I felt compelled to write a review of this episode of The Walking Dead because I felt like, so far this season, it’s been my favorite and the one that’s come closest to replicating the experience of the comic book. I’m not saying that I want them to just faithfully, mindlessly adapt the comic book, that’s not what I’m saying at all.
Over the years of reading the comic, things happen or are alluded to or are foreshadowed to happen and you just raise your fist in the air and shout, “No!”
That’s what this entire episode was like. Sure, I loved that they’re setting up a whole bunch of stuff from the comic, too, stuff that I love, but this is about an overall feeling of frustrated uneasiness that the comic provided in spades. That entire scene with the zombie in the well (and what happens to half of him) was so terrifyingly creepy and excellent I couldn’t even stand it.
I can’t even stand how much I love that they’re setting so much stuff up, finally, that it feels like for the first time this season things are moving forward in a way they can’t be turned back from. Lori is pregnant. Maggie and Glen are getting together. Is Hershel REALLY storing walkers in the barn?
Jeez, it was so good.
But I also love the X-factors in the episode, also. Will they find the girl? How much of a badass is Daryl? Is Hershel hiding even more than we expect?
I can’t even begin to explain how nerve-wracking this show is to watch if you’re not watching it.
And you really don’t have any excuse to not be watching it, especially since we’re presenting it for FREE with Brewvies and Salt Lake City Weekly every week on the big screen. Seeing this show with a hundred and fifty other drunken fans on the big screen is about the most fun you can have watching the show.
And really, who else choked when they saw Merle in the preview for next week? I think that confirms pretty conclusively that he isn’t The Governor.
Which means that if and when we get the real Governor, he’s going to be a clean slate.