted that he looked like hell. What are friends for if not to tell you there’s a problem with the way you’re not taking care of yourself? Only, Phillip has no friends. He’s completely alone. The man doesn’t even have a home in Woodbury to return to. He burned it to the ground.
Miserable to his marrow, Phillip wandered on foot through walker-infested roads and towns. Honestly, that he survived at all with his obvious lack of will to live is amazing. He became a ghost, passing through, but never really affecting anything. Until he finds a family of survivors—Tara, Lilly, David, and Megan Chalmers—who are far, far too kind to him.
He tried to cover up his tracks when he burned Woodbury, like the fire would cleanse his foul deeds from his soul. When it didn’t work, Phillip tried for another method—being a decent human being. Something tells us this version of the man, the one known to this new family as Brian, is as close as we’ll ever get to seeing Phillip before the walkers took over the world. He’s soft-spoken, thankful, respectful, and helps when he can. However, the man still punishes himself for quite some time after being taken in, as though he doesn’t feel he deserves something as simple as a meal cooked by someone who genuinely cares about his health and safety. Kindness is not something he has experienced for a good long time. Even when he ran Woodbury, the nice things done for him always had a dark tinge. A taint stemming from the heavy-handed way he ran the town. It wasn’t a safe haven in Woodbury. Phillip turned into a small army base, with himself as the general.
There’s a moment where “Brian” is playing chess with the youngest member of the family, Megan. Suddenly everything about the previous season makes sense. He saw himself as the king, with Rick as the opposing king on the board. Phillip had his knights, rooks, and bishops as his personal circle of enforcers. The others were all pawns. Megan asked when he taught her how to play chess if you lost the game if a pawn died.
“You can lose a lot of soldiers, but still win the game.”
But he didn’t win. Not by a longshot. In war, there are no real winners. Everyone loses men. Life isn’t a game and it took a little girl and her family for that to start to sink into Phillip’s thick skull.
Time will tell if he’s truly learned how to change from the sociopath we saw at the end of season three. From the looks of the preview for next week, he hasn’t. It’s always hard to tell given the way the teasers are edited, though.
Phillip couldn’t look Megan in the eye when he first met the Chalmers. Why do you think he couldn’t? Let us know in the comments below.
No, the title isn’t a typo. The Asylum pros at the horror mockbuster tackled the chance to pit Abe Lincoln against another form of undead after his stint on the big screen going stovepipe-to-fang with a bunch of vampires.
Starring: Bill Oberst Jr., Kent Igleheart, and Rhianna Van Helton. Rated: R (Bloody zombie violence)
Synopsis: Honest Abe tangoed with the undead as a child. Believing his nightmares were long behind him, he moved on to politics and became the 16th president of the United States of America. Now in the midst of the Civil War, the undead are back. They’ve taken over a fort the Union needs in order to gain an upper hand against the Confederates. Abraham Lincoln leads a small company of loyal men into zombie and Confederate territory on a mission to defeat evil once and for all.
The premise held so much promise, along with leading man Bill Oberst Jr. Unfortunately things didn’t mesh up well to make everything work. The script tried too hard to sound like a period piece, leaving some of the actors stumbling over their clunky lines. Some of the notable historical figures, like Abe’s wife, were a mess. I didn’t realize he was married to this woman until an hour into the film, long after she’d been left behind in Washington while Lincoln went on to slaughter zombies with his wicked-sharp scythe. A well-written script will give actors a chance to build a relationship in a short scene. What they were given sounded more like a conversation between friends, possibly cousins. It was not a husband/wife moment. A few other historical figures were sprinkled into the movie. Some were like chocolate chips in a warm cookie. Others stones in room temperature oatmeal. So much of the film was hit-or-miss.
A lot of the film’s action was delivered in dialogue. The zombie attacks are forgettable. I can’t remember one good kill, or a zombie’s actions that stood out from the others. The makeup was standard grey face with mottling, veins, and black blood—the same makeup you’d see at a mid-level professional haunted house during October. Some of the zombie costumes were questionably historical. The women’s skirts in general ran too short for the time period. And at one point, a group of soldiers walks into a whore house, sees the women (living women) in their corsets and underskirts, and acts like it is normal. If a film is going historical, everything needs to mesh with the time period to give it depth. And one of the lead actresses needs to not have her modern bra showing.
There were far too many TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) characters in the film. At one point, it became obvious they were only there to bring in a few more historical figures to play with. That’s well and good, have fun with history, but don’t dumb the characters down. The viewers want them to die, and in this film there were that many good deaths to justify idiotic characters.
I’m going to give Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies three bloody scythes out of five—purely for the premise and Oberst’s performance as Abe. Somehow he managed to make Abraham Lincoln into a somewhat romantic figure. He never went for the cheap, cheesy action. Oberst’s performance was the truest in the film.
Talk about trying to give ZSC Command a collective heart-attack. This week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” was tense. It’s been no secret since season one of the show that every single character could possibly drop dead without warning. Fans are accustomed to fighting the urge to cling to a specific character, outside of Rick and Daryl, for fear their hearts will be ripped out whenever the writers decide it’s time for that character to go.
You know the drill. There’s spoilers down there, and they bite.
We went through this emotional torment with Amy, Sophia, Shane, T-Dog, Lori, Oscar, Axel, Merle, and Andrea. Despite that, some of us still pick favorite characters. And by golly, the writers keep trying to kill off a much loved survivor here in the Command Center—Glenn. We respect Glenn’s commitment to not only his fiancé, Maggie, but her family and all of the other survivors in the prison. He knew the instant Maggie saw how sick he really was, she’d risk herself and everyone else to breach quarantine and take care of him. They need her in good physical and mental shape. The council is shrinking rapidly, not that any of the others knew until Rick returned without Carol. Nevertheless, with Glenn and Hershel in quarantine, Daryl taking himself and two others, and Rick looking for supplies with Carol, that left Maggie the only council member to organize the healthy prison population. While we have no clue the actual survivor count at this moment, it has to be enough people that they need someone to wrangle them, keep them from accidentally setting off events that’d completely compromise the prison. Getting Maggie to understand that is another struggle. Luckily, she’s had her father’s example to learn from. Hershel is an excellent caretaker—putting others before himself, being patient, kind, willing to look a fool in order to calm someone down. But on the flip side, he won’t coddle someone. He tells them the truth about what’s going on. If he can spare them the heart-breaking details, he will. Only if they do not directly impact someone’s health or safety. With such a good example in their lives, it is no wonder Maggie and Beth are two of the saner, calmer people in the prison.
“A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.” – Steinbeck
We’ve seen this theme run through “The Walking Dead” since season one, episode one. Very early on in the series there were a few types of people in Rick’s path on the way to reconnect with his family. The survivors who scraped their lives into a bag and ran to safety. The unlucky who weren’t quick enough to escape and became walkers. And, lastly, the people who gave up. Moments before Rick found the horse he rides into Atlanta, GA, he came across an entire family who’d committed suicide in order to escape what they must have considered the end of days. “God Forgive Us” was scrawled on the living room wall where two of the bodies were found. Suicide became the easy answer for those whose hearts could not accept their surroundings. Jacqui and Jenner chose a quick death in the CDC explosion. Andrea tried to do the same, mourning her sister’s death so much she couldn’t function, until Dale smacked some sense into her. In season two, Beth cut her wrists after Hershel’s walker catch-and-release program resulted in the poor girl witnessing her mother die for the second and final time. The suicides didn’t stop this season. In episode 401, crazy as heck Clara killed herself with Rick as a witness in order to be with her decapitated walker-husband.
But suicide isn’t the only way people have been escaping the trying task of simply living day to day. The premiere for season two took the survivors on the road after the CDC explosion. When they hit traffic, they discovered numerous people still in their cars, desiccated and looking like they’d just given up on getting away once the cars stopped moving on the freeway. Caleb, Dr. S., took a similar route—for vastly different reasons—in the newest episode when he refused medical attention from Hershel. Instead, he insisted Hershel treat the others. Caleb gave up on himself, but not on hope. It was his hope that the extra time could save at least one other person suffering from the flu. Would things have ended differently if Hershel treated the doctor? Probably not. The flu is too strong to be denied its victims. Some of the people who died, were going to die anyway. They were too far gone. But the time was what may have saved Sasha and Glenn, not to mention the IVs Caleb put together moments before he succumbed to the final stage of the flu.
In sticking with tradition, the writers snuck in a little tidbit at the end of this episode. Did you blink and miss you-know-who lurking outside the prison fence? The fires of hell are about to open up and swallow our favorite survivors. All bets are off for the next few episodes.
As they stand now, do you think the prison population can survive another attack from humans? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Look at that, it’s time for another round of torture the zombie. I know. Don’t look the gift horse in the mouth. I could be lying on the cold ground with a machete in my skull, yada, yada, yada . . . . But could the ZSC gift horse stop dredging up SyFy films for me to review? Obviously they didn’t learn their lesson after I reviewed 2012: Zombie Apocalypse. As a matter of fact, the plots for the two films were so similar, I stopped to make sure I hadn’t watched the first one again by mistake. So, what is Rise of the Zombies about?
Starring:Mariel Hemingway, Chad Lindberg, LeVar Burton, Heather Hemmens, and Danny Trejo. Rated: TV-14 (Violence, gore)
Synopsis: In the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, a ragtag group of people finds save haven in Alcatraz, until the undead manage to swim to the island and put them all in danger. Driven from the prison, the survivors of the attack hunt down a scientist who is working on a vaccine for the zombie virus. He may be their only hope to survive in a zombie-filled San Francisco.
I had to write that synopsis myself. SyFy assumed the fans didn’t need to know what the film was about beyond “zombie” being in the title. Because in their world, there is only one zombie film. They just rotate out locations and actors. Gotta say, the casting for Rise of the Zombies caught me by surprise. In a good way. If the cast hadn’t been so wonderful, the awful cheesy dialog would’ve been completely unbearable. How many times did they honestly need to shout, “There’s another zombie!” Yes, we see the zombies. They aren’t exactly ninjas. And there were a lot of them. Over an hour of the film was pure zombie attack scenes with little or no dialog. Which may be why, by the end of the film, I had no clue who the characters were. They had no history. No back story. We catch up with them at the prison and as far as viewers are concerned, every single character had been born there from two rocks rubbing together vigorously.
The blood and gore for the zombies themselves was pretty good, aside from a few understated background zombies who got too close to the camera and looked like Cousin Joey who happened to be in town that day and sneaked onto the movie set. Again, SyFy abused the hell out of computer-generated blood splatter. Why does anyone go that route for easy-to-rig FX gags? CG blood looks cheap and only really works as filler. Not the entire effect. Then it looks like someone handed a kid frames of the film on MS Paint and let them use the spray paint brush on it willy-nilly. All of the FX makeup budget went on to the zombies. The gags rigged for humans were seriously lacking, downright laughable at points. Apparently they were an afterthought.
SyFy tried to make Rise of the Zombies edgy. They even ripped off some of the philosophical issues brought up on The Walking Dead —Suicide, children born in the apocalypse, and what God thought about them killing zombies. The problem is, the script sucks. So while the writers thought they were being deep, the actors had nothing to deliver other than a hazy conviction that they were right. We get no emotional attachment to the characters. When they die, oh well. What’s the point of watching a post-apocalyptic film when you’re watching the clock so you can move on to something else? The film is not engaging for fans.
I’m going to give Rise of the Zombies two ruptured eyeballs out of five. Like all SyFy original movies, this is best viewed while surrounded by friends and a keg of beer. Maybe two kegs.
Talk about a slow simmer building to an explosion. This week’s episode was paced just right, giving viewers enough walker action to keep their hearts racing while simultaneously messing with their heads. Was anyone else uncomfortable watching this episode? In the Command Center, we all scooted up to the edge of our seats—except Juliette because, duct tape.
Warning: There’s spoilers down here. And they float. Oh yes they do.
Sanity seems to have a different meaning in a post-apocalyptic world with zombies on the loose. Statements we’d consider absolutely off-the-walls make some odd sort of sense. Most of the time. However, when Carol’s protege, Lizzie, talks about wanting to die so she can change and come back to life, it still sounds absolutely insane. Her conviction is on par with Hershel when we first met him. Only, with a child’s innocence, she’ll wind up dead and gnawing off her sister’s face if someone doesn’t intervene.
Carol could be that someone. Only, she’s lost her parental drive. Sure, she’ll keep someone safe and make sure they can protect themselves, but the love she carried for Sophia, the love that allowed her to leave the quarry camp in season one after her husband was eaten, is long gone. Buried alongside the daughter she refuses to acknowledge anymore. Why? Because when she found Sophia, it wasn’t her daughter any more. Her daughter died in the woods, not in front of that barn. She’d been holding onto the ghost of her child and now, when all of Carol’s gut-wrenching decisions are changing the way she approaches their messed up world, she can’t open her heart to anyone else. Should anyone look up to her as a mentor? Probably. Carol’s spine is made of the purest steel, forged in the heat of Ed’s abuse long before walkers were even heard of. But steel is cold, unforgiving. She’s relied on that strength for too long. It’s changed her in ways Rick can’t fathom. Which is why, when push came to shove, he had to let her go. Carol became a liability. His focus has to be on the greater good. Once word got out that one of the council members turned murderer, it’d be chaos amongst the healthy population of the prison survivors. For a while Rick relied on Carol’s love to keep the group going. When it turned into ice cold calculation and execution, she forced his hand. And she didn’t fight it. Carol knows she made him turn her out. She’s sane enough to accept responsibility for the murders. But not enough to feel remorse. Something snapped in her mind, sending her to sociopath land. The same happened to the Governor when his walker-daughter was put down. Would Carol go that far into madness?
We’ve known for a while that Michonne is not a social person. She has a handful of people she trusts and comes back to the prison just for them. We see the longing to belong in her eyes more and more as she helps the prison crew on runs. Her talks with Daryl over the last two episodes have given more insight into what makes the two most skilled fighters tick. Oddly enough, the social outcast managed to make her see that she has a home, she just never stays put long enough to feel the love everyone can provide her with. She chooses to be alone, no one forces it on her. Could this be the end of Michonne’s solitude? Possibly. It will take a while to see if being around people makes her antisocial tendencies rear their ugly head. It’s a self-defense strategy. If she doesn’t connect with someone, when they die it doesn’t hurt her. She’s gotta be tired of hurting herself by pulling away from everyone, though.
Tyrese’s head is still not on straight. He went on the mission to grab meds in order to help his sister and honor his dead girlfriend. Only in the new episode did viewers realize, he’d planned for the trip to the vet school to be a one-way suicide mission. He climbed into the car fully aware that he wouldn’t come back. He’d pour everything into killing walkers. And he has. Can the others pull him back from the ledge? There’s no way for Tyrese to get closure. Not with Carol gone. It’s unclear if Rick plans to ever tell the big man who was really the one to light the match and burn those two. And what would he do, then? Hunt Carol down like Michonne hunted the Governor? He would. In the state of mind he’s in, he’d be fully capable of finding her and killing her, with no concern about his personal safety. That’s terrifying. You can’t depend on someone who has nothing to live for.
Bits and pieces of Daryl’s past keep coming up to haunt him. He takes it personally when Bob attempts to fall off the wagon. Why? Because he grew up in a family of addicts. Merle being the worst of them all because while he was rarely around, when he did make an appearance, it was to make his little brother’s life hell. Seeing Bob willfully harm himself and risk their safety because of an addiction set Daryl off. He takes personal responsibility for each and every person he brings into the prison. He holds them to a high standard because he’s choosing to trust them, to make them a part of his family. For someone who went their entire life without, family is important. It is why Daryl gives everything he has to help Rick, to cover the other man’s ass when his sanity took a field trip to the aquarium. Family is why Daryl consistently reminds Michonne that she has a home with them. She doesn’t need to go out looking for fulfillment if she’d just stay put and let the love he’s nurturing in the prison to calm her. Daryl is all heart. He just doesn’t show it in traditional ways.
Do you think we’ll be seeing Carol again? How far can she make it on her own? Let us know what you think.
Beth’s ignored her feelings since early on at the prison. After they lost the farm, she switched her focus from what she needed to what others needed. It gave her a somewhat healthy distraction, but also didn’t allow her time to mourn her losses properly. Until now when it’s just her and a growly redneck traipsing through the woods. Now she’s got all the time in the world. There’s no kids to take care of. No food to cook. No home to clean. No one to talk to—let’s face it, Daryl is not Chatty Cathy. She’s stuck mourning all her losses at the same time, most notably losing the home she thought they’d remain in until someone somewhere came up for a solution for the undead problem.
Daryl doesn’t often show typical signs of stress. He’s like a duck in water, letting everything roll off his back. Sadly, it’s always been this way for him. This week we finally learned what exactly Daryl did before the walkers came—not a dang thing, apparently. He tooled around with his brother Merle, causing mischief and doing nothing productive with his life. Daryl didn’t call the shots. He acted as a lackey for his drug-addled, loud-mouthed older brother. Possibly the most shocking part of the episode wasn’t any of the walker kills, or even Daryl’s borderline abusive attempt to teach Beth how to use a cross bow. Daryl talked about Merle and his father. He never talks about his family, and hasn’t mentioned his brother since Merle was turned walker and Daryl killed him. Dwelling on the past is not his favorite pastime.
Martinez’s days were numbered. There’s no use lying to ourselves. Once he made it crystal clear that he was in charge of the camp, things were already set in motion. When he asked Phillip to help him, work for him, there was only ever going to be one outcome. The Governor fully returned to power. He’s so desperate to keep Lilly and Meghan safe, he’ll jump back into the darkness he used to keep Woodbury going during the last weeks of its existence. Even though he repeatedly says, “I don’t want it.” Doesn’t want what, the responsibility of leadership or the blood on his hands from securing his place at the top of the food chain? Does it cost Phillip anything to kill anymore? Anytime we see Rick pull the trigger, you see a piece of his soul wither. With Phillip, who knows? He’s a hard read, a violent man with sociopathic tendencies. However, he makes this impossible connection with a woman and her child that goes against everything known about sociopathic behavior. Is it an act? But to whose benefit? Surely he can’t be trying to fool himself after all this time.
