I just finished watching "Days Gone Bye".

 

Now I finished watching "Guts", "Tell It to the Frogs", and "Vatos".

 

Just finished season 1 with "Wildfire" and "TS-19".

Season 1 still holds up, and there are fans who consider it the best season of TWD.

 

A few thoughts on TWD S1 EP1 "Days Gone Bye".

1) Good introduction to the show with Rick in his sheriff's deputy uniform, shooting a walker child at an abandoned gas station; let's us know society has been overrun by walkers fairly recently .

2) Andrew Lincoln was great as Rick Grimes.

3) If Shane, who was armed with a shotgun, approached the wrecked car instead of Rick, we would've had a completely different show.

4) DON'T DEAD. OPEN INSIDE.

5) Morgan's struggle to shoot his turned wife Jenny was a powerful scene.

6) Rick promised Mr. Horse that Atlanta would be safe and would have food, shelter, people and other horses. Instead Mr. Horse became the first victim of Rick's broken promises.

7) The Helicopter. I think that what started out as a reason for Rick to get surprised by that herd of walkers, and then hide inside that tank, has now been spun into a complicated excuse to expand TWD into two spinoffs and a potential film trilogy.

 

A few thoughts of TWD S1 EP 2 "Guts".

1) Not only was this the first appearance of Glenn, but moments later, when Morales and T-Dog ran out of the department store with the baseball bats to bludgeon the walkers, we also saw Glenn's future death.

2) First appearance of Merle Dixon, the bad guy we loved to hate.

3) Rick and Andrea. The dolphin necklace scene hinted that these two characters were going to wind up together. After leaving TWD, Laurie Holden said in an interview that TPTB told her "(Andrea) was supposed to end up with Rick". Unfortunately, the 2nd showrunner Glen Mazzara ruined her character in S3.

4) Smart Walkers. Lots of fans complained about the walkers who used broken concrete to smash windows, or who could run and climb over a chain-link fence, but I don't mind that, especially after the walkers became pushovers in the later seasons.

5) Wayne Dunlap. Rick never told his family about Wayne, another broken promise.

6) Rick showed he was a natural leader by thinking of alternate ways of escaping the department store, and that he'd always share the risks they group had to take.

7) The first use of walker blood and guts as camouflage.

8) I loved the scene with Glenn trying to "fit in" with herd of walkers.

9) Glenn speeding down the road in that Dodge Challenger was pretty funny.

 

Tonight I'm starting season 2 with "What Lies Ahead" and "Bloodletting".

 

Season 2 of TWD was controversial: Despite having a pop culture phenomenon on their hands, AMC slashed the budget; they fired show creator Frank Darabont, and replaced him with Glen Mazzara. The episodes for season 2 were increased to 13, but much of the story took place on the Greene Farm.

Many fans argued that season 2 was boring, but it's my favorite season of TWD. I enjoy it for all the character development: Daryl defied stereotypes and showed he was smarter than everyone thought. Carl was a child who wanted to be treated as an adult. Shane's humanity crumbled. Glenn and Maggie became a couple. Sophia's disappearance was solved tragically. Hershel became the strongest voice of morality the group would ever have. The scavenger Randall made the group debate if killing him was necessary to stay safe. The Rick/Lori/Shane love triangle was fatally resolved. The group was lulled by the Greene farm's illusion of security. The season finale was the beginning of the "Ricktatorship".

All that said, I wish that Darabont was never fired as showrunner. I know he had lofty ideas for season 2, such as showing the fall of Atlanta from the viewpoint of the U.S. Army officer who'd get bit and turn inside the tank from season 1. But was that idea any worse than the ones Scott Gimple thought up in the later seasons?

I think 13 episodes was too much; 10 episodes would've been ideal.

 

I am still a huge season 2 fan.

 

A few thoughts on TWD S2, EP2 "Bloodletting".

As the world struggles against the Coronavirus, I couldn't help but notice Hershel's view on the show's mysterious walker plague:

"Mankind's been fighting plagues from the start. We get our behinds kicked for a while, then we bounce back. It's nature correcting herself, restoring some balance."

Whether or not the show or the proposed Rick Grimes trilogy ever reveals the origin of the walker plague, If the dead should one day just inexplicably remain dead, the plague might be called God's judgement.

So despite all the Dr. Edwin Jenner's in the world, it was an old farmer and veterinarian named Hershel Greene who was right all along.

 

A few thoughts on TWD S2, EP 3 "Save the Last One".

1) This episode was written by Scott Gimple, and while I hate what he did to TWD when he became the third showrunner, it's a good one.

2) Daryl has a few good scenes and we learn that as a child he once got lost in the forest, but found his way home.

3) Glenn meets Maggie.

4) I understood Lori when she said maybe it'd be best if Carl "slipped away" instead of fighting to survive everyday.

5) The revelation that Shane sacrificed Otis so he could get the medical supplies to Carl was a shocker.

 

A few thoughts on TWD S2, EP 4 "Cherokee Rose".

1) I liked the scene where Shane's eulogy for Otis is mixed with the flashbacks to what actually happened. It shows that Shane did what he did to save Carl, but the act is tearing him apart inside.

2) Daryl being the lone wolf and searching for Sophia.

3) I liked the friendship between Dale and T-Dog. I wish they had more scenes.

4) The group's comedy of errors as they tried to get a walker out of the well.

5) The well walker breaking in half just before the group pulled it out of the well.

6) I laughed when T-Dog bludgeoned the well walker's skull, and then says curtly to the shocked group "Good thing we didn't do anything stupid like shoot it."

7) Daryl giving Carol the Cherokee Rose, and then telling her the story behind it was beautiful. It was also the first Caryl moment.

8) Rick gives his Stetson hat to Carl.

9) Rick removes his badge and uniform, signaling that he knows the world he lived in is never coming back.

10) Lori gets confirmation that she's pregnant, and the baby's father is likely Shane.

 

A few thoughts on TWD, S2, EP 5 "Chupacabra".

1) This is one of my favorite episodes, and it made me a fan of Daryl Dixon.

2) The flashback of Shane and Lori watching the U.S. Army dropping napalm on the streets of Atlanta was eerie.

3)The scene where Rick and Shane happily reminisce about their high school relationships (or in Rick's case, lack of). In the end Shane gets sullen and says "It's like we're old folks; all the people in our stories are dead."

4) The scene were a wounded Daryl hallucinates about his brother Merle.

5) Daryl pulling the arrow out of his side, loading it onto his crossbow, and killing that walker at the last second. I've been a Daryl fan ever since.

6) Daryl climbing up the hill while hallucinating about Merle again. When Daryl reaches the top he shouts "Yeah, you better run!"

7) Andrea shooting Daryl by accident. I remember Andrea getting a lot of hate from the fans over that.

8) Carol giving Daryl a kiss and telling him, "You did more for my little girl today then her own daddy ever did in his whole life."

9) Glenn discovering that the barn is full of walkers.

 

The search for Sophia is tragically concluded in S2'S 7th EP, "Pretty Much Dead Already".

 

Yup, season 2 was a good one. For me, season 1,2 and the first half of 3 are the ones that got me hooked. I know a lot of people hated Mazzarra for killing a lot of characters at the start of S3 but i really enjoyed it, it took a way the predictability, which for me is the enemy of thrilling TV and movies. Sadly the later seasons have displayed way too much of that 'our favourite character is about to meet his unavoidable fate, he can't escape, he's surely done for, then right at the last second a perfect shot saves the day'. For me there have been so many good memorable highlights in the show but too many cringeworthy 'oh jeez' tv cliches that can't be forgotten.

 

Exactly. Season 2 was great for the character development, and season 3 was great because we believed "No one was safe".

I think Mazzara was a good showrunner, but he ruined Andrea's character. There was no redemption arc for her. There was nothing left but for her to be killed off.

The "plot armor" rule in the later seasons was frustrating as well. "All Out War" was the perfect opportunity to kill off some characters and get the group back to seasons 1-2 numbers, instead the group expanded. And Carl was killed off simply because AMC was too cheap to give Chandler Riggs a raise.

 

And not only that but the zombies were down played as seasons wore on. Remember when they could walk up stairs, climb fences and throw breeze blocks. They were an ever present threat that was always there, now they are a passive element of the show, a distraction from the human v human drama that has been the focus of the show for the last 5 seasons. Granted any zombie show that is only about the zombies is going to get boring quick but keeping them as the perpetual unrelenting deadly virus that doesn't sleep, that is always just a moment away is what would keep the suspense in this show.