14 October 2013

Walking Dead Season 4 Premiere "30 Days Without An Accident"


After a long summer of 0 zombies, 0 reticent sheriffs, and 0 sleeveless ex-neo-nazis, I for one am ready to get back into the daily grind of post-apocalyptic prison life. AND WHAT A JOYFUL GRIND IT IS!


Season 4's first image is Rick Grimes splashing water on his face from a water barrel - baptizing himself, you say? Yes! He may have given up his leadership position at the end of last season, but he's still sporting a very large Messiah Complex. Buddy, even Jesus had a John the Baptist! RELIGIOUS JOKE.

Zombies pile up at the prison fences everyday, and it's up to the camp's new teens to systematically stab them in the head. Am I the only one worried about what happens when the corpses pile up high enough to make a zombie ramp? And am I the only one strangely NOT vomiting at Carol and Daryl's newly out-in-the-open relationship? She's just so useful now - teaching kids knife skills, asking Carl to lie for her - could I be starting to like this broad? Her hair's even grown out an 1/8 of an inch!


Where on earth did these wieners get a pig? And why is the pig so gray and exhausted? Kudos to Carl for adjusting so well to his new surroundings that he's happy to name livestock even if he'll have to kill and eat it later. Obviously, Rick has a huge problem with this. Carl, stop adjusting so well!


Wait a minute. I mentioned New Couple Darol/Caryl, but I didn't do a full NEW RELASHE RUNDOWN!!!! First we've got Tyreese and a woman I thought was a teen at first but now she looks like a very pretty adult Klingon lady. NO OFFENSE! I said she was very pretty. Next up, Glenn and Maggie are still effing boring. Finally, there's Beth and some kid who looks like an aging child star.* Carl's betrothed, kissing another boy? That's a death sentence if I ever saw one.
*Could I possibly have recognized this kid from Wet Hot American Summer?!?!!!!!!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to notice how BRILLIANT their new prison structures are. There are beams buttressing the outer fence, which will come in handy when too many zombies inevitably gather and start pushing. The entry point is a pushed-out V door, which means there's far less space for the doors to travel between open and close, AND if zombies were to start pushing, it would close up on its own fairly quickly.


I guess we have to cover the main storylines sometime, no matter how underwhelming they both are. Where should we start, Big Lots or Freakshow? Let's do Freakshow first.

Guess what, Rick runs into some crazy freak in the woods who seems like a zombie at first before turning into the spawn of that backwards dream guy from Twin Peaks and, I don't know, Coco Rocha? She's like "Plase, s-sir, my has'bund und I...need füd?" So obviously Rick's like "Sure! Gotta ask ya 3 questions, tho! (Don't worry, they're easy) Wink!" WHO is watching this that doesn't already understand she has a zombie husband? Frankly I'd rather have her turn out to be some weird zombie-human hybrid who can control her hunger and use words but definitely look like and BE a zombie. I guess it's kind of neat that she hara-kiris herself in front of him. KIND OF.


Onto Big Lots, i.e. "Big Spot," where Daryl leads a group of survivors on a supply-gathering mission. D'Angelo Barksdale cruises the famous Big Lots Wine Aisle, fighting a well-acted battle with alcoholism. He wants the wine, he doesn't want it, he wants it, a little piece of the roof falls on his hand, he puts the wine back. Only he shoves it onto the shelf, which brings down the entire display, which causes the weakened roof to start falling in somehow? And guess what, there are a bunch of zombies up on the roof, so I guess it's about to start raining corpses. This would spell big trouble, if I weren't so positive the gang could easily take care of this situation within 10 minutes. It probably is stressful that they don't know where they'll fall.


Beth's boyfriend dies (no shit) and Daryl has to give her the news once they're back at camp (having easily handled the stupid Big Lots Roof Zombies). Beth doesn't cry anymore, she tells him, and for a hot second I'm pretty sure she's trying to seduce him. But then she removes the 3 from the "30 Days Without an Accident" sign, so I guess she's Daria now or some other disaffected youth with a quietly morbid sense of humor.


How did I get through an entire recap without mentioning this new glasses kid, who might flirt with 9-year-old blonde girls, who might be 16 or so, who might be sick with the zombie flu? He seems incredibly sinister, but by the end of the episode, he's just a poor, sick kid with bloody footprints(?). I guess that'll be an issue next week, when his voracious, shambling corpse sets up shop inside the cell block. Or someone will just kill him quickly and easily and it won't be an issue. We'll see on Sunday!

Here's what I liked about the episode:
1) It's still great to see the survivors survive WELL. It's so much better to watch someone die doing all they could than die from being an idiot.
2) Something's stewing inside Rick
3) Daryl still kicks major A

Here's what was silly:
1) Freakshow Lady sucked
2) Too many new teens are dying
3) NOT ENOUGH MICHONNE


All photos courtesy of amctv.com

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