“I’m sorry this happened to you.” – Rick
I think it’s pretty safe to say that The Walking Dead became AMC’s first highly anticipated series.
Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Rubicon all came into the television world like silent submarines. It was only later that people recognized their greatness. The Walking Dead, on the other hand, received far more media attention than its AMC predecessors.
The zombie genre is one that seems made for serialized television, doesn’t it? I’m a big fan of zombie films (from Night of the Living Dead to 28 Days Later to everything in between), but they always leave me wanting more in one key regard: I want to see what life is really like during a zombie apocalypse.
Nearly every film I’ve seen in the genre fails to get into the day-to-day life of survival. Sure, films like both versions of Dawn of the Dead take place over an extended period of time inside a shopping mall and deal with how the survivors cope, but the inevitable end to the movie keeps us on constant reminder that their own story of survival will end in some way or another too.
The survivors might all get killed, they might live towards an uncertain future, or they might find out that the one way to cure a reanimated corpse is making one drink an appletini, but the restraints of film as a medium narrow the scope of a genre that can be very grand in that regard.
Needless to say, when I heard about Robert Kirkman’s zombie comic book series being adapted for television, I was very excited. Finally we are going to see a take on the genre where stories don’t need to be wrapped up so neatly. I haven’t read any of the series itself (as nerdy as I am, I’ve never been a comic book guy), but from what I’ve read about it, much of the storylines deal with the almost mundane aspects of living the life of an apocalyptic survivalist. Surviving this kind of scenario would be a testament in patience, and I’m excited about a show that has the means to be patient with its material too.
These slower progressions will likely come later, though, as “Days Gone Bye” was anything but. At 90 minutes long, the episode had a lot of time to introduce us to the “walker”-infested world, but we basically learned all the background we needed from the cold open. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), a sheriff’s deputy, comes across a service station and gets out of his squad car to hunt for some gas. Overturned cars, garbage, and corpses lay strewn around the area and he is disappointed to find a sign above the pumps reading “No Gas.” He notices a young girl pick up a dirty stuffed animal and calls to her to see if he can help. She turns around and he face is a mangled disaster of ripped flesh and exposed bone. She menacingly approaches, and Grimes pulls out his revolver and caps her in the brain.
We flashback to sometime earlier where Rick and his partner, Shane (Jon Bernthal), discuss the difference between men and women. A call comes over the radio to assist with a high-speed chase with some armed gunmen. Using a set of spike strips, they incapacitate the criminals, but Rick gets shot in the process and eventually goes into a coma.
Sometime later (the timeline is vague so far, but we know he’s been out of it for at least a month) he awakes to find an empty hospital. Well almost empty. On his way out, he finds a locked room with the words “Don’t open, dead inside” spray-painted on the doors. Fingers creep their way through the crack.
Outside, he finds a bicycle and makes his way to his house and finds it empty with no sign of his wife or son. He comes across a man, Morgan (Lennie James), and his son Duane who, after determining that Rick hadn’t been bitten by any of the Walkers, take him into their stronghold. Morgan explains a bit of the “rules” of this new world. Some sort of virus began infecting people and caused them to break out into intense fevers. These fevers eventually kill the person, but not for long. They come back and they come back hungry.
Morgan and Duane have been held up for quite a while (both dealing with the loss and subsequent return of Duane’s mother), but they tell Rick about a refugee colony in Atlanta. They take a trip to the sheriff’s station and Rick loads himself and Morgan up with some guns. Rick’s off to Atlanta. Morgan and Duane say they’ll follow him in a few days. Morgan wants to make sure he and Duane are capable of using their new guns before they leave the safety of their current setting, but when Morgan starts sniping Walkers from the upstairs window, he can’t bring himself to put down his zombified wife. Their situation, unfortunately, looks dire.
In another part of Georgia, we find Shane who, as it turns out, has survived the initial outbreak and has led a small band of survivors to a camp in the woods. Among his group is Rick’s wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and son Glenn (Steven Yeun). They get a garbled transmission from Rick (though the static makes his voice unrecognizable), but are unable to respond. Lori becomes angry with Shane and storms off with Shane not far behind. They argue a bit, but they calm each other down and passionately kiss, though they quickly break apart when Glenn comes near.
Rick, meanwhile, runs out of gas before he gets to the city and has to “borrow” a horse from a farm he passes (in which the owners have killed themselves). He finally makes it to A-town (with an eerie line of cars abandoned on the freeway out of town) and while weaving his way through a few straggling, avoidable Walkers, he hears the whirring of a helicopter and giddy-ups his way after it — until he blindly turns a corner and finds a pack of several hundred zombies.
In an instant, he is surrounded and knocked off the horse (which is promptly torn to shreds) and has to crawl under an abandoned tank to escape. More and more creatures crawl after him and he momentarily considers killing himself when he notices a hatch under the chassis and makes his way safely into the tank (where he pops a soldier Walker who is waiting inside). He’s momentarily safe, but there are hundreds of Walkers surrounding the tank and he has nowhere to go (he doesn’t try to start the vehicle, but I’m guessing that’s not a possibility). And then a voice comes over the radio. “Cozy in there?” it asks.
Ninety minutes into The Walking Dead and they’re already hooking me in like that? Now that’s good television.
Lingering thoughts on “Days Gone Bye”:
- Frank Darabont’s direction is unsurprisingly excellent. Ditto the make-up effects. These are some disgusting looking zombies.
- The first season will, unfortunately, be only six episodes long. I’m guessing this has to do with the high-production costs of the series. This thing just looks expensive.
- Who do you think is in the helicopter?
- I’m not sure how I feel about Andrew Lincoln as the protagonist yet. He’s honestly a bit bland, but it’s probably too early to be judging him anyway.
- Jeffrey DeMunn shows up among Shane’s crew. He’s Darabont’s lucky charm, appearing in all four of his films and now this series as well.
- “That’s when the Exorcist voice comes out.” – Shane
- “The difference between men and women: I’d never say something that cruel to her.” – Rick
- “Make sure you got a round in the chamber and the safety off.” – Rick
- “She’s here.” – Duane
Some stats and info about The Walking Dead, “Chupacabra”
TV SHOW – The Walking Dead
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 1
AIRED ON – October 31st, 2010
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – AMC
GENRE – Horror, Drama, Zombies, Thriller
CREATED BY – Frank Darabont
CAST – Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Lauren Cohan, Christian Serratos, Josh McDermitt, Danai Guria, Seth Gilliam, Andrew Lincoln, Ross Marquand, Chandler Riggs
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.