The Walking Dead – Crasstalk

The Walking Dead Explores “Predator and Prey” with Varying Success

We’ve come to the last two episodes of the nail-biter third season. We’ve seen the return to true suspense, the emergence of a real plot with consequences for the living and the dead, and re-entered the world that was once inhabited by old friends (Morgan) and broadened it to encompass a town run by an insane man, a group of hearty drifters, a katana wielding badass, the finding of a long lost brother, and the end result of turning one’s back on friends for the gain of sleeping with the enemy, literally.

It is her story we witnessed last night. Continue reading →

Walking Dead: Monday Morning Post-Mortem

First, a quick recap of the last week’s episode: Season 3, Ep. 11, “I Ain’t a Judas”, first broadcast Sunday 24 Feb. 2013. The one where Laurie goes to the prison to try to get everyone there to go to Woodbury.

As we open, everyone is getting their heads back together after the low-down dirty rotten surprise attack by Governor Nasty (and the mass zombie-disgorgement from the truck, aka Best Scene in the Whole Series So far).

Helpful Hershel and Increasingly Grown-up and/or Creepy Little Carl tell Alpha Male Again Rick to get his shit together. This is possibly unnecessary, given that the final shot of the previous week’s episode was a close-up of Rick’s narrowed, back-in-charge eyes.

Either way, soon Rick is acting like a real leader again, consulting with Hershel and Daryl. And informing Daryl that he’s responsible for Miserable Son of a Bitch Merle not being a complete prick in future. (Hint: shoot off his jaw, like with the zombies. Mute Merle would be fairly acceptable, and useful, to have around.) Continue reading →

The Walking Dead MidSeason Finale Recap: Keep Your Friends Close…

So we reach the midseason finale of a show that has worked extremely hard to shake off the cobwebs of its second season which saw most everything drag to an abrupt halt where there was even a question of the show’s survival if it didn’t improve. What’s made the first half of the third season remarkable is the almost new found focus and energy the show’s found by sloughing off most of the trappings of the second season and putting forth a reinvigorated showing to add more balance to the middling product. Continue reading →

The Walking Dead Recap: The Hunted

Hmmm, this latest episode was packed full of stuff. Some we liked, other stuff we didn’t. Mostly there were just questions like: What in the Kool-Aid is wrong with Andrea? Who is Merle really? And what does The Governor have on him? Also, the phone? Really? Continue reading →

The Walking Dead Recap: Aftermath

We’re really rolling now, right?! This show just keeps getting better and better. It’s almost as if last season didn’t exist. The pacing is fantastic. The writing is sharper, crisper, darker, and epically more interesting. The best compliment we can give the show at this point is we don’t want the episodes to end. Continue reading →

The Walking Dead Recap: Suffer Thy Children

The Walking Dead is currently living up to be just what we wanted from a television show that began strong as an almost segmented feature film. Nevermind that little deviation we took last season onto the farm-of-existential delirium, this season is all about the visceral nature of survival and the ability to make decisions for the greater good, and for the greater gore. Continue reading →

The Walking Dead Recap: We Ain’t Brothers, We Ain’t Partners, and We Ain’t Friends

Nothing is ever easy for the old Grimes Group. If they’re not hacking off some old dude’s leg, they’ve got to explain to a bunch of convicts that the world has gone to hell. Such is the price of creating Escape From Alcatraz in reverse. Continue reading →

The Walking Dead Recap: Finally Discovering that this is In Fact a Zombie Apocalypse

When we last saw the Grimes group and what was left of Hershel’s family, the two factions had together come to the realization that in a zombie apocalypse “safety” is an abstract concept. With the incineration of Hershel’s farm, after a zombie horde had all but overrun it, what we were left with was a badly battered group trying to decide their next move. But whatever that move was to be, they were going to have to do things differently — and that meant there was going to be one rule of order. One rule or everyone dies. Continue reading →

The Walking Dead Finale Recap: Death Comes For Us All

It’s probably fair to say that this second season was really a tale of two disparate seasons. We began in a place that so far stretched the limits of modern television drama that it was enough to make even the most staunch soap opera fan weep. It was filled with long expositions about the meaning of life, life without hope, what it means to be truly dead, and if there is ever a hope of seeing the Walkers as anything but ambulating meat sacks during near constant contemplation of right and wrong. Continue reading →

The Walking Dead Recap: The Reckoning

Rage. It is a caustic thing. And there is nothing like the low-simmering boil of an all-consuming rage. It is blinding. It is a noxious cancer that coils deeply within searching unendingly for release, for a way to seep out and possibly infect others, or to explode forth and cover everyone it touches in hellfire. Once down this powder keg of a road one knows the fallout will be great, and possibly, if victims and bystanders are lucky it will be mete out with justice. Yet, in a world overrun with zombies you’d better hope the guy with the rage is on your side. Continue reading →