Sunday, November 21, 2010

The Walking Dead: Vatos

"Vatos"

Season 1, Episode 4
Original Airdate: November 21, 2010

Some of you may have noticed a character in the past few episodes hanging around Dale at the compund and wondered who he is. Now, if you didn't already know, this is Jim; the reason why it's important to note this character's name is because it's the first episode where we get to explore this character and how he fits into the survivors' camp. Initally, we begin the episode with Amy and Andrea discussing the different ways they were taught fishing by their father during their respective childhoods. The scene works very well exploring the dynamic between the two sisters and also subtly explores their remorse and fear over what had happened to their parents in Florida without spelling it out for the audience. After that, we get to see jim on a hill above them digging into the ground, the mood of the scene getting darker and darker before the credits sequence begins.

When I wrote my review of the pilot episode, I talked about my opinon of how the developers of The Walking Dead should follow some familiar ground while also venturing into unfamilar territory in terms of both the story adn the characters, both from the comic and TV created. That being said, SPOILERS AHEAD (don't say I didn't give you fair warning): As the episode winds down, we see the survivors' camp attacked by "geeks", and several survivors are killed such as Ed and Amy. However, we find out that the reason that Jim was digging in the ground that day was to prepare graves for the dead survivors. Some may call it ESP, I'd prefer to thinking of it as Jim's assumption that they are all just one more day toward either becoming "walkers" or just dead. In between this, we saw Rick and his group journeying through Atlanta to find Merle Dixon (no such luck). However, the foursome did stumble upon another group of survivors and met another new interesting character, Guillermo.

"Vatos" brought up alot of new character development, but also saw the departure of a few characters viewers maybe wanted to see stick around just longer. Just as well, because you're either quick or you're dead, and those survivors are gone.

Rating: * * * * of 5