The Walking Dead has never had a season as good as the (half) season they just finished, with the rest of the third season airing in February. Honestly, the second season (which found them stuck on a farm and really stuck with the same basic dialogue in every episode) was so tedious and stagnant and predictable, that I’m finding it mildly amazing that they were able to make so many smart moves only a few months later. [Big spoilers ahead, so read at your own risk.]
Problem 1: No interesting characters…Third Season Solutions: Introduce two of the most interesting characters they’ve ever had in the show (and the graphic novels the show is based on), Michonne and The Governor. Plus, they re-introduced the long-lost Merl, deliriously overplayed by Michael Rooker, who clearly understands exactly what type of show he’s on and is making the most out of it. [A greater emphasis on fun, and not treating the material as more important than it really is was also greatly appreciated.]
Problem 2: Too many main characters that suck…Third Season Solutions: Kill them off. T-Dog didn’t necessarily suck, but he was also never really essentially, so he’s gone now. Best of all, Lori (Rick’s wife and Shane’s former lover, who often seemed stuck in a high-morality Jane Austen novel more than a down and dirty post-apocalyptic reality) is dead, around to complain and slow the action down no more. [An honorable mention goes to the killing off of Dale at the end of last season.]
Problem 3: Rick…Third Season Solutions: Sheriff Rick Grimes may have been the most moralistic and speechifying lead character an AMC show has ever had. He wasn’t so much interested in, you know, doing things as he was in giving ten monologues an episode about how “Tha worrrrrld has chaaaanged. It’s noooot tha saaaame as it wuuuz.” But now he’s fully shed the last of his sheriff trappings and become Ricktator of a prison shelter, definitely more interesting. I knew Rick had become a better character in the second episode of this season, when one of the prison inmates tried to kill him (first through an “innocent” knife swing during a zombie fight, then by pushing a zombie his way as an “accident”) and he flat-out murdered him.
However, there are still problems, and the show’s not perfect. Nowhere was that more apparent than in the final episode of this half-season, when Rick’s big dumb band of survivors went charging into The Governor’s relatively sophisticated camp Woodbury. I felt downright bad for the people of Woodbury, the large majority of whom have done nothing wrong and are just trying to live in a better world than Rick’s crew or Michonne have any interest in living in. By presenting it as an us vs. them struggle, the show inadvertently made me side with them (Camp Woodbury) over Rick’s ragtag group of hillbillies, most of whom aren’t really living for anything anymore. Grade for the episode: B-…Grade for the half-season: B+