The Walking Dead Episode 3

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The Walking Dead Episode 3
By Tao Mori
December 14, 2010 - 13:56

Studios: AMC
Writer(s): Charlie Adlard, Frank Darabont, Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore
Starring: Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callis, Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, Steven Yuen Norman Reedus, Michael Rooker, Lennie James
Directed by: Frank Darabont
Produced by: David Alpert, Charles H. Eglee
Running Time: 60 min
Release Date: October 31st 2010
Rating: PG13
Distributors: AMC
Genre: Horror

The Walking Dead is based on the comic book series the Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman. The story follow Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) who wakes up in a world overrun by zombies a world commonly referred to as a zombie apocalypse. He travels to Atlanta to look for his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callis) and his son. Eventually he is reunited with his wife and son and a group of survivors who try to decide where to go and what to do. The story focuses on the humanity of the characters and tries to provide a realistic approach to how people would live in a zombified world. The characters in this story are not perfect, they are very human with human flaws.

Episode 3: Tell it to the Frogs

I feel like the first half of this episode starts off slow. Though the first scene is Glen racing to camp in the noisy sports car that they had stolen in the previous episode. Though if zombies heard the sport car’s car alarm wouldn’t they follow the noise right back to camp? The others chide him about it, so I won’t here, but still that was very un-Glen like, Glen is careful about stuff like that. Apparently his weakness is fancy cars, and here I thought it was women, my mistake. Rick and the others return from the city, and Rick looks downtrodden as he didn’t like that Merle got left in the city. Then suddenly he sees Shane, and his wife and son, and there’s the romantic hugs and kisses. Rick is introduced around, and everyone settles in for the night, but not before we learn that Merle’s brother Daryl (Norman Reedus from the Boondock Saints)(not a comic book character) has been out hunting and he’s not going to be happy to learn that his brother was left behind in the city.

Everyone goes to bed, Rick is hesitant with his wife, but she encourages him to have sex with him. Guilt sex? I’m wondering if these people smell bad since they haven’t had access to a shower. Though in the comic Dale had a shower in his camper, but there’s no reference to this so far in the show. There is, however, a very nice lake in a quarry right next to their camp site, which is gorgeous. That’s another difference this campsite is elevated unlike in the comic, and Dale says that they’re probably somewhere up in the mountains. If they’re camped out so far from Atlanta then how was Glen able to go in and out of town all by himself? Did he walk? There’s no talk later on in this episode if he drove down there and if he took a vehicle with him.
So the next morning begins with a zombie straying close to camp, and five men take melee weapons and club the poor zombie to the ground. They don’t kill the zombie, it isn’t till Daryl shows up and puts a crossbow bolt in his head, that the zombie finally dies. This is some weird ritual where they all stomp on the zombie and don’t kill it. Perhaps this is an indicator of the stress release they all need by beating up this zombie together. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it. Rick decides that he wants to go with Daryl to go rescue his brother, Glen and T-dog agree to go too. T-dog because he feels guilty and Glen because Rick knows that he’s used to getting around in that city. Rick wants to go back to get his bag of guns that was left in the street by the tank. Forget the guns get the machine gun and the tank. He didn’t even check to see if there was any fuel in the tank or if it had any tank shells do I need to say loot everything that isn’t nailed down again. The trip into the city is uneventful, except that when they get to the roof where Merle is supposed to be, there’s only handcuffs and a severed hand and the episode ends there.

There’s also an important scene back at camp where Lori gets mad at Shane, because Shane had told her that Rick was dead. Now we don’t know if Shane actually knew that Rick was still alive, and said this to Lori so that he could get in her pants or if he just said that to her to help her get on with her life. This is an important distinction and we should all do our best to remember it. Later on we find out that one of the campers, Carol (Melissa Suzanne McBridge) is being physically abused by her husband (she was in the comic too, only the husband was already dead). Shane gets mad at him and beats him up, and tells him if he does it again that he beat the husband to death. Carol is a lot older in the show than in the comic, but her daughter is still young, which is a little confusing. Carol’s role as a house wife and being dependent on others is very evident in this scene, and perhaps more so than her portrayal early in the comic book series.
So in this episode we can see there’s a huge detraction away from the comic book. Rick did return to get guns in the comic book, but that was at a gun store, not like this. Merle and Daryl also didn’t exist, so their existence, implies that the story is going to change, which may or may not be good. Norman Reedus who plays Daryl is a somewhat famous actor (I rather enjoyed the Boondocks Saints) so I expect he’s going to be around for a while, and his role in the group is the rational hardliner, which we don’t have early on in the comic series, so his role is important in the show. He’s the realist. And he uses a crossbow, silent, ranged and deadly, perfect zombie killing weapon. In some ways I didn’t like how the comic book turned out, when they find that so called safe place early on the series, things get tragic very fast, so I would not be upset if the series started to change further from the comic books. It’s like an alternate universe of the Walking Dead, to see what happens when different characters exist. Honestly I like the direction that it has taken, but note that people are still dying in order, except for the new people.

Rating: 9/10