Show: The Walking Dead
Date: Feb. 12
Network: AMC
Grade: A-
For a show about walking corpses, The Walking Dead becomes more alive with each episode.
Last Sunday – after three months of tedious waiting – season two of The Walking Dead resurrected itself with the gripping mid-season premier, "Nebraska." Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln, Made in Dagenham) and his troupe of survivors carry on from the astounding ending of the previous episode. Emotions have become stranded in an isolated purgatory, remote from any sign of happiness.
What's so distinctive about The Walking Dead – a TV series about the inevitable zombie apocalypse – is that it isn't centrally about the chronicle of stumbling, drooling corpses prowling for brains; the program is specifically about the human characters and how their personal ethics clash, even when faced with uniting against the crumbling of civilization.
But as the surrounding world becomes destroyed with death and disease, The Walking Dead focuses on the destruction of civilization within the group of human survivors. The show simply wouldn't work if the plot focused on humans constantly screaming and running away from reanimated cannibal corpses.
Survival is the foremost priority for Rick – particularly for his son (Chandler Riggs, Terminus) and wife, Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies, Foreverland) – but to earn survival, he must battle through not only zombies, but also the conflicting morals within himself and in his fellow comrades.
After the inhumanity that Shane (Jon Bernthal, Rampart) – Rick's second-in-command – caused for the remaining survivors, hope for existence in a zombie-occupied world has been drained dry. Hershel (Scott Wilson, Dorfman) refuses to allow Rick and his team to remain within the safety of his farm, the safe-haven that the main characters stumbled upon early in season two.
In "Nebraska," Rick once again must work for the sake of the group and convince Hershel to let his people stay on the farm. The philosophical struggle Rick and Hershel have gives a humane sentiment in an inhumane world – something relatively unheard of in zombie stories.
As usual, the conclusion of the episode will not only drop jaws, but also possibly unhinge them. AMC shows tend to give an awesome twist in their closing scenes, to make the show worth watching
This Sunday at 9 p.m. AMC will unveil the next episode: "Triggerfinger." With only five episodes left of season two, one has to wonder: who will live, who will die, and who is the father of Lori's baby?
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