The real danger in an apocalyptic zombie world where a group of survivors are thrown together is not the flesh-eating zombies that are ruthlessly hunting to devour every inch of you. It’s the people you are trusting with your life — at least that is what “The Walking Dead” is teaching me.
The season premiere comes fresh out of the fiery inferno that engulfed all hopes (and the Center for Disease Control) in season one, armed with just the right dose of zombie gore to prepare you for the upcoming holiday, but too much character bitch— er, bickering, and betrayal to be satisfying.
Protagonist and ex-cop Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), with emotion choking his every word, bemoans the woes of last season. But he mutters that this season’s plot will be remarkably similar to the first: just a shot in the dark at finding a new military base to call home.
The inevitable snafu of the episode soon presents itself in the form of a tangle of cars littering the highway, making further travel in the RV impossible. This is the setting that consumes most of the entire hour and a half premiere.
The only part slower than the plot is the horde of zombies that appears out of nowhere to try and devour our survivors. After diving under cars to prevent the zombies from seeing them, the little girl, Sophia (Madison Lintz), decides she should get out from under the car before the heavily armed adults. She is (predictably) hunted by bloodthirsty walkers into the neighboring woods, where hero Rick decides to lead a fruitless rescue squad for 48 hours.
Oh, and **SPOILER ALERT** Carl (Chandler Riggs), Rick’s son, gets shot in the closing seconds — through a deer.
There are a number of things that were irksome: the zombies are a mix between too intelligent at times and too stupid at others, some of the zombie apocalypse survival basics that keep die-hards hooked (Really, Robert Kirkman? Hiding under cars? Zombies _can_ smell human flesh) are missing and the gore that keeps enthusiasts hooked occurs mostly off screen. But while the two plot points that span the entire showing may produce a dry and snooze-worthy episode, I find that the series does one job particularly well: it shows the humanity that is typically absent in most zombie horrors.
During unnecessary risks, the doctrine of needs of the many vs. the few would be followed by most. Unless you’re Rick, who realizes that even though it is a wasteland, the only way to still feel human is to act like it.
If this is your Halloween pick for gore, thrills and chills, then I would suggest looking elsewhere. If you’re just searching for that zombie show that is your imagination come to life, then take a chance, because surviving the wasteland is all about slim chances.