During the night of Halloween 2010, something magical and unexpected happened: AMC aired a zombie show that managed to put a twist on the extremely tired zombie genre and make it awesome. Based on a graphic novel series that I’ve never read and coming straight from the dude who directed THE MIST, THE WALKING DEAD started off strong and held viewers on to the edge of their seat throughout its epic—but short—first full season, with each episode being better than the one before it, all the way up through the very end. They set a high bar for themselves—too high, in fact, for the series to maintain the same momentum as Season 1, thus delivering a lackluster, boring, and mostly forgettable Season 2.
What surprised me the most about Season 1 was that it made me give a shit about the zombie genre all over again. Zombies, to me at least, were cool again. Each episode was a perfect blend of human drama and zombie action and that’s why each episode in its short season worked so damn well. Then comes Season 2. Starting off on the right foot, they give us a zombie fight during a deserted traffic jam, a zombie chase through the woods, and they even managed to lose a little girl. Things weren’t perfect, with Rick Grimes giving a forced and incredibly cheesy voice over monologue at the very beginning, but… it wasn’t bad. Outlook was good… too bad it screeched to a halt shortly thereafter.
The missing girl, a solid storyline to introduce from the start, basically became the shows running joke on itself as to why it was going nowhere fast. For something like 7 episodes, the search for this missing chick waged on and on and on with no end in sight. The characters got restless, they were running out of ideas and places to look, and even their hope that this little girl would be found alive was squashed to down to size. But they kept with it and this single storyline is the downfall of Season 2. Each episode became find the f*cking girl already and move on and yet each episode landed no success. No found girl, with only the promise of yet another episode to look for her again. Missing children plot devises only work if there’s some sort of mystery involved… some sort of investigation, where the audience can follow the search themselves and with each episode, more information is revealed and they’re that much closer to closing the case. Not the case with THE WALKING DEAD, as all they do is walk around the woods and hope they find something. Over and over and over again.
But the missing girl isn’t the only problem this season—there’s plenty more where that came from. How about the lack of zombies? The first episode featured a hoard of zombies, delivering a satisfying zombie attack that kept me wanting more. But then the group holed themselves up in Hershel’s farm and the zombie interaction dropped from something to practically nothing. Entire episodes would go by with just a single zombie making an appearance. Just one! Or maybe you’d get two or three, but mostly they’re inserted as filler rather than anything important. For awhile each episode had fewer zombies than the one before it until finally Shane and Jimmy had to get supplies from the high school and the show became a zombie show again. But then the next episode? Nothing.
Another annoying thing about this season is the dragging out of the secret between Lori and Shane. They had an affair because they thought Rick was dead. Understandable—he was dead. But then he came back and the affair ended—why the secrets, why the hang-ups, why the drama? This shit should have wrapped up by the end of Season 1 and yet it’s still lingering around behind closed doors for most of Season 2. Every episode I wanted to shake the screen to tell them to get the f*ck over it already and move on—but no. Shane’s a wreck, Lori wants to keep it a secret, both are stressed about it, blah blah blah. We don’t care anymore and neither should you.
The whole season could have been written off completely if it weren’t for the mid-season finale, an episode that felt as awesome as any other episode from the first season, in terms of both zombie action and human drama. Lots of the bullshit I had problems with throughout the season thus far were wrapped up and all seemed to right itself. And I’m calling bullshit on THE WALKING DEAD for this—for sandbagging the audience in delivering what we want after making us sit through 7 other episodes of complete and utter bullshit. If they knew what it takes to deliver an awesome episode, why the f*ck did they wait so long? Why put us through all that crap when they could have been giving us the good stuff from day one? They obviously know what it takes and have the ability to make it happen, they just… chose not to? These f*cking guys…
Maybe it’s the booze talking, but Season 2 of THE WALKING DEAD has been one cluster-f*ck of boring zombie action, lame human drama, drawn-out storylines, and stagnate everything, all the while trying to find its groove back from Season 1. And while the mid-season finale seemed to fix all the season’s problems thus far, I’m not entirely sure if they have what it takes to pull it together when the show comes back on in February. Could be more and more bullshit, could be more of the same waiting around with nothing to do shenanigans, but whatever it is, thanks to that last episode, I’ll be there with bells and whistles on and ready to party. Let’s hope they learned from their mistakes and will finally give a zombie show with zombie action and enough drama to make us give a f*ck about the characters—but not too much so we’re bored with you they are and where they’re going. Make us give a f*ck again!