Over 5 million people watched the head-explodingly great premiere of The Walking Dead last Sunday. Joe and Ryan were two of them. Here are their thoughts on AMC’s zombie apocalypse:
Ryan: I think we might be the only two comic books nerds in the world that don’t read The Walking Dead. I’m curious if you’ve had any previous exposure to Kirkman, Moore and Adlard’s grim zombie apocalypse prior to watching “Days Gone Bye.”
Joe: I know I am very much in the minority, but I really don’t care for Robert Kirkman’s writing. He’s done lots of work for Marvel and the stuff I sampled I found to be rather boring, to be honest. For the sake of this article, I decided to check out the first issue of The Walking Dead comic book – and it did not change my opinion. I’m glad I had not read the comic before watching the series or I would not have given it a second thought. Even so, I was very skeptical about it, but Frank Darabont’s name being attached to it is kind of what sold me to at least seeing the first episode. What about you, does this make you now want to check out the comic book series?
Ryan: I gave the first two trades a shot years back and I couldn’t get into it for a few reasons. My wallet was stretched thin with other monthly books, but also because I found it too hard to keep up the sprawling cast of the characters – which was mostly laziness on my part.
Having said that, I think Kirkman’s plan for what makes The Walking Dead unique – that it’s a zombie movie that doesn’t stop at the two-hour mark and keeps violently lurching on and on forever – is something only the comic books can do. Even if the show makes it five years, it probably still won’t capture the scope of an epic that’s still going strong over 75 issues. So, yeah, I think I’d give it another shot.
But even though the comic didn’t initially do much for me, there hasn’t been an introductory episode of television since Lost that has completely sucked me into its world. How did “Days Gone Bye” rate to other premieres for you?
Joe: This was a pretty outstanding premiere. The opening sequence does a couple of very important things. First, it shows how uncompromising the show will be and it very much sets the mood. From there we get a great set up for Rick Grimes and we, like Rick, learn things as we go. Besides, anything that has Lennie James in it is going to be good.
Ryan: Yeah, big props to Lennie James. I actually really liked him in AMC’s remake of The Prisoner.
Joe: Me too! In fact, he was probably the best thing about that otherwise maudlin and plodding remake.
Ryan: Can we hope to see more AMC alumni sneak into the zombie apocalypse? I wouldn’t complain if Kale Ingram from Rubicon kicked some zombie ass. Or if Pete Campbell from Mad Men was a member of the lurching undead. That would be fitting. And creepy.
Joe: That brings up another excellent point. AMC is quickly becoming the channel for amazing TV. I think along with Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Rubicon, AMC is making some truly exceptional TV.
Ryan: Speaking of scary images – how great was that entire last sequence with Rick Grimes and his horse galloping into the street full of undead, ending with him trapped in a tank with an army of zombies clawing to get in? I was on edge for most of the show, but the last ten minutes upped the ante in a huge, scary way. Was there one scene or image that stuck in your head? Or was the whole episode a slow, rolling wave of anxiety and stress?
Joe: I’m big on characters and the little moments in a drama, so I was particularly riveted to the scene where Morgan Jones is set up to shoot his zombified wife. The turmoil he goes through and the way that Lennie James plays that scene was particularly powerful to me. I think that deftly set the internal struggle that any of us would have and sort of set the moral of the story. Will the living need to become as dead as the zombies in order to survive?
Ryan: Yeah. What these characters have to do to survive is what’s going to keep me coming back for sure. Do you think the show will have a tough time comparing to the Darabont-directed premiere? The bar has been set extremely high.
Joe: Of the remaining directors, Ernest Dickerson has collaborated with Spike Lee and Guy Ferland directed several episodes of The Shield, so their episodes should be pretty exceptional. The other three directors are unfamiliar to me, so I really can’t say. Most of the writers look to be pretty solid, although I am a little worried that Kirkman is writing an episode solo. The biggest plus is that they are only doing six episodes for this first season. This should make it so that they will hopefully have a pretty dense storyline with no need for any filler episodes. what do you think about the rest of the season?
Ryan: Of the remaining episodes, I’m most intrigued by the Kirkman episode. It’s always interesting to see how comic book peeps’ work translates into a different medium – especially when they’re working with their own creations. But really, I want to see how this show does in the long run – and how it ultimately compares to Kirkman and Adlard’s long run on the comic book series.
The Walking Dead continues Sundays at 10:00 PM on AMC
