Dark Brown Waffles

Last December, The Walking Dead ended on a high-note with the plain execution of the girl-zombie Sofia. Yes it was emotionally painful. Yes it was perhaps overdramatic. Yes it was a plainly obvious outcome. But at least something finally made sense. 

So when The Walking Dead re-emerged from its self-imposed break, it was easy to imagine a show that had finally gotten itself together thematically. Simply put: less human drama, more zombie drama. There is nothing difficult about the formula. Last year’s mid-season finale had ended so well that I imagined that the show was finally getting down into a crouch, like a sprinter in the blocks, and I told myself (and was told) that tonight’s show was excellence. 

And then I watched it.

I wouldn’t describe my reaction so much as disappointment. That word doesn’t accurately capture it. Instead, perhaps: bemusement. I was bemused. The entire time I watch with a smirk and just enough of an eye-roll so that I could still the screen. What else can you do when the realization sets in that, no, the producers haven’t learned anything, and no, they weren’t getting their acts together after the killing of Sofia, and no, we weren’t on the precipice of something special.

There are a thousand different reasons to think this. Here are a few. Warning, there are spoilers, but really, who cares?

-There were two zombies tonight, one who tried to eat the unnamed girl grieving after the execution of the barn zombies, and a second who wandered out onto the road in front of Lori. That’s the entirety of their appearance in the show. (Note: I’m not counting the zombies we saw in flashback to the barn shooting, because that’s cheap.) This show is about zombies at least tangentially, right? And here I’m not talking metaphorically about the survivors; I’m specifically referencing the undead ghouls who wander around hoping to eat human flesh. 

-The show introduces us to Michael Raymond-James just long enough for him to out-act every other person on the screen: Rick, Glenn, and Hershel. Then? Rick shoots him. And his friend. Why? Because they wanted to go back to the farm. They might have been threats; they might have been friends. But for Rick, who wanted to prove desperately to Hershel that he was a leader, the threat was too much so he shot them both. I get that the show wants us to understand that this is a different world with different rules, but I’m baffled at what we’re supposed to with Rick shooting two living, capable human beings, experienced fighters who had apparently made it from Philadelphia to Georgia. What a brilliant plan.

-The rules about dealing with zombies continue to be utterly meaningless. Minutes after seeing a zombie suspected to be dead pop back to life and try to eat a child, Lori climbs into the back of a truck full of dead zombies, instead of riding in the open seat BESIDE THE DRIVER. T-Dog (which never stops being an offensive name for the show’s only black character), days after having a badly bleeding wound sewn shut on his arm, throws zombie bodies around without wearing any protection beyond the bandage that is already on there. A giant pile of zombies is burned in the hot summer sun, which surely couldn’t be anything but a brilliant idea. 

-I’m excited beyond words for the Videogum recap of the show. They’re always the best.