‘The Walking Dead’ Episode 4.10 “Inmates” (10 out of 10) Starring Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Chandler Riggs, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan; Sundays on AMC.

Though I liked that the previous episode slowed things down by focusing on only three of the prison survivors, tonight’s episode kicked the storytelling and zombie-killing into high gear. The multiple trajectories of the rest of our heroes zigzag with each other throughout this episode, and some pretty substantial events take place—so if you haven’t seen it, be advised that spoilers will be present.

Beth and Daryl

It seems like the writers are getting a bit more inventive with their pre-credits sequences. The episode begins with Beth’s voice reading a diary entry that she had written during the more peaceful days at the prison.  She writes about how she’s just starting to let go of the constant fear that comes with living under these horrific circumstances. The irony of this voiceover is that it provides the soundtrack to Beth’s current situation, in which she and Daryl barely escape from a pack of walkers while crows circle them overhead.

Beth mentions the advice that Hershel (may he rest in peace) had given her, which was to never lose hope. It’s a contrast to how she was portrayed during the first half of the season, but she’s the one who keeps reminding Daryl that their friends might still be alive. It’s very necessary, because Daryl appears to be in survival mode, only speaking to deliver a barb about how faith didn’t seem to do much for Hershel, because, you know, the Governor chopped of Hershel’s head and all.

Tyreese, Lizzie, Mika, and…

Apparently still grateful for the fact that Lizzie and Mika saved his bacon during the prison attack, Tyreese has shepherded the two young girls into the wilderness with him. In an extremely well-shot scene, we see Tyreese with his back to the girls. When he turns around, he’s carrying Li’l Ass-kicker! And she’s alive! After emitting a small but masculine shriek of joy at the fact that Judith Grimes made it out of the prison, I immediately felt a surge of sympathy for Tyreese. Keeping three little girls safe while wandering through a zombie-infested wilderness would be incredibly hard. It turns out that babies tend to cry a lot when they’re uncomfortable, and we know that in their world, uncomfortable is a way of life.

Before getting to the next big reveal involving this group of survivors, we need to talk about Lizzie. She kills small animals and nearly smothers Judith to keep her from crying and attracting the undead. She seems to understand the zombies better than she understands her own sister. I don’t know whether she’s becoming more in tune to the violence around her, which could be a good thing, or if she’s becoming a potential serial murderer. Based on the way she almost killed a baby, however, I’m leaning towards the latter.

Right. The big reveal. Tyreese hears screaming and leaves the three girls alone for a moment while he investigates. Next to a railroad, Tyreese witnesses two survivors getting eaten, and manages to kill everything before things get too out of control. He turns to go back to his young companions only to see Carol! She’s found them! Again, I had a moment of uncontrollable excitement until I remembered that Carol kinda killed Tyreese’s girlfriend and burned her remains. Tyreese doesn’t know this just yet, however, and he’s just happy to see a friendly face.  That’s going to be an extremely awkward conversation, but I hope Tyreese and Carol can sort things out while trying to figure out how to stop Lizzie from becoming a psychopath. We leave this bittersweet reunion with a sign that’s posted next to the railroad—apparently there’s a sanctuary called Terminus at the end of the line. But can it be trusted?

Maggie, Sasha, and Bob

Maggie’s priority is to find Glen, who she last saw boarding a bus full of survivors that took to the hills. During a pause in their wandering, Maggie announces that she’s going to look for Glen. Surprisingly, Bob agrees to help, once again citing Hershel’s advice to keep hope alive. As with Beth’s character, Bob seems to have become more optimistic than I remember—after all, he’s the one who craves alcohol so he can drown out the terrors that he had been subjected to. 

Upon reaching the bus, the group sees that it’s packed with walkers. Maggie insists that they put them all down because she needs to see if Glen has been killed, and much zombie slaying ensues. After she puts the last walker down, Maggie descends into a fit of crying/laughter, which makes me think that she’s starting to come unglued. 

Glen and…

Poor Glen. Everyone thinks he got on the bus and skedaddled, but no. He’s been unconscious in one of the prison’s blown-out towers. He has a moment where he figures that there’s no hope in finding anyone, but before he gives up completely, a picture of Maggie fills him with the will to survive. He dons some riot gear and plows his way through the zombie horde. On his way out, he spots Tara, who has walled herself off in a chain-link cage and is surveying the carnage that she helped create. Glen makes the decision to save her, though it seems like it’s more out of necessity than pity.

Tara, obviously penitent for her role in the attack, appears to want to make amends by helping Glen out. That’s gonna be another awkward moment when Maggie sees Glen and one of the Governor’s henchmen in cahoots.

The episode closes with the arrival of three canonical characters, Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita.  Pretty cool considering the direction that the comics take after these three show up.

Verdict

This was one of the best episodes of the series. I loved how the episode was structured to show how each group’s paths intersect; like how Daryl finds the grapes that Lizzie, Mika, and Tyreese drop when they run off, or Beth finding the slaughter at the railroad. This was a nice touch, as it showed how close each of them was to finding one another. There was also a healthy amount of zombie slaying action to appease folks who complain about the show’s slow pace. Overall, this episode shows how strong each cast member is. Even when we’re seeing Norman Reedus and Emily Kinney barely speak to one another, the mixture of tragedy and survival hangs heavy in each of their scenes. The mixture of characters that make up each group is going to create all kinds of lovely problems in the future, and I’m looking forward to seeing how everything shakes out once everyone shows their cards. And isn’t it about time for the Grimes boys to have a bit of good news? It will be the source of much rejoicing when they’re finally reunited with Judith—that is, supposing the writers don’t decide to kill her off in the next episode. I know there are some haters out there, but ‘The Walking Dead’ is still managing to be original and gut-wrenching at the same time, which is more than I can say for most of the stuff that’s on TV today.

‘The Walking Dead’ Episode 4.9 “After” (8 out of 10) Starring Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Chandler Riggs, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan; Sundays at 9/8 central on AMC.

Regardless of the fact that “The Walking Dead” takes place in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, when I see those haunting opening credits hit my TV screen once again, I can’t help but feel the overwhelming sense that I’m coming home after a long vacation. As the group has become scattered throughout the countryside after the epic mid-season finale, it looks like the first few episodes will be focusing on multiple plot lines that revolve around a few characters at a time. Tonight’s episode focused on two plotlines, one involving Michonne with the other involving Rick and Carl.  As usual, there be spoilers ahead.

Michonne

We get our last glimpse of the blown-out prison through Michonne’s pissed off scowl. Right off the bat, we’re treated to some of her trademark swordplay. Let’s be honest—at this point, Michonne has become nothing short of an artist with that katana of hers. No two head-choppings are exactly the same, and it’s a gross, beautiful thing. 

Aside from the prison’s smoldering ruins, there are two grisly reminders of what happened during the mid-season finale. The Governor’s slain corpse and Hershel’s severed head.  As the latter writhed around on the ground, I became a bit more emotional than I was expecting. It was bad enough seeing Hershel coldly murdered in front of his loved ones, but now we have to see his reanimated zombie head? After rustling up two new armless, jawless zombie pets, Michonne skewers Hershel’s head, officially closing the book on that chapter of the series. It’s hard to see the prison fade into the background—so many memories.  However, it also means that the show is moving forward into uncharted territory, which is something that “The Walking Dead” has traditionally done well. 

Another aspect of the show that is always impressive is the time spent on character development. We’ve been getting these slow glimpses at Michonne’s life before the zombie holocaust—most notably her emotional reaction when holding little Judith—who is currently MIA. In a surreal and tragic dream sequence, we see Michonne preparing dinner with two gents in a well-furnished house. During this flashback, we also see that Michonne did indeed have a child. The scene shifts and becomes more aggressive—presumably a memory of life right after the outbreak. Michonne wakes up right after we see that these two men—one of which is Michonne’s significant other—have had their arms chopped off. Remember her first pair of zombie pets? Yeah. It’s them. Poor Michonne.

Michonne’s central conflict in this episode is whether or not she’s going to give in to the crippling depression that overcomes a person after seeing their home destroyed and their friends scattered into the wilderness. At one point, she and her new zombie pets just fall in line with a herd of walkers that are headed nowhere in particular. But, this is Michonne we’re talking about, after all. She embraces the fact that she’s still among the living by administering some of her cold steel justice to the entire herd. It’s an amazing scene—Danai Gurira makes you feel every slice and dice that she delivers. As she stands on a pile of fresh zombie corpses, we see that she’s clearly chosen to keep on tracking those mysterious footprints that lead through the woods.

Rick and Carl

Though Michonne’s storyarc was balanced with a good ratio of zombie killing and emotional gravitas, the episode belonged to Rick and Carl. They’ve escaped the prison together, but Rick’s fight with the Governor has left him injured and feeble. Between Rick’s inability to fight and his attempts to assert his patriarchal authority, Carl has lost his faith in his father. As Rick slips into a basically comatose state, Carl has himself a bit of an identity crisis. Claiming that he would be fine if Rick up and died, Carl heads out on a salvage mission to declare his independence from the Rick-tatorship. It’s a sad scene to watch, as Rick has been subject to all kinds of terrible crap without having his only living next of kin shout at him about how lame he’s become. However, it’s a scene that has played out since the dawn of time—every teenager reaches a point when they believe they can survive on their own without their parents’ meddling. Apparently, it’s no different during a zombie apocalypse.

This episode gives Carl a lot of solo screen time, and Chandler Riggs has developed into a decent actor—which is a rare thing among actors in his age group. He swaggers through the deserted town like he owns the place and puts down a fair share of zombies in the process. The most powerful scene comes that evening when Rick wakes up. Since it’s difficult to tell whether Rick has died and come back as a walker or not, Carl has his gun trained on his father. Regardless of Rick’s fate, Carl breaks down and drops his weapon. During his appearance on “Talking Dead,” episode director Greg Nicotero explained that Carl couldn’t kill Rick either way because his fear of being alone was greater than his fear of dying—proving that he’s got a little bit of growing up to do. Rick wasn’t a zombie, however, and the pair shares some much needed father/son bonding.

Verdict

After so much chaos during the prison attack, it’s good to see the show slow down a bit and remind us why we care about these slightly damaged people who are just trying to see the next sunrise. This episode did a great job of giving the audience more incentive to stick around to see if Michonne, Rick, and Carl can maintain their humanity in an increasingly hostile environment. Carl’s bout with teenage rebellion, though hard to watch since Rick was all crippled and broken, gave me a little hope for the younger generation who is growing up in this type of world. Regardless of how severe and inhospitable the world outside becomes, kids will always seek to assert their independence—the one difference is that living in a world of the undead makes them realize they’re not invincible pretty damn quick.     

Nothing is sacred in the world of “The Walking Dead’, and Season 2: Episode 1 makes sure you remember. To the excitement of fans worldwide we are put in control of the innocent and loveable Clementine from the first season. If you remember the end of season 1, Clem is alone and seeing 2 shadows walking in the distance. Luckily, it is our friends Omid and Krista who, like most characters, are only used as a reminder that nothing lasts.

Even after playing through Season 1 twice and diving into Season 2, I’m amazed that point and click controls can feel as stressful as the game makes them.

I haven’t mashed buttons this hard since I thought I was good at Tekken.

The controls at times create a panicked feeling that I haven’t felt since “Resident Evil”, and the phenomenally written story makes you instantly love the core characters. It almost feels like a cheap shot giving us Clem as the main character since she was so well loved in the previous title. Telltale can basically throw anything at us they imagine and it is a hundred times worse, simply because she is involved. Clem aside the ancillary characters are built well, and the Telltale crew did a phenomenal job building their personalities in such a short time.

If you play nothing else this year, please play this!

$4.99 for 2 or so hours of teeth gritting gameplay is more than a value, and $24.99 (prices do vary based on discounts and system) for all 5 seasons is a steal for something this enthralling. You have to play the game at least twice, just to see the different parts of Clem that have developed in her two years away from Lee. I reiterate my feelings that using Clem gives Telltale so much more leverage, due to the fact that she was so well received in the previous title. But the adult-level decisions she (and you by proxy) is required to make had me stopping to think at regular intervals. What effects will this have on my story? Do I leave them to suffer? Can I trust these people? A point-and-click adventure has never been able to make us question our decisions until Telltale came along.  I don’t care what you play this on, just go out and do it. You won’t be disappointed.

Thanks to Telltale Games for the review code. FIrst play through happening live! Chime in via the comments, we’ll see how far we get!

SPOILER ALERT, THIS IS THE FULL GAME

Part One: Archive (will continue the game tonight!)

Minecraft: XBox 360 Edition has just recently passed 10 million copies sold. It’s happened at an interesting time, as Minecraft: PS3 Edition goes on sale today. Although further development for the PS3 version will be done “in tandem from now on” with other console versions, existing DLC from other consoles may not be fully available at launch. It should be coming soon. Other Sony-themed content is also possible.

Why does Media Molecule love us so much? They’re still supporting Littlebigplanet with new content releases and there’s a great two pack available this week. Announced via Twitter, the developer tells us to “Join Sackboy and the Justice League for a brand new adventure in the @DCComics Premium Level Pack!” This week’s DC Comics Costume Pack has a Kryptonian theme, featuring Superman, Supergirl, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and Bizarro. The Premium Level Pack contains the Hero Cape power-up (gliding, aerial acrobatics), wall jumping ability (surface material), the Memoriser tool, the usual batch of decorative goods, and two bonus costumes (Cyborg and Cheetah). The level pack adds seven new trophies to earn. As usual, one purchase of these packs will net you the content on Littlebigplanet 2, Vita, and Karting. Four additional packs are coming soon. All will be available for individual purchase, or you can save some cash by buying the DC DLC Season Pass to get everything. No word for sure on what will be included in the next packs, but I’m seeing at least Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern, and Flash. The Joker is also probably based on promotional reveals.

Sunday’s change in the Games with Gold line-up on XBox 360 saw Gears of War get replaced by Shoot Many Robots. We here at Big Shiny Robot! do not condone the shooting of any real robots, let alone many of them. We do, however, fully encourage you to shoot as many of them in this video game as you possibly can – especially when it’s free.

Sony has two big updates this week for the PlayStation Plus members. First, Dyad is now available is the Instant Game Collection (Hotline Miami is on Last Chance). They are also offering a free trial of Killzone Shadow Fall’s multiplayer mode. You can download the file now, but the trial is only live 12/28-12/31. The holiday sale is also continuing with some great prices (God of War Ascension for $10)!

Comic fans should enjoy this week. The Walking Dead Season Two Episode One is kicking off. If you missed one of the best games of last year, Season One is also on sale through XBLA.

That’s exciting enough, but XBLA also has a major sale on tons of Marvel content. Check the store on your console for the full listing, but I’m seeing discounts of 50-90% on everything from the classic X-Men Arcade Game, Deadpool, four Spider-Man titles, four modern X-Men and a load of Marvel vs Capcom games and DLC.

 I know Christmas isn’t for another week, and there will be two more VGQH columns before then, but I saw this holiday card from Naughty Dog and it’s just so great I couldn’t pass it up as a closer. Check back Friday for more gaming news.

With Telltale Games announcing the return of their critically acclaimed episodic game, “The Walking Dead”. Gamers have been chomping at the bit for the release. With the game set to release “before Christmas” on a slew of systems, at least we get to watch this a few times over to prepare ourselves, right?

Welcome to December. I hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving and relatively safe Black Friday. My condolences to those that had to work in retail on that horrible day. I did make one quick shopping trip in the afternoon and a visit to the grocery store, but everything was mostly calmed by that time. Anyway, it’s been a long weekend so let’s get straight to news:

Some ambitious gamer has hacked in to the data files for the recent Beach Bum DLC pack on Grand Theft Auto V / Online. Some audio files were discovered that may hint toward upcoming content for the game, including casino gambling, pink slip racing, selling drugs, and indoor motocross. It’s also possible that these files are remnants of cut content, but let’s look at it with hope shall we?

Gears of War is currently free on XBox Live with Games With Gold. It will remain free until December 15th when Shoot Many Robots takes over. December is the last month for the promotion according to the original announcement. However, Microsoft has since indicated they plan to continue the subscription bonus and may even extend it to XBox One games.

Sony’s own version of the free games, PS Plus’s Instant Game Collection, also received an update today with GRID 2 on PS3. Borderlands 2 and Dyad are also coming free for PS3 this month. For Vita, you can look forward to Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and Urban Trial Freestyle. No new PS4 games were announced for the month. One of my favorite IGCs to date, bit.trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien, is on last chance.

Sony Pictures has recently claimed the domain names thelastofus-movie.com and .net. It’s not a stretch to say they are at least considering a film version of Naughty Dog’s darkly apocalyptic story. Video game movies don’t have a great reputation, but this is definitely one franchise with a lot of potential to make the leap.

Season two of Telltale’s The Walking Dead (subtitled All That Remains) has been confirmed to start in December. A recently tweeted screen shot also seems to confirm that Omid will be returning to Clementine’s life in this next chapter. The game is not currently scheduled for PS4 and XB1 but versions will likely come to those consoles in the future. Telltale is also only one chapter into The Wolf Among Us, which should get its second installment soon. Can we handle the wait for two episodic masterpieces at once?

The Gaikai streaming service from PlayStation is scheduled to hit North American PS4s in 2014. Europe will be waiting until 2015. According to Sony’s Andrew House

We’re on track to have a commercial service up and running in the US first within 2014. That remains the plan and we’re very much on track to reach that.

But what’s important is to understand the full scope of what we’re trying to achieve and why we felt the Gaikai acquisition was important. Our goal is to be able to have a new form of game distribution streamed from the server side, initially to PS4 consoles then gradually moving that out to Vita.

But eventually, the endgame is to have this available on a multitude of network-connected devices, essentially delivering a console-quality gaming experience on devices which are not innately capable of doing that.”

We need to prove out the technology, which we feel is good at its core, but we place – as I think is quite right – a real emphasis on delivering a quality experience for consumers. And that will be dependent to a degree on what the strength of broadband connection is going to be, and what our server deployment and infrastructure looks like.

The mention of Vita may seem like a throwaway line, but don’t ignore it. Let’s not forget the PS Vita TV. It was recently released in Japan to moderate success, becoming one of the first devices to push the streaming media concept to that market. There are no announcements to bring that box to the US yet, but it western markets are beign explored and will liekly be handled differentlyl. A cheap to purchase Vita TV ($99 MSRP) with a DualShock 3 and Gaikai streaming could be an extremely cheap and effective way to bring the PlayStation brand to families who don’t traditionally purchase gaming consoles.

That’s all for this week’s early edition. Come back Friday for all the news from throughout the week. Stay warm, friends.

Today, Telltale games gave fans of their Walking Dead series exactly what they wanted. The sequel to their critically acclaimed first season of The Walking Dead is available for pre-order, with a release date sure to follow in the coming months. THe teaser trailer released by Telltale shows us Clementine, and their press team has confirmed that she will be a playable character in the new content.

The Walking Dead Season 2 -a Telltale Games series, will continue the story of Clementine.

We here at BSR! are more than a little excited to dive back into the adventure with Clementine at the helm. The ending broke my heart, and it will be phenomenal to get back onboard with Clem. Based on the screen shots that you can check out below there will be pretty visceral action while playing as an older, but still pre-teen Clem, which means self defense will be more of a challenge. Will we get to see who she meets up with, or maybe who the couple sees far off in the field?!  Only time will tell!  Screen shots below!

This morning the network announced that it will air a companion to “The Walking Dead” with the same creative team and universe, but now we will follow brand new character in another part of Kirkman’s ‘verse. AMC’s president and general manager Charlie Collier stated in a press release:

Building on the success of the most popular show on television for adults 18-49 is literally a no-brainer. We look forward to working with Robert, Gale and Dave again as we develop an entirely new story and cast of characters. It’s a big world and we can’t wait to give fans another unforgettable view of the zombie apocalypse.

Returning for creative duties will be Robert Kirkman as well as producers Gale Anne Hurd and Dave Alpert. Kirkman reports that he is eager to work with new characters and stories that are not previously defined by their appearance in a comic book. 

“The Walking Dead” is not a show about the apocalypse. It’s about people – the zombies are merely a plot device. The character driven stories have made it the highest rated drama on television, not the gimmick. So while part of me thinks that a spin-off featuring the same creative team will deliver another sound product, another part of me wonders why we need more of the same. 

Season four of “The Walking Dead” premieres on October 13, and look for the spin-off to air sometime in 2015.

What say you, readers? Sound off and let us know if you’re excited for more tales of undead America or if you’d rather this team invest their energies in something completely new.