THE WALKING DEAD - "Walk With Me"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of The Walking Dead from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Magus: With the larger band of survivors having secured the prison, attention comes back to Andrea and Michonne for more than five minutes increments. This is an episode where a lot happens with the focus once again not on the walkers as the villain of the show. There's the return of the long lost Merle Dixon, we learn that Michonne's other skill is a wicked side-glance that would kill lesser men, and we meet The Governor.


We catch up with Andrea and Michonne on the move investigating a helicopter crash out in the middle of nowhere. Their search of the wreckage is interrupted by another group of survivors. Soldiers that have become walkers are dispatched, a survivor is pulled from the wreckage, and Michonne and Andrea are captured in hiding by Merle. One blindfolded car ride later, the ladies are in Woodbury with Andrea being treated for her mystery illness and Michonne deploying her best distrust and aforementioned side-glance. She is not terribly subtle when it comes to this and it's really kind of surprising that The Governor wouldn't off her. However, he is a much more nuanced character than the prisoner Rick offed in the previous episode.


After a tour of Woodbury, it becomes apparent that The Governor is going to do his best to convince the ladies to stay of their own accord for now. He comes up with reason upon reason they should stick around for the time being and maybe join the community. It's not until later that we see he probably isn't going to let them leave regardless.


The Governor goes out to rendezvous with the reserve unit the surviving helicopter pilot came from. He then has his men in hiding gun them down and take their equipment. The Governor is a man who is willing to do whatever it takes to secure his power and community and then some by eliminating a potential threat to his authority. Unlike Rick's action at the prison, The Governor moves before anyone has a chance to take a swing at him. He sees the soldiers as an immediate threat to his power that needs to be neutralized. Merle is among the men he takes with him, but it's not entirely clear if Merle is completely in. There's the impression that Merle does what he does as repayment for being taken in by the community at a time when he needed help. The ultimate test of this loyalty will probably come when there is the inevitable reunion of him and Daryl.



Upon his return, The Governor informs the people of Woodbury that the soldiers had already been killed by biters (walkers) and that they took the equipment to help fortify the town. There's more side-glance from Michonne as he continues to work on Andrea and it looks like she's ready to sign up. In fairness to her, The Governor has presented a community with little difference to the one put together by Rick and his group. It's behind the scenes where we discover that The Governor has some skeletons (heads) in his closet and a sampling of his madness is revealed.

Jon: Simply put, this was the best episode of The Walking Dead in well over a year. Getting a little time out from Rick Grimes and the gang was long overdue in my opinion, not to mention starting to finally flesh out other corners of this zombie-filled world.

As Magus expertly describes above, this episode starts out following Andrea and Michonne as they are taken captive and brought to the idyllic community of Woodbury. How this little town has maintained a Pleasantville-like atmosphere isn't immediately revealed, but the heavily fortified boundary and a strict curfew would not be possible if it weren't for the commands and direction of the mysterious Governor. As "Walk With Me" progresses, the narrative focus shifts to The Governor and his cronies. They're up to something, and while that something isn't clear yet, what is obvious is that he'll be a force to be reckoned with once the ladies decide to leave Woodbury and the inevitable clash between he and Rick later on. Tough times are ahead, for sure.

But, hey not all bad! There's also Merle! Daryl's supercharged racist, redneck brother has returned to us as a poor man's Ash Williams complete with a metal stub and a detachable bayonet. And while I don't know that I'd go as far as to say I missed him, I do welcome his special brand of maliciousness back to the program. You gotta wonder whether or not he'll back away from his allegiance to The Governor when he and Daryl find each other once more, or if he'd be able to sway Daryl to the dark side (at least temporarily).

Again, this was a fantastic change-of-pace episode and I believe has set the remainder of the season up for some great revelations and bombastic action when all our players finally converge.

Previous roundtables for The Walking Dead season 3: 
Week 1 - "Seed"
Week 2 - "Sick"

THE WALKING DEAD - "Sick"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of The Walking Dead from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Magus: After last week's somewhat disappointing season opener, "Sick" picks up where "Seed" left off with Rick having chopped off a portion of Hershel's leg followed by the discovery of inmates still alive in the prison cafeteria. This pulls the show's attention back to the real threat following the walker apocalypse, human beings. Sure, the walkers are a threat to survival, but they don't plot or betray like humans can. The prisoners give Rick and the survivors their first set of truly hard decisions to make this season and unlike during the second, resolution comes quickly.

There are the naive power plays on the parts of the prisons that reflect their own ignorance to the severity of their situation. At first Rick and the group wants to kick them out but an agreement is eventually reached and the prison and its supplies are to be split. It's an arrangement that doesn't last long as the prisoner leader decides that he's going to try and take out Rick. It's a decision that doesn't end well for him or another of his fellow inmates. With their number reduced, the remaining two prisoners strike a new deal and are given a cell block of their own.

The other story of this episode could be a survival horror medical drama as the group works to save Hershel's life as no one is sure if he'll survive losing blood, his leg, and the walker bite. It's touch and go but he eventually makes it through. However, during his downtime,which thankfully is paced nowhere near as painfully as Carl's gunshot wound and recovery, the survivors are portrayed as possessing a great deal of medical knowledge, far more than I think Hershel would have been able to purvey in so short a time. Also during this downtime, the practical questions of what they would have to do without Hershel and his medical knowledge, especially with Lori and her pregnancy.

It turns out that Carol has become a sort of medic and prepares herself for the possibility of having to perform a C-Section on Lori to deliver the baby without Hershel. In a stroke of brilliance, she comes up with the idea to practice technique on the body of a female walker to get better acquainted with the anatomy. It's an interesting solution to a very practical problem. During Carol's sequence with the walker, we see that someone else is watching the survivors from the other side of the fence.

Some nice trimming to this episode is Carl proving himself to be worth more than just walker bait as he manages to find the infirmary and bring back medical supplies that ultimately save Hershel's life. Of course Lori is there to chastise him for his recklessness. Lori gets hers in the end as she and Rick have a private one on one where she says things that makes me believe she's been reading the memes about her on the internet. Rick leaves her with some confusing lines, not clarifying just where their marriage stands.

This episode moved in a much better direction than the opening and I'm happy with how they're stepping up the pace. I was worried Hershel's leg was going to become this season's Sophia, eating up time that could be better spent with the characters. Rick got some time to shine as a strong leader by proving he'll do what it takes to keep the group alive and safe. This episode was much stronger for the characters and hopefully the show will keep moving in this direction.

Jon:  Sorry, everyone. I'm running behind this week. My two cents will be added on this episode soon though! (updated: 10/29/12) -- Magus, you nailed it. The real horror of The Walking Dead-verse are the other survivors, not the zombies plaguing the land. And it makes me so happy the show is getting back to that concept, one it didn't ignore last season but surely did not emphasize either. As, as we'll see soon enough, a handful of isolated prisoners are the least of their worries.

"Sick" was pretty action-laden episode (as Magus described above), and because of that there's only so much I'm able to delve into.

What we do need to talk about for a few moments, however, is Rick's continued slide into dictator mode. That's probably not the best term to use for it since "dictator" comes along with such negative connotations, but the forceful decisiveness is exactly what this group of survivors needs right now. And, at least for the moment, the others seem content with deferring to his judgement. After the experience on the farm where he tried to let others have a say, one can hardly blame him for wanting to take control when his decisions led to far better results than the others' had.

All that said, I was still very surprised by just how quick and resolute his decision-making has become. The lead prisoner was certainly going to be a problem, but based on the show's precedent, I figured he'd be causing trouble for another week or two. However, after a hard seven or so months on the run since last season ended and the refocused Rick emerged, that now appears to be a foolish assumption on my part. This version of Rick has no time to let a bad seed flower.

His ability to make a hard choice definitively finally bled into his marriage with Lori, which at this point, seems all but officially over. If something is to happen to Carl, you gotta wonder if there'd be any way to bring Rick back from the brink. It's the right mode for him to be in in order to survive while out among the walkers, but I fear it'll be a very lonely place for him to stay in.

Aside from Rick's further journeys into isolation, I also loved the little off-camera adventure Carl had to acquire some medical supplies elsewhere in the prison on his own. Last year, that jaunt of his probably would've eaten up about a third of an episode while just barely avoiding getting bitten at the end, so it's nice to see the show learning where to focus our attention on the plotlines that are actually interesting.


Since I was behind this time, I've already seen episode number three on the season at this writing and, man... ya'll are in for a treat. Be sure to hit us up later this week; it was my favorite episode of the series in a very long time, so there'll be plenty of great discussion to go around.

Previous roundtables for The Walking Dead season 3: 
Week 1 - "Seed"

THE WALKING DEAD - "Seed"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of The Walking Dead from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Magus: I was fairly underwhelmed by the third season opener of "The Walking Dead". While the episode offered a great deal of action and gore, all of the interesting character development and reactions to Shane's death took place over the winter that was completely glossed over. From the opening, it seems that the survivors have been keeping on by jumping from house to house. Somehow they completely missed the prison we saw just behind them in the previous season's finale. Also, Lori is incredibly pregnant now. Also, T-Dog has more dialogue in the first fifteen minutes than he had in all of seasons one and two.

When they finally find the prison, they find it occupied by walkers but not so many that they can't formulate a plan and take the prison yard in short order. At this point we also learn that everyone has been taking target practice over the winter as each person delivers one head shot after another. Having cleared the yard they take a night to gather themselves and give the show what it has so desperately needed; a musical number. We are also treated to a scene of Carol's and Daryl's budding romance, or at least the closest thing either of them are capable of doing to resemble romance. There is no rest for the weary though as Rick informs them that the prison could be a veritable treasure chest of supplies and so now plans are made for taking the interior of the prison. After that, Rick goes off to take watch at the perimeter, alone.

What do you mean all they had was Extra Strength Tylenol?

Before that we learn the fate of Andrea and her mysterious rescuer, Michonne. During the winter they apparently have been doing the same as the other survivors and moving from place to place. However, Andrea has picked up some mysterious illness that is slowly turning her into deadweight and complete bitch to Michonne. But before we can learn too much, we're back at the prison as Rick and a small group take one of the cell blocks. Here we're treated to walkers in riot gear. Considering how difficult they are to take down with weapons, it makes me wonder just how they managed to get bit in the first place, unless they got bit first and then put on the riot gear.

In any case, with the cell block secured, everyone begins moving in and Carl shows some affections in the direction of Hershel's youngest daughter, Beth. Glen and Maggie, covered in gore, can't seem to keep their hands or mouths off of each other in their cell. As everyone else gets settled in and Lori has a conversation with Hershel about her fears of an undead baby, Rick wanders off to find himself a lone nook where he can be alone. We're back with Michonne as she delivers some much needed mystery medicine to Andrea and the two of them get moving, Michonne's walker pets in tow.

Now Rick has decided to lead a group into the interior of the prison in search of food and supplies. What follows is a standard maze with flashlight sequence that ends in Glen and Maggie getting separated from the group by walkers and a walker getting a leg up on old Hershel. After some impromptu surgery by rick with a hatchet, it's revealed that the dead aren't the only ones in the prison as we see several inmates behind chain-link.

God, I miss cable TV.

I know all of this sounds awesome and it was certainly an action-packed episode with lots of walkers and walker slaying, but it feels like we missed a lot of interesting character stuff with the winter having been skipped over. Also, it seems problematic that they were just wandering around in the same area without running into the prison sooner considering how close they were to it. The big thing for me is that the discovery they are all already infected, that they are all walkers just waiting to happen, should change the way these people relate with each other and the larger world. "The Walking Dead" are not the walkers, they are the humans left to live and eventually die. Maybe they'll get around to that this season. Here's hoping.

Jon: I may be in the minority on this one, but I'm gotta admit that was the most enjoyable episode of The Walking Dead since season 1. Magus, you're 100% correct in your assessments of where the show missed the mark, but I still have to give this episode props for turning in one hell of an upgrade over what we had most of last season. Gone is the farm, home of the long-winded, repetitive conversation. Now as they roam the open road, we check in on the gang on what we later learn is just another unsuccessful home invasion they engage in as they remain just one step in front of the zombie herd. Hopefully this season will give the smaller band of characters more conflict from without and within. Look, I have to admit I don't particularly like any of these characters on a personal level, so I really enjoyed the wordless cold open as much as for not having to listen to them blather on too long about something uninteresting as I did the general bad-assery.

Okay, that's not true. I like the Maggie/Glenn pairing and root for the two of them to not get mauled by walkers. Plus, I'm very happy the show has allowed Maggie to graduate in it's time jump to bad-ass woman of the group now that Andrea's separated from them. I found her to be far more effective as the ass-kicking female of the team this week than Andrea ever was. But we also saw she's plenty unsure of herself still and scared of these zombies as much as ever.

Meanwhile, after a steady downward spiral in character choices, I really like the direction Rick is taking. He's not completely in my good graces yet, but I for one respect his tyrannous leadership of the the group that he implemented at the end of season 2. When all they scrounge up to eat is a skimpy owl and two cans of dog food during that abandoned house raid, Rick hurdles the dog food away from Carl. Even as desperate as they are for food, he's not ready to reduce them to eat that food source yet. Impracticable? Sure. But that's the kind of attitude they need to keep their spirits up, not that any of the rest of them really seemed to be inspired by it in the moment. Meanwhile, he's finally listened to America and has completely become fed up with Lori as the rest of us are. Bravo, Rick!

Speaking of Lori, I enjoyed her conversion with Hershel in the prison cell. Just the mere mention of a zombie baby devouring her from the inside was enough to give me the serious willies for rest of the night. So much so that I didn't even realize how preposterous that scenario would be until a couple of days after the episode premiered. I know it's possible, but it's certainly rare for a newborn to have teeth at birth, not to mention the lack of muscle strength and Freddy Kruger-esque fingernails, necessary to enact the type of damage Lori was freaking out about. But I sympathize with her in this case; she's surrounded by death and Rick no longer appears interested in comforting her any longer, just securing her safety. But she's placed no higher on the safety list than any one else in the group.

Having not read past the first trade of the comics, I have no idea what's in store with Micchone, but if the massive freakout on my Facebook feed after her introduction at the end of last season was any indication, it's going to be fantastic. How Andrea plays into things with Micchone and when the two of them meet up with the remainder of the group are high on my list.

So even though there are still plenty of flaws with The Walking Dead, I think we're seeing subtle changes from the new creative team (post-Frank Darabont) that point to some serious improvement over last season. In any event, we'll be here each week recapping the show, so stop back in for a reminder of what happened the previous week before you sit down to watch the new episode each Sunday.

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If you liked our The Walking Dead review this week, we've also been taking a look at the most recent seasons of Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Check them out!

Aw, hell naw!

Evaluating TV's Fall 2010 Semester (...Finally)

I'm back with another breakdown of recently ended television shows, this time delayed roughly a month more than I had originally planned, and I apologize for that if you were waiting.
This slew of shows from the fall is almost exclusively comprised from AMC, HBO and FX, which are easily my favorite three networks. However, this is a bit of a mirage, as the big four networks broadcast their programming differently, and most of their shows will wrap up in the the late spring.

This edition covers shows having ended after September 16th, when my last recap was published, through December 31st, 2010.

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Boardwalk Empire
(Season 1, HBO)
When you hear Marty Scorsese directs the pilot of a new gangster show on HBO, you expect it to be good. And, unlike Treme, the other highly anticipated HBO show that debuted this year, Boardwalk didn't disappoint. That pilot was extraordinary, featuring great performances, writing and direction, as well as superb set and costume design. It looked more impressive than most big-screen period pieces do. That says a lot about how far television programming has come, as I doubt anyone would've been able to say that even five years ago. As fantastic as that Scorsese-directed episode was, the rest of the series never slowed down a bit in subsequent weeks. More often than not, blood, bullets and fisticuffs exploded onscreen with Great Depression-era culture and dilemmas. I felt the "slow" sections of Boardwalk were included more as a chance to let the audience catch their breath as oppossed to there being a lack of ideas in the writing room. Season 1 ended with a bit of a wimper in comparrison to the other events the series displayed thus far, but also showed promise of grander plots to come next year during the final minutes.  A-

Bored To Death
(Season 2, HBO)
This show is simply a lot of fun. Jason Schartzman is a good straight man in all the hijinx his cases get him into. Ted Danson's aging, rich playboy facing cancer and Zach Galifianakis' brokenhearted comic artist trying to find happiness were infinitely more interesting this time around than they were in season 1. As a trio, they kill almost every situation they're in together.  B

Caprica
(Season 1.5, SyFy)
The second half of the first season of Caprica was a welcome surprise. After underwhelming me and much of the Battlestar Galactica fanbase with the first wave of episodes, the new batch accomplished much of what I had expected early on. Season 1.5 no longer feared to associate itself with the BSG brand, exemplified by diving deeper into Tauron culture and making direct (albeit sometimes misleading) links to its predecessor. Wallowing in sorrow took up too much time in early episodes and turned off too many people, and unfortunately, the spinoff never recovered from it. At this point, it may not be worth it for disgruntled BSG fans to take a second look, but I was very impressed on where they took the show in those final few episodes.  B+

Dexter
(Season 5, Showtime)
I am not a big Dexter fan, which I've discussed previously on the site. However, this may have been its strongest season yet. After an excruciatingly slow start, season 5 finished in explosive fashion. Each season the show finds a way to come up with a more interesting villain than the year before, and Johnny Lee Miller rose to the occasion this time. However, Julia Styles was the great strength this time out, as her portrayal of victim-turned-vindicator Lumin gave the show a spark it had never seen before. And I was happy to find that I didn't miss Julie Benz much at all. There's really no telling what's in store for the next season of Dexter, but I won't be surprised if it wins me over a little more than previous seasons have.  B

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After the jump, I'll recap nine more shows that finished up their most reason season by the end of 2010, including Mad Men and The Walking Dead.

TV Tweets: Jan. 18 - 24

As always, you can follow me at LowBrowJon to get my latest fistful of letters, as well as other LBM updates.

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Jan. 21st [24, The Walking Dead]

• You may be getting back into my good graces again, 24. Let's keep it up.

I hated 24 last year. It had become too predictable and overly ridiculous (even by 24 standards). I wasn't even sure I was going to watch this season. But the Bauer-ite of old won out, and I may be glad it did. Chole being back in the fold is a huge plus and the newbies are likable for the most part thus far (and I can't believe I'm not annoyed by Freddie Prinze, Jr). It could easily fall back into insanely predictable mode, but it hasn't gotten there severely yet.

• A WALKING DEAD pilot will happen. Sweet. http://bit.ly/65lqMr

I wasn't really captivated by the first six issues of the comic, but tons of people I know love this series. Mike is one of them; maybe he can chime what makes it great in the comments. Frank Darabont is no hack, so it sounds like it's in good hands, plus AMC has an amazing track record, the lone exception being The Prisoner remake.


Jan. 22nd [Torchwood]

• I'm wondering if an American TORCHWOOD would work... http://bit.ly/6CoIkq

Still wondering, btw.


Jan. 23rd [The Office, 30 Rock]

• Really? A clip show? And not even a particularly good one. #TheOffice

For shame, The Office. For shame.

• "Your neighbors named their daughter Belichick."

At least something good finally came out Jack's high-school-sweetheart storyline. I was dying after that one. Any time you can mock the Pats is okay in my book. Definitely not enough to bump it up to the Salma Hayek one from last year.
30 Rock is still pretty damn funny, although I don't think I've been laughing as much as I had been the past two seasons. I'll come back to this in a few weeks if I figure out why.

Genres & Judgments - Power Rings, Zombies and Rupert Murdoch

Welcome to "Genres and Judgments," my new sub-blog for LBM that can include essentially anything I want to write about, but the core of it will be snapshot reviews and commentary of the movies, novels, television, comics, music and news that I've been exposed to over the past week and feel are worthwhile passing along to interweb at large, whether it be in a positive light or not.

I've never cataloged everything I've watched/read/listened to in a week before, so it'll be interesting to see how this week rates over the long haul, but I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with what I was able to fill my time with (and I'm only touching on the most interesting things here).

Anyway, onto the first entry...
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First up, the song of the week:

"The Birth and Death of the Day" by Explosions in the Sky, All the Sudden I Miss Everyone (2007)

After my recent obsession with Friday Night Lights (the tv show), I learned that these guys did the score for the feature film and that the show's original music is inspired by their work and has on occasion actually utilized some of their songs. I read up on them, and realized I'm coming really late to this party, as they have a substantial fan base. They're hard to describe, but everything I've heard from them thus far is instrumental and riddled with distortion, but it has a violent elegance to it that I find undeniably appealing. This song in particular really grabs me, and I've been listening to it every day on my journey home from the gym of late. Hasn't gotten old yet.

Next is the new animated feature from DC, Green Lantern: First Flight on bluray.

I know very little about GL, but I keep hearing about how great the recent run by Geoff Johns has been. So between knowing that he's being treated right over at DC and that the first live-action version of the character will be coming our way in a years or two with Ryan Reynolds, I thought it was time I boned up on Sector 2814.
The picture, as expected, was gorgeous and contained a lot of really interesting bonus features, including some Justice League episodes from a few years back. The story is a little light in the character development department, even for a DC animated flick, but still enjoyable and, aside from the sudden shifts to computer animation during land/space-scape sequences, the art was very strong. Definitely worth checking out.

Shifting to the page now, I finally got around to reading the first collected volume of The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore. You have to know that I'm generally not a fan of zombie stories. To me, there isn't much to work with. The zombies themselves are boring -- they have no personality, no motivation save devouring the living, no chance at earning redemption on their own -- I could go on. Many will argue that good zombie stories are not about the zombies; they're about the people affected by the zombies. This I can buy, and it's what Kirkman goes with here, but I much prefer a post-apocalyptic story to bring out the very same character moments that are elicited from EVERY ZOMBIE MOVIE EVER. Sure, many zombie movies are also of the post-apocalypse varaity, but I feel the gangs of The Road Warrior and the politicians and tribal clans of Antony Johnston and Christopher Mitten's Wasteland are far superior at both creating drama and that opportunity for action than the traditional zombie story. Maybe The Walking Dead gets better. I'm not in a hurry to find out.

Now It's Time to Get Serious on Your Ass.
Super-cutie CNBC reporter Julia Boorstin writes in her Media Money blog that Rupert Murdoch announced today that NewsCorp will begin to charge for all their online newpaper content in the coming months.

"The digital revolution has opened many new models of distribution, but it has not made content free." Murdoch pointed to the Wall Street Journal's subscription service as proof that people will pay for content, saying "Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting."

True, quality journalism is not cheap, but the genie is already out of the bottle on this one, old man. The newspaper industry (how much longer before we stop refering to it as that?) is going to have to continue to evolve over the next decade into something financially viable, but charging for content that can similarly be obtained for free at so many other outlets is not going to work across the board. Sure, it works for the WSJ, but only a handful of publications in the world have a product with reputation like that (the NY Times and the Washington Post are two notable examples). Simply slapping a fee on anything you produce will not work for the majority of internet news readers. There may have been a time when this could have happened, but not any longer. You're 15 years too late. As those of us out here who are web-savy have already learned, if you want to get something for free on the internet, you can. All it takes is a Google search and a forum or blog that has utilized this new-fangled, cut-and-paste technology. Next thing you know, Murdoch's going to come up with a plan to recoup his MySpace loses by creating a user fee for that site too. The Facebook folks will thank him when he does.

And now I undigress with something that I really didn't need to know about this week, but now that I do, you should too.

"Adult toy" for dogs (via Boing Boing)

This doll comes in three sizes: small, medium and large, to satisfy all existing races. “I had the idea to make this doll when my Maltese started to grab everybody’s legs. I did some research and couldn’t find anything like it, anywhere in the world. I decided to make it!”, reveals Marco Giroto, owner of the PetSmiling company, responsible for this worldwide novelty...

Sorry.

Coming Up Next Week:

• Speaking of post-apocalypic stories, I'll begin delving into Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I've not tackled one of the modern-day Faulkner's novels before, so we'll see if I'm able to finish it in time for next week's article.

• Also, Choke and The Foot Fist Way have arrived from Netfilx, so it'll likely be a week of raunchy comedies reviews, if my expectations are met.