Apologies to all (5 or so of you), as I’ve been off the radar for some time, due to my move to Korea. I’ve been busy, with almost no time to fully contribute here at The Stuck Thumb. I haven’t had much time to seek out things that spark my interest enough to write about, to be honest, but I’ll spare you the gory (I fucking hate puns) details, and get at this.
The Walking Dead. I’m going to reiterate just how long I’ve been waiting for a television series dedicated to zombies. In consequence of this wait plus a few months more, after I viewed the trailer, I may have had high expectations for this pilot. In all honesty, I think that maybe nothing could have matched these expectations. My expectations are likely just unrealistic.
Now, I’m not saying this pilot isn’t worth a watch, because it absolutely is! I genuinely enjoyed watching this episode. I’ll say in advance to this post, I’m going to reveal a lot about what’s going on in this episode. You’ve been warned.
The opening scene is of the utmost importance. Here, we see the main character pull up in a police car to overturned and abandoned vehicles. We know what’s up. Among these abandoned vehicles, we see abandoned toys that reveal to us children have likely been killed and/or turned, we see a rotting corpse in a car, we see an abandoned gas station. All of the go-to creepy elements. We hear some shuffling as the protagonist investigates the area. The shuffling leads us to a little girl. Though we immediately know she is what is later referred to as “a walker”, it isn’t made completely obvious until she turns around. Before this happens, the main character identifies himself to her as a policeman and that she should not be afraid.
The fact that this character is in full uniform is something I find kind of ironic, and dare I say satirical. The fact that all authority goes out the window in the case of an apocalypse, makes this guy look like kind of a moron. Maybe it’s the only thing he feels he’s got going at this point, maybe he’s still in denial, who knows. When it comes down to it, no one’s going to listen to a damn word this jackass in the police uniform says. This uniform will not mean anything to zombies, nor will it mean anything to the living. I’m unsure if this was done on purpose by the writers. Either way, he shoots this fucking zombie kid in the head. Has the commonly used zombie child tactic lost most of its’ shock-value in this day and age? I can’t be certain, but I think it was a solid opener for this series.
We backtrack a few weeks? A few months? The time lapse is not revealed. We see what happens to this character, his coma, his trek home when he awakes. We see some pretty gory stuff, including half of a corpse dragging itself along the grass with its’ spilled intestines dragging along behind. This is where I felt they were going to take the series seriously enough.
You can’t half-ass this zombie shit. Zombie films do not typically include sex, so you’ve gotta jam-pack it with gore and violence to get the viewers. It’s a bit more of a challenge. Many of these vampire movies and television series will use sex as a ploy. Vampires are sexy now? When/why the fuck? Maybe a bit of a cheap move? That’s another story.
So, this man awakes, learns of his surroundings, and has gotta learn to hold his own against this breed. A man and a boy he meets let him practice in their front yard. Something I wanted to make note of during his practice session was the brief appearance and use of a hard, transparent face mask while beating in a zombie head. Now, this is something very practical that I haven’t thought of using before. Along with open wounds, and I feel this is just as important, one should be careful of the eyes and mouth. If any infected blood gets in there, you’re just as fucked. Sure, it’s not often where writers will avoid a full on zombie attack to infect someone through mouth or eyes, but it certainly happens. Don’t you remember? That’s how the father died in “28 Days Later” - a small drop of infected blood in his eye. Imagine dying that way when the zombie apocalypse actually hits. Embarrassing.
Anyway, back to the plot. We find that this character has left behind a family. A wife and a son. Nearing the end of the episode, we find the protagonist convinced his family is alive. Clothing drawers are empty, they’ve packed items of sentimental value. He parts with his company and sets off on a mission to find them, like almost any other person would do, sure. What I’m uneasy about is the fact that the audience finds his wife and child to be alive AND that he’s almost made contact through radio with them. Chances of these people being alive would be slim. Chances of contacting, or rather stumbling across these people again would be even slimmer. Adding to this situation, we find the wife to be involved with another man. This makes things even more complicated, and I’m maybe a little nervous this series will turn out a little more dramatic than need be.
Maybe my problem is that the writers didn’t build a relationship for viewers to see between these characters before the apocalypse. I don’t give a shit if they find each other, to be honest, and I’m betting the majority of the viewers feel similar. One thing I respected about - and my apologies for constant comparisons to - “28 Days Later” is that they didn’t make it about the protagonist searching for anyone of importance to him, aside from his parents in the very beginning whom we find have committed suicide anyway. The plot of the movie was based almost entirely on the protagonists’ survival along with the small group of people he met on the way. Well, hey, that seems more realistic.
Anyhow, I’ll leave you with those thoughts. Overall, I am intrigued to see how the next few episodes turn out. Maybe you’ll hear more from me on this as the season progresses.
XOXO
(It’s about bloody time) K-Reel
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