The Walking Dead, Season 1, Episode 3: Tell It To The Frogs
Around halfway through the season is generally when the show starts to get good, where it gets out of the awkward phase where it is forced to go with cookie-cutter plots in order to not overwhelm the viewers with the dual task of wrapping their heads around all the new characters and an unconventional plotline. Well, with the first season only lasting six episodes, this marks the halfway point. And boy, does it deliver. While the first two episodes, when it comes down to it, ends up being pretty generic (if well-executed) zombie and/or apocalypse tropes, this is the one that really starts to pave out as its own thing.
We get the big emotional reunion between Rick and his family, Lori and Carl, and this sparks off a couple of nice, tender moments between both father and son, and husband and wife. Carl himself really doesn't do much other than hang around and be a nice cute little boy that really likes the fact that his father is back, but Rick and Lori has a fair amount more screentime going on. Lori, despite apparently sleeping around with Shane when her husband is presumed dead, is absolutely ecstatic to see Rick back, and their reunion is nothing short of touching and honestly a little tearjerking with the look of guilt on Lori's face considering the fact that she's been sleeping with Shane. A fact that apparently she is not too keen about. Apparently Shane straight-up told Lori that Rick is dead.
And while Shane and Rick are amicable towards each other, the lines of dialogue between Shane and Lori reveal that, well, not all is sunshine and rainbows. Shane at least doesn't try to get into Lori's pants now that Rick is back, but on the other hand, well, Shane's tomfoolery basically pisses Lori the fuck off. And Shane is definitely jealous, what with several scenes of him just seething and looking at the Grimes family. Playing frogs with Carl is cute and harmless enough, but Lori puts a stop to that. This comes to a head when yet another redneck-stereotype starts being all sexist and abusive towards his wife, and Shane just snaps and delivers a horrifying (if well-deserved) beatdown on Ed. Without a nearby hospital to bring Ed to, it's doubtful that the poor fellow will even recover. That's not to say that the douchebag doesn't have it coming -- Ed isn't as cartoonishly evil as Merle was last episode, but he's certainly been a dick throughout the episode, being insubordinate simply just for its reason, talking back to Shane, being abusive and controlling to his wife (and his daughter, if Shane is to be believed) and being misogynistic to the other women... I mean, I would still punch the fat asshole in the face, and honestly short of receiving something similar (but maybe less savage) to what Shane did, I don't think he'll learn to behave like a proper human being. It's a nice little gray area, honestly, and it's executed pretty well. How much of Shane beating up Ed is him trying to uphold justice, and how much of it is just pent-up aggression from his Lori problems?
Speaking of Merle, whoever thought that he would be relevant? Centrally so to the plot of this episode, even. Apparently being left on that rooftop chained to a pipe and with the audience shrugging off the utterly despicable redneck stereotype... Merle survives. As the first and last scenes of this episode reveals, Merle has gone a bit crazy, and ends up using that discarded toolbox, reached for the hacksaw and, uh, saws his own hand off. Why not the handcuffs? Well, he is kinda crazy I guess. His whereabouts is unknown, though he probably got away from the zombies.
You'd think someone as reviled as Merle Dixon wouldn't have anyone mourn him, but he, in fact, has a brother waiting for him back at the camp -- Daryl Dixon, who's still angry and psychotic, but at least sane enough to hold a conversation and to accept Team Rick's help to go back to Atlanta to rescue his brother. Daryl seems to basically be a more PR-friendly version of Merle, and far more competent, at least, having some genuine hunting skills with a crossbow. He's definitely still going to be trouble some time down the road, though the common goal of recovering his shitty brother definitely makes him a token evil teammate at the moment.
And we do see the workings of the refugee camp, where basically everyone except for that deadweight douchehole Ed has a certain role -- exemplified pretty well in that scene where Rick walks around seeing everyone already doing their jobs like a well-oiled machine. Even Daryl earns his keep as a hunter. We also get introduced to Dale and his epic facial hair, who alongside Shane seem to be the co-leaders of the group. Also, the group's nowhere as cohesive as it seems, because while I could definitely argue against Rick's borderline-suicidal mission, he had to barter some stuff to Dale in order to guarantee Dale lending them the wire clippers. Dale seems to be an awesome old dude.
With all these new additions and a sizable amount of focus still shining on Rick and his family, it does mean nearly everyone introduced in the Atlanta group gets shafted. Glenn still gets more lines of dialogue than his buddies, and T-Dog, due to how he's relevant to the Merle thing, also gets a couple of nice scenes. Morales gets a couple of lines here and there, but Jacqui and Andrea honestly just kinda blur alongside the other women in the camp... though Andrea and Amy at least get a reunion. None of them honestly do much, though, with so many new characters in the camp being introduced and none of them really being relevant so far other than Daryl and Ed.
One thing to talk about before I close this off is probably Rick himself. He's got a bit of a saviour complex, wanting to, well, not only atone for his crimes in chaining Merle up on that rooftop -- a guilt-trip shared by T-Dog -- but he is also pretty dead-set on recovering the radio with which to contact Marcus. I mean, recovering the guns from episode 1 certainly makes for a good cover story and a very sensible course of action for Rick to do, but I think it's pretty clear that the Marcus walkie-talkie thing is what Rick is really after. Because he gotta pay his debts and all that. I dunno if it'll get himself -- or worse, one of the people close to him -- killed some day down the line.
Not much zombies in this episode, honestly, other than that one straggler that ate the deer and freaked everyone in the camp out. The fact that a good half of the camp freaks out shows that not everyone is as accustomed to zombie-fighting as the Atlanta crew was. And it honestly kinda helps to show that Daryl isn't all talk like Merle was, and his skills with a crossbow is at least half-decent.
Overall, though, all the plot lines are intertwining and working very well. Exploring and building the concept and the inner workings of the refugee camp, the actually-interesting Shane/Lori scandal, and now Rick having to forge an alliance with the unpredictable Daryl (with T-Dog and Glenn roped in) to save one of the most irredeemable pieces of human filth in fiction. All for the sake of simply justifying what's right and all that.
No comments:
Post a Comment