NEW SERIES: The Walking Dead: Season 1, Episode 1 Review: Days Gone Bye

Days Gone Bye

Original Airdate: October 31, 2010

Writer: Frank Darabont

Based on Material by: Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard & Tony Moore
Director: Frank Darabont

Since Danny Boyle’s 2003 film 28 Days Later (which, despite the intense debate among the zombie fandom, will be considered a zombie film), zombies have invaded popular culture like vampires have.  From films, video games, books and even board games, the fans of the undead have had no shortage of entertainment.  Then we have The Walking Dead, a monthly comic series that started in 2003.  What separates Walking Dead from other zombie fiction is its interest in the long term circumstances of survivors of the zombie apocalypse.  The fact that zombie movies had to end always bothered Robert Kirkman.  Whoever is left escapes the horde, but where do they go from there?  The zombies are still there, the world is still over.  What happens next?  Walking Dead seeks to answer that question.

While it could’ve been a good film or series of films, creator Robert Kirkman took the wise route of bringing it to TV.  TV has been the place for writers to craft a long form visual story, especially in the past decade.  A movie would be a difficult place to convey the book’s sense of long term survival.  Enter AMC, which has been able to overcome the fact that they don’t play a lot of classic films anymore with their amazing original programming.  The first two shows they green lit, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, are two of the best shows on TV, garnering tons of critical raves as well as many awards.  So the bar is set really high and judging by the pilot, Walking Dead may meet it.

Before going further, a note: I’ve read the comics (through trade #12).  However, to accommodate those new to Walking Dead, any comments I have that would be considered spoilers I’ll try to place out of the range of the main review, past the episode’s score.

It starts off on the right note, as Rick shoots a zombie girl in the head.  Killing a child, even one who is no longer human, isn’t easy to watch.  That they showed the hit and the gore effectively sets the show’s mood.  The survivors are in a brutal, unforgiving world, and they need to do whatever is necessary to survive, including stomach churning moments like this one.  In a few minutes it shows us what type of show it’s going to be, and if you don’t like it, they gave you a perfect window to tune out.

Unlike a lot of pilots, which get bogged down in exposition introducing every character to the point where it becomes a blur, this episode focuses heavily on one, small town sheriff’s deputy Rick.  He has to carry the show, and Andrew Lincoln did a great job with that, especially in the long stretches of the episode where he’s alone.  We see him on his last day of work, making small talk with his partner Shane before they get word of a high speed chase.  This scene expands upon the comic’s introduction, which had to be short because the comic didn’t have enough room for a lengthy scene before the zombies showed up.  It is a slower scene after the prologue, but it also introduces us to Rick and Shane, as well as the trouble in Rick and Lori’s marriage.  It’s important to set that up because the sense that Rick and Shane were friends before compounds the impact of when inevitably Rick finds them and learns of their relationship.

Much like Jim in 28 Days Later, Rick misses the apocalypse because he’s in the hospital (In Rick’s case he’s recovering from a gunshot wound) so he serves as the audience’s proxy too.  There is no timeline as to how long Rick has been under, nor how long since the dead rose and destroyed society.  We’re in the dark almost as much as Rick is until he comes across a father and son squatting in his former neighbor’s home, who initially confused him for a zombie.

Morgan (played by Jericho favorite Lennie James) and son Duane get Rick caught up as to what happened.  We learn the rules about zombies, which while not divergent from conventional zombie mythology, is important to introduce in the beginning.  One of the biggest dilemmas of supernatural fiction is setting up the rules, sticking to them, and not making the rules sound like a lecture, and luckily Walking Dead does them well.  The execution works because it is so closely connected to the character.  Morgan lost his wife to the zombie plague, and now has to deal with the mother of his child wandering the neighborhood they’re now living in.  Morgan knows he should’ve put her down, but can’t muster up the courage when she sees him as he peers through the scope of a sniper rifle.

Walking Dead is about pushing regular people past the breaking point into a life filled with impossible choices that range from horrible to slightly less horrible.  So it makes sense to have a law man at the center of the series.  Rick’s life before the fall was probably black and white: he upheld the law and didn’t have much outside of his marriage that didn’t make sense to him.  Now he has to adjust his moral code to figure his way among this devastating landscape.  It’s exemplified in the scene where he comes across the horrifying image of the leg less zombie.  He initially runs away, but after learning the truth, returns to her to put her down.  The old way of doing things is obsolete, and now Rick has to find a new way.

This is perhaps the best example of a show fully showing what the stakes for the characters are since Lost.  As Rick and Morgan tell Duane, every bullet counts, and they have to mean it when they pull the trigger.  Besides the lack of consistent ammo delivery, a gunshot brings forth throngs of the undead.  Consequences matter on this show.  A false move, something not checked, and you’re dead.  Take the ballad of Leon, the deputy from the beginning.  No doubt what made not have his gun ready at the stand off ultimately killed him when faced with the zombie menace.  While Rick knows the importance of being careful, he still has a lot to learn in this world.  Going into Atlanta on an easily spooked horse got him ambushed and trapped in a tank, away from his bag of guns.  Then without thinking, he shoots the zombie soldier, temporarily stunning him.

Rick is in Atlanta in hopes of finding his wife and son, who he has reason to believe may be alive.   Unfortunately when his car radio picks up the transceiver in the camp his wife and son happen to be in, he can’t hear their side of the conversation warning him not to go there.  This leads to the image of Rick on horseback heading to Atlanta used in the ads and the ending set piece, the ambush as he is in a tank surrounded by zombies, who no doubt aren’t full from that ill fated horse.

There’s a glimmer of hope, as a young man reaches the tank’s communication system and talks to Rick.  Fans of the comic know who this guy is, and I’ll refrain from saying.  That’s another thing worth talking about: the show has put the spotlight on the comic, exposing it to people who have never picked up a comic book in their lives.  Most of the reaction I’ve heard is from the hard core fans or people who’ve at least read the books, but as the show goes on, I want to hear more from those new to Walking Dead about what happens next without the bias of knowing where the comic’s story goes next.

AMC deserves a lot of credit for the production value of their shows.  Mad Men and Breaking Bad look amazing, and Walking Dead is no exception.  From the wrecked cars to dilapidated buildings, the apocalypse looks vivid in a way you may not expect on a basic cable budget, as amazing as some of those shows can be.  It wouldn’t be a surprise if the pilot had a bigger budget than a regular episode, and I wonder how they will maintain this sense of devastation.  No discussion of this show would be complete without discussing the amazing make up work.  These are some of the best looking zombies I’ve ever seen, so to speak.  They put a lot of work into showing zombies, from freshly dead to long rotting, with horrifying detail.

One small problem I had with the show, the CGI used to increase the gore (or flies).  The gore done by make up and props looks amazing, and AMC deserves serious credit for letting them go this far, but some of those effects, like the leg less girl’s execution, had distracting post production splatter thrown in.  Clearly they want to up the gore to reinforce the high stakes the characters are in, but this feels like explicit gore to enhance controversy or to compensate for something, which considering the wealth of the material and quality of this pilot, is unnecessary at best.

Something they should be commended on is how they know how to generate good, well earned scares.  They could’ve gone for some startling moments, like a zombie appearing before Rick as he went down the stairway in the dark, but instead they go for situations, like Morgan’s wife staring into the peephole, jiggling the doorknob as Rick watches the outside, to generate unease.  Every frame of this show is filled with dread.  Making the audience jump is easy and a little bit cheap; making them squirm is a lot harder.

This is one of the most impressive pilots I’ve seen in a while.  The world, its hero and the stakes are superbly established.  The writing is confident and Darabont knows the right balance of fidelity to the source material and freedom to pursue what works in the new medium, an important piece of any adaptation.  It gets the spirit of the books right, and hopefully that will continue throughout this six episode run and the possible future.

Overall Score: 9/10 Headshots