Israel Daramola

My frustration with AMC’s The Walking Dead has always been that I wanted to like it more than I actually did. It had all the things that usually appeal to me: based on a graphic novel, zombies, apocalyptic situations, it’s on AMC; yet despite all this, it always seemed close (but not close enough) to a great show. It is still a decent show however, so I marathon’d the show and caught up on as much of series as I could before the season premiere last night.

All of that leads me to last night’s episode, “seed”, which opens with Rick, Daryl, T-Dog and Carl breaking into a house and clearing all the walkers out–desperately searching for any food and resources they can find. It’s a scene without much dialogue that finds the gang sitting around the living room trying to figure out where to go from here, then more walkers show up and it’s time to vacate the premises. It’s evident that time has passed within the world of the show; people are older, Lori is more pregnant and there’s a more mature sense of camaraderie amongst the group. The action and grit are heavy in this episode, as the group finds themselves trying to turn a prison into their safe haven. From either taking out or locking out all of the walkers in the vicinity (in a fantastic sequence of teamwork and marksmanship I might add) to going full-force into the prison, which leads to a gruesome sequence involving Rick having to hack off Hershel’s foot after he’s bitten, not to mention the episode ends with the group finding a whole other batch of survivors holing themselves up in the prison.

By all accounts it seems as though The Walking Dead is well on its way to being a better show; one that’s not stuck in on slow motion, but time will tell as the season goes on. For the time being, I finally find myself enjoying the show the way I always wished I had from the beginning.

Sidenote: Danai Gurira, who plays Michonne according to the closing credits, is so badass with the way she kills walkers. Their really isn’t much to say about her whole side story with Andrea yet but I just wanted to add that in there.