The Walking Dead: Guts....

 

The Walking Dead

Episode 2: Guts

Let me start by saying that I was more impressed with the first episode than my co-blogger, K-reel, was. From the moment I was introduced to Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes, I liked him. The character development that played out over the episode only made me like him more.

His reactions to the situation he found himself in were quite believable and really served to humanize him for me. In the fear and disgust that flashed across his face as he encountered his first walkers and the pathos he obviously felt for the things, he really came across as a good man. Somebody I wished could be my dad, even.

And that I think, is one of The Walking Dead’s greatest strengths: that it is more a show about humans with zombies in it than it is a show about zombies with humans thrown in. There were several moments in the premier episode where I felt my heart being wrenched in my chest, they were so emotionally affecting. I won’t ruin them here, but really, you should all at least watch the first episode and see for yourselves.

From the moment Rick awoke in the hospital, the nightmarish world of the walking dead was painted so viscerally across the screen that I found myself drawn in and believing everything that was happening. The fact that this show has dramatic gravitas is what makes it so distinct in the genre, I think.

Though I like zombie action, with people running around, jumping off walls and butterfly kicking zombies in the head a la Resident Evil, I like real emotion too. And in a way, this show combines a little bit of both elements. Minus the flying kicks. At least, so far.

So, now that I’ve established I’m a fan of this show, let’s talk about its second episode, Guts. Spoilers follow, though I will try to limit them.

Guts takes up where Days Gone By left off, with Rick in a fair amount of trouble. He escapes, and hooks up with some other survivors. Tensions escalate within the group and we see that the walkers aren’t the only monsters here.

The mean, vicious side of human kind rears its ugly head and its just the kind of thing I think is going to happen when the zombie apocalypse arrives. People won’t be united, we’ll be just as divided as we were before, only now we’ll all be even more indignant because we’ll all have lost friends and family and will be waiting for the next time we have to kill something.

People who were assholes before are still going to be assholes, and you’re really going to have to be careful who you choose to travel with. I’d recommend staying away from large groups because of this fact, unless of course through some miraculous twist of fate you can stay with people you already know and trust.

Because as the world gets harder and more cut throat, people will too. We’ll all have to learn how to survive and that will inevitably lead to us all becoming more cruel. So, I’d say stick with as few people as you can. No more than five, that’s for sure.

Everybody’s going to be competing for limited resources, so the fewer people you have to divide yours up with the better. That is until you establish your own commune, a defended utopia where you will begin to rebuild the world. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Anyways, back to the show.

As we continue to learn more about the survivors, the intricacies of their relationships begin to come to light and we start to get a sense of who they were before all of this happened. Likable or not, the characters here are vivid and full of life.

Rick of course, remains the moral compass of the show and it’s particularly interesting to see how his views on society change in a scene played out in the department store he finds himself trapped in with the other the survivors

The stand out among the other survivors introduced in this episode is quite obviously Glenn. And he is quite likable too, a nice sidekick to Rick. I always admire those who don’t bitch when it’s their turn to put themselves on the line for the group and Glenn really has his turn here. I hope that this will be the kind of person I will be when the dead begin to walk the earth.

There is a reason that this episode is called Guts, and let me just say it is pretty sweet. And by sweet I mean disgusting, excuse my somewhat twisted sensibilities. The survivors do something I’ve read about in zombie fiction before, but it really is quite different to see in live action.

Let’s just say it involves a little bit of dress up, and a lot of pulverizing.

As the episode draws to a close, the show’s two separate storylines grow closer to intersecting. This will provide quite a lot more human drama, though plagued of course, by the used-to-be-human drama provided by the constant threat of a walker taking a bite out of you.

Catch episode three, Tell It to the Frogs, tonight on AMC. Or stream it later!

XOXO

D-bag