The Walking Dead, Season 3, Episode 1: Seed
So, first up -- why the hell am I dredging up and making reviews for a season of TV that aired a couple of years ago? Mostly because, well, I'm watching it, and I kinda enjoy writing about TV episodes so much more than, well, manga or games. We'll see if I end up doing any more older shows (Lost and House of Cards are potential ones, and if I ever rewatch the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones I'll definitely do those). And yeah, I know that it won't receive as much view hits as most of my other work here, but I'm kind of... whatever? These episodes are new for me, so I'm going to review them.
I kinda gave up on the Walking Dead after season two. The first season was short and sweet, and while there are a lot of great moments in season two, the absolutely atrocious pacing, the hour-long plodding episodes and generally the sheer amount of catch-up before I get to the current episodes kind of turned me off the series. But people keep telling me that once we get to the prison things get better, and season three was the turning point, so... yeah, we'll give this a chance. I'm not sure how far we'll go with this series, but if this episode is anything to go by, it might be slightly on and off.
The episode starts off very strong, with Team Rick being a very well-oiled survival machine, with even little Carl shooting zombies, looting resources and moving from one spot to the next like a small, well-trained army, clearing an area, sitting down exhausted for a breather, before hopping on their little convoy and heading off. There's definitely some time that has passed between the second and third season (and that's not only because I haven't touched the series for nearly a year), but Lori's big baby belly and the sheer efficiency of the group implies that a fair amount of time has passed, and they've just been moving on and on from one safe spot to another.
The sequence where they enter the prison and start slaughtering walkers are pretty fun too, and we see what appears to be the driving conflict this season, Rick's leadership. He's an efficient leader and even Daryl and Carol, two rebels for two wholly different reasons, respect him and obey him, but the burden of leadership and lack of solutions (plus his pregnant wife, and clearly haven't gotten over the fact that he's forced to kill Shane) are clearly eating away at Rick.
They did barricade themselves in a prison, and Rick insists that they do so inside the prison compound instead of the fenced yard. Things get complicated as the group are forced to fight in close quarters, and Hershel gets bit by a zombie. He doesn't die, but the poor old man (who looks just so tired) is forced to have his leg sawed off in a very, very gruesome scene.
What else? Lori has a scene of general loathing the world, loathing Rick, loathing herself with a very vivid description of a zombie fetus ripping its way out of her. Daryl and Carol have brief interactions that's neither romantic nor platonic. The others have some brief lines and scenes, but none that are especially notable.
Oh, and there are living people hiding in the prison. We don't see much of them, but they are either former prisoners (which is implied by their clothes) or wardens or both, which sets up the cliffhanger.
We check in with Andrea, who's sick, and her katana-swinging lady with her two chained mouthless zombie pets (seriously, this lady walked out of a manga) is going around being a badass. We don't get much information on where they are or what they're doing, though, and I just don't really care about Andrea that much to be invested on this side of the story.
Overall, a decent opener. It's mostly just a lot of pretty spectacular action scenes before we presumably get more talky and less zombie-y with the prisoners, but it was a pretty action-packed episode, and more of a setup on the changes between seasons two and three. We'll see what happens next.
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