The Walking Dead, Season 1, Episode 6: TS-19
The finale of the first season of The Walking Dead is decent enough. The show's first season does most of the things right with a zombie apocalypse movie. It kills off enough of the minor characters to keep us tense, it sets up the mood perfectly, and the characters we are supposed to care about, well, get their dues. And Rick finally manages to shed his relatively two-dimensional goody-two-shoes classic hero shell in this episode ever so slightly. Most of this episode deals with the concepts introduced last episode with the CDC scientist Edwin Jenner working on a cure and knowing more about the origins of the zombie plague thing than our main characters, but since we're technicalyl only six episodes in it's still left extremely vague. A good chunk of this episode is just the threat of whether they're going to find a way to get out of the CDC building, placed under lockdown because of the AI's Lawful Good programming. Obviously the main heroes break free, though the plotline is entertaining enough to make the tension and the destruction of their hopes feel emotional. And some characters actually do die, and it's pretty tense to wait and see who will make the cut.
The CDC building seems to be a nice haven for the Atlanta survivors. There are electric lights, hot water baths (despite Jenner's insistence not to use them literally no one listens to him), warm beds, air conditioning, a library filled with nice books, a grand dinner with wine, the potential of them actually getting some answers about the whole zombie plague, and most importantly... the facility is underground and extremely protected from the zombies outside. Even Daryl is super-friendly to their benefactor, dr. Jenner for it.
Of course, though, Jenner has been hinting that not everything is as nice as it seems. He's been contemplating suicide last episode, and he does say something about power running out... except the way he worded it to Rick's crew, it seemed like they had weeks, even months, to figure things out. Apparently their power only lasted a night or two, and upon being finished, well, apparently the CDC facility has been working on some real nasty biological stuff that they can't afford to get away, and there are these super-insane powerful explosions wired all around the building that will Michael Bay the fuck out of the building should the power generators run out of power. And, well, there's even a convenient clock to keep track.
Also, apparently everyone else working on the cure has fallen due to simple lack of power, or have broken off communications, dashing yet another hope that this zombie apocalypse can be dealt with in the span of a season or two.
None of this is made apparent to Rick's crew, of course, up until the clock stars to count down to a couple of hours. Though Jenner is nice enough to give us an explanation about the zombie plague, complete with a nicely-rendered video, showing how the zombie plague... whatever the hell it is, fungal, virus, bacterial, a weapon, or even something mystical, will cause death and eventually reanimation. A time that varies, which explains why Amy took so long to become a zombie and a nice out for the writers if they needed to lengthen or shorten the zombification process for rule of drama. The zombie plague thing only reanimates the brain stem of their victims, as opposed to the entire brain, which causes them to, well, become zombies. We still don't know much about the whole thing, though the subject who Jenner shows to the crew, TS-19, is apparently Jenner's own wife, a far more brilliant scientist than Jenner is, and it puts his self-destructive spree and his anguished reaction at seeing the last of the TS-19 destroyed last episode far more poignant. He's definitely a bit of a death seeker, and I honestly could see why he thinks being burnt to death in under a couple of second as a painless death is a better alternative than running out into hell and being subjected to being eaten alive and being reanimated as a zombie. Jacqui, who has been mostly a wallflower these past few episodes, agrees and decides to stay back.
So does Andrea, all torn up about Amy's death. And while I honestly don't blame Andrea that much, she has had enough exposure and screentime over the past few episodes to make her the most developed character after Rick, Shane and Lori. But Andrea doesn't die because her father-figure Dale decides to stick around as well, not finding a point to live without his surrogate daughter... Dale's a cool character, though, and this guilt-tripping thing (Andrea even recognizes it as guilt-tripping) manages to get Andrea out right before the thing blows.
Two of the most powerful scenes in the episode took place during the relative period of safety that the CDC building afforded them and not during the life-or-death battle, though. One is a short but brilliant scene where Rick, under the influence of alcohol, just breaks down under the pressure of constantly trying to remain positive for both his family and friends, and just cries with no one to see but Jenner, a virtual stranger to him. Jenner, who has to struggle with the guilt at hiding the fact that Rick's family is not safe, whereas the only reason Rick opens up to him is because he felt safe. Meanwhile, Shane, also under the influence of alcohol, makes some advances at Lori. It started off benign enough, an attempt to apologize, an attempt to atone for telling Lori that Rick was dead -- something that the audience can believe better because we were shown the flashback of Shane in the hospital genuinely thinking Rick died when the power went out, but ultimately still another transparent repetition in-universe as far as Lori is concerned. And when Lori rebuffs every single one of Shane's courting attempts... Shane just goes for what can only be described as rape. It doesn't go very far, thankfully, because Lori eventually hits Shane and he backs off, but it is a nice little climax for this particular plot thread.
Daryl and Shane continue to be aggressive in this episode, especially when Jenner locks them in. Both threaten to kill Jenner, and Daryl has a hilarious moment where he's just wailing on the indestructible door in the background while Jenner gives his long impassioned speech. Granted Jenner eventually relents at opening the inner doors and they manage to find their way out of the building by using Chekov's Grenade all the way from the first (or second, can't remember) episode in Rick's suit. Nothing too special about all that, though it's a nice touch in any case.
There's also a bit of a cliffhanger where Jenner whispers something into Rick's ear, something the audience isn't privy to. Either he tells Rick about the origin of the plague -- unlikely, considering he's been pretty blabber-mouthy about the information he reveals to everyone in Rick's team; or he's telling something about the blood samples he took from everyone. I don't think that anyone among the group has secretly been bitten, else Jenner would've killed whoever it was, but I'm kinda stumped to think what would be so important and secretive that Jenner would only tell it to Rick and when they're going to get out of the building.
Whatever the case, though, it's a pretty decent conclusion to the first season, though understandably Walking Dead is only getting started at this point. I think I'll continue to season two. But we'll see.
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