Review:
The Walking Dead: Episode Two

102 – Guts

After that outstanding first episode, this second chapter of survival in dark days is just a tiny bit of a disappointment by comparison. Happily, it’s like being presented with a cake that’s only slightly less delicious than the one you wanted.

Officer Rick Grimes is in a bit of a pickle. He’s trapped in the middle of an overrun Atlanta, locked in a broken-down tank, surrounded by walkers, with only a single handgun to defend himself. Getting out is only the first stage of the problem, however, as he then has to figure out how he can get six other scavenging survivors out of the city – all while trying to keep the group’s tensions down.

The reason that this episode is a slight disappointment is because the groups of survivors that Rick meets are an assortment of stereotypes. There’s the redneck, the black guy, black girl, white girl, a Hispanic guy and a Chinese guy. It’s just a little bit of a let-down that there doesn’t seem to be any consistency with their characters. For instance, the white girl goes crazy on Rick and threatens to kill him straight away, but displays no such desire at any other point in the episode. Also, the black girl just so happens to have knowledge of the city’s sewer system – who wants to bet that this information never rears its head ever again?

Still, this collection of hats with dialogue is livened up no end by the inclusion of the magnificent Michael Rooker as horrendous racist Merl Dixon. Not only is he a fantastic actor in a part with a tiny portion of character added to it, but he’s totally convincing in the role and wonderfully detestable with it. Topping off his performance is a brutal fight scene and a harrowing climax to the episode that manages to be both terrifying and completely bloodless.

The other niggles with the episode are the few scenes set in the survivor camp. They don’t really add anything to the story as a whole (surely it wasn’t desperate that the audience knew who is related to who?) and actually serve to detract from the tension of the zombie hell in Atlanta. A small bit of character drama is fine, but there’s nothing particularly dramatic in what’s happening back at the camp. Besides which, Shane has a good point –who’d want to risk their lives to go into an overrun city to try and save six people?