The Walking Dead, Season 6, Episode 1: First Time Again
(Drafts of the entire season 6 of Walking Dead reviews were done all the way back in August, but I've forgotten about them completely. I'm going to periodically proofread them and upload them here.)
One thing that Walking Dead never quite managed to do was scale. I don't think we ever had as huge a zombie swarm as large as the one shown in the first season that dogpiled Rick's tank. Sure, there are huge herds here and there -- the fall of the farm, the fall of the prison, that one huge swarm in season four -- but never one that quite managed to reach the scale of this episode where it's a literal sea of walking corpses.
The season six's premiere episode takes a different approach. It runs little longer than an hour, and cuts back and forth between what's happening right now as the new combined forces of Team Rick and Alexandria deal with herding this legion of zombies away from Alexandria, as well as the aftermath of last season's final episode. The huge zombie swarm was nothing short of spectacular, and you absolutely buy that these will run over Alexandria should they ever reach the town, wall or no wall, Team Rick or no Team Rick.
The setup of the episode is decent. Apparently the reason Alexandria is so peaceful is that nearly every single zombie in the area has been corralled into this valley of sorts with their way barred by huge tractor trailers that bar their way. Of course, the noise the zombie hive-swarm thing attracts even more zombies that fall into the pit, and the more zombies there are, the more manpower they have to push through the giant truck trailers. Rick, both in the past and present, want to put a stop to this by diverting the sea of zombies away from Alexandria, but of course, shit hits the fan. In the flashback the huge cast is utilized well by throwing opinions from multiple people here and there, and Morgan's comeback, as expected, causes Rick to question his borderline villain-protagonist role. In the present day, what's supposed to be a dry run ends up being the real thing when the zombie sea breaks out of their corral a couple of days before the Alexandrians are ready.
Throughout the two narratives that ran through this episode, Rick flip-flops between being the hard, cold-hearted bastard that shots Doctor Douche in the head, rants and raves in the middle of the town covered in blood, and is enough of a dick to demand that Doctor Douche's body be basically thrown outside the community and left to rot without a proper burial. And obviously, not everyone is on board with this. Taking Pete's place in this episode is the short-lived Carter, who stands up as a douche who wants Rick dead, conspiring with a bunch of others how they can just kill Rick and be done with him.
Of course, Rick himself is going through his own crisis of conscience with Morgan, who acts like the angel on his shoulder he desperately needs, a reminder of the person he once was -- the naive dude who'll go back and help out the crazed Morgan simply because he believed in something better for Morgan. This causes Rick to take a calmer (but still abrasive) tone when talking to... Pete's older kid... Ron? Causes Rick to bury Pete's body instead of leaving it behind, and he spares Carter's life when Carter's rebellion ends up being foiled by Eugene of all people. Seriously, how shit do you have to be that even our resident lovable coward isn't even really scared of Carter, more irritated that he's been caught eavesdropping?
Carter really couldn't have been a less interesting antagonist if he tried. This episode's already burdened with showing our dozen-strong cast reacting to all that's going on, introducing this new 'villain', so Rick can make the choice not to execute him, too? And honestly, Rick still comes a bit douchey by noting that Carter isn't going to survive long in this world anyway because he's weak. And despite a brief moment of 'hot dang you're right!' bonding moment between Rick and Carter, Carter gets bit in the face and Rick has to put him down.
The episode alternates between action scenes in the 'present' time era. Glenn, new character Heath and Nicholas (who's apparently now turned a new leaf and really, really wants to impress Glenn) have to improvise a way to take on a group of zombies they haven't cleared out yet despite being outnumbered six-to-one. Abraham and Sasha have some nice 'we're both crazy!' bonding moments with Sasha's previous death-seeking moments being briefly covered and Abraham himself turning into a bit of a thrill seeker. Daryl has a brief argument with Rick regarding the closing down of recruiting more people to Alexandria. Morgan quickly sees through Carol's game, even if no one else in Alexandria gets it. Tara gets some really nice bonding moments with Eugene and later Maggie. Gabriel gets shot down by Rick immediately -- yeah, you can be a huge drama queen about it, but no one's going to forget your cockups so quickly. Maggie and Tara discuss about how Glenn is forgiving of Nicholas, but then realize that Tara did try (ineffectively and with a lot less malice) to kill the entire prison community two seasons ago. And besides, Nicholas is absolutely humbled and in awe of Glenn-senpai, which means he's probably going to die tragically some time later in this season.
Also interesting is the scene between Rick and Jessie. It's probably for the best that this particular part of Rick's Alexandria takeover isn't going smooth at all, because, shit, Rick did just blow Pete's head off and even if he's an abusive dickshit, it also doesn't mean that his wife would be super-eager to jump on Rick's dick right then and there.
Ultimately this season's premiere moves at a bit too slow of a pace for my liking. There are a fair amount of scenes that really seemed to just be there for the sake of being there when it could've been tightened up a lot. Heath's introduction fell kind of flat, and Carter is a boring strawman antagonist. And the flashbacks did break up some of the present-day-era tension. Still, we did get that absolutely impressive zombie swarm, which is definitely a point in the episode's favour. And as much as I criticize Rick in the past two seasons, I do like that the show's making steps to reconcile the various personas Rick's taken over the past five seasons. Oh, and the fact that Alexandria may be under attack, either by a coup d'etat or maybe the Wolves decide to invade when literally every single person who can fight bar Carol have left the town.
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