Another Take By Zac: TV Review: The Walking Dead 1.2: Guts

“Guts” is the second episode in this first season of The Walking Dead and the intensity and creativity of the series is still in full swing.

Again the episode primarily focuses on Rick and his adventures in Atlanta and how the hell he gets out of that tank we left him in.  Surprisingly the solution wasn’t that creative, he runs, and as the walkers feed on his horse he barely gets away after hooking up with a young Asian lad, Glenn.  Rick discovers that a group of individuals is holed up in a department store with a bunch of hungry zombies this close to breaking in.  That isn’t the group’s only problem though as a loud mouthed racist is attempting to take over the group until Rick swoops in to save the day.

From here the group tries to find a way out and the end result is a plan to blend in with the zombies in an attempt by Glenn and Rick to get to a construction yard to get some vehicles to ship out of town on.  The ensuing dismemberment and coating of Glenn and Rick is a delightfully gross and funny scene as they hack up a zombie that they killed earlier outside.  The slow walk through the streets harkens back to the brilliant scene in Shaun of the Dead and turns decidedly intense and violent before its all said and done.

Glenn is an encouraging new character to add to the cast and I look forward to his hopeful survival as the group heads out of town.  The redneck, Merle Dixon, is played effectively by the nasty Michael Rooker allowed for some interesting moral dilemma and I enjoyed the way things played out with him; and I can only imagine we will see him again in the not to distant future.  The rest of the new group was less intriguing but no one really got a whole lot of time outside Glenn to really shine as this was a pretty fast paced and forward moving episode.

One thing that does concern me though is that everyone in the quarry camp seems to just happen to be connected to the group in the department store and that is a bit much for the viewer to be asked to embrace, even in a zombie show.  A minor complaint though.

“Guts” was just as entertaining as the premiere and had just the right balance of humor, drama, scares, and action that quickly seems to be the trademark of this show.  Personally I can’t wait for more and am going to be disappointed in four Sundays when this season runs dry.  Luckily AMC has ordered season 2 already!

Bullets:

-The gore was ramped up this episode and I still can’t believe that some of this stuff is being shown on AMC.  The guts getups that Rick and Glenn wear were nasty and covered with intestines, limbs, and tons of blood; again, way to go AMC.

-The cheating wife with the best friend plot just got even thicker with the cold open sex scene between Rick’s wife and former partner Shane.  I feel like we are going to find out that this was going on before this zombie mess even started.

-Laurie Holden pops up as another Frank Darabont friendly face and I see a potential romantic partner for Rick once the whole wife situation blows up!

-Really excited about the potential for Glenn.  They struck the right balance between of humor with him and didn’t make it too much.

-The rain washing off the guts was a great, if predictable, move and I loved the way the zombies slowly caught the sense and focused in on them.

-Axe to the head = Awesome

And that is it for this week, will seriously try to get up sooner next week.  Had a lot of movies this week, sorry.  See you next time.