Monday, January 21, 2013

BAJL Day 21: Spoiler Alert! My Thoughts on The Walking Dead

             
              I just finished season 2 on Netflix and I figured I should give the show a review. For those of you who may be living under a rock The Walking Dead is an extremely popular show on AMC that is based on the comic book of the same name. The show centers around a group of people trying to survive a zombie apocalypse but with the main focus being on a character named Rick. Rick is a police officer who gets shot and goes into a coma. Whilst in said coma the zombies overrun the city. Rick wakes up to a completely different world and has to learn to survive. He joins up with his wife and son and the rest of this group of survivors.
              My biggest complaint with this show is that it constantly kicks its viewers in the balls. Here's an example. In the first episode, Rick gets taken in by a father and son who are trying to survive. The boys mother is a "walker", oh that is what they call the zombies. Every night the dad fires a shot to get the walkers to surround his house in hopes that maybe he will be able to summon the courage to shoot his wife and end her suffering. How awful is that? Not a big enough shot to the balls yet? Well how about this: Rick's wife is currently banging his best friend and former parnter on the force, Shane. Which did I mention Shane left Rick for dead in the hospital to escape the zombie onslaught? Still not enough you say? Here comes another one: Rick is riding a horse through the empty streets of downtown Atlanta when he runs into a herd of walkers who chase him and knock him off his horse. Then the walkers proceed to eat the horse and you, the viewer, have to watch it. What kind of sick people would do that? Where exactly in any zombie lore does it say that zombies eat other things besides just humans? Did i miss something? And these things are just in the first season. ( P.S. 6 episodes is not a season AMC!)
              The nut shots only get larger and unbelievably more severe from there. The Walking Dead is the kind of show that has me starting to wonder why I am watching it. I dislike almost all the characters on the show at this point and hate a couple of them.
              Another thing I don't like about the show is that it seems that every episode attempts to lure you into a false sense of security. Almost like they want you to forget that there are zombies on this show so that they can shock you with them. It doesn't work and in fact, is rather annoying to say the least.
              The second season brings more "ball" breaking. A young girl in the group becomes a walker and Rick has to shoot her in the head. Shane shoots a man in the leg so he will get eaten by walkers, giving him time to escape a group of them. Rick's son gets shot in the chest by a deer hunter. (Said deer hunter, Ottis, is who Shane shoots and leaves behind to become walker food) Rick's wife is pregnant, imagine bringing a child into that bleak world. Shane is still obsessed with Rick's wife and is convinced the baby is his. Many people in the group get killed by walkers including Dale, my favorite character on the show up to this point, Rick goes bad and stabs Shane to death, and the big reveal in the season finale is that the walker virus is carried by the living. You don't have to be bit or scratched by a walker to become one.
              The last two episodes in the second season were particularly tough to watch as many people whom I felt were good in the group get eaten by walkers. But if you want to see some serious zombie killing then watch the first twenty minutes of the last episode of season two. There are more zombie kills in that twenty minutes then there have been so far in the entire series. You get to see zombies get shot, stabbed, stomped, run over, burned, bashed, pitchforked, beaten with shovels, and decapitated. All of that is pretty awesome but it comes with some serious loss as some in the group get torn to shreds and eaten alive by the walkers.
              I will continue to watch simply for the few characters on this show that I want to make it out alive. If there is more action like in the season two finale that wouldn't hurt either. It is hard to get invested in these characters since the show is so willing to kill off characters that I thought were vital to the continuation of the plot. At the end of the second season I disliked the main character in the show, is that good tv? I'm not sure. Do you watch The Walking Dead? What are your reactions/opinions of the show so far? Please no season three spoilers, I haven't watched any of those episodes yet.

 
             

2 comments:

  1. Jason! Let me tell you about how much I hate/love the walking dead! I am scared and angry and sad the entire time I am watching, but I keep coming back! What is wrong with me?! What is wrong with these people?! Watch season 3, I have a new person to hate and I need someone to back me up!

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    1. Is it Rick? Because by the end of season 2 I didn't even like him.

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