What I’m Watching: The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead: Season 1, Episode 5 “Wildfire” (B+)

While I tend to steer clear of anything cinematic involving the undead, I can’t imagine that most zombie fare is as devastating and gut-wrenching in its representation of the way zombies can really mess up your life. There’s nothing quite as powerful as Andrea refusing to let anyone near the dead body of her sister, apologizing to her when she starts to come back to life as a zombie, and then shooting her point-blank before she can bite off her head. Glenn’s desire to separate their friends from the “geeks” and Jim’s desire to be left for dead do come close, making this a very memorable and strong episode, which is important considering the season finale is coming up in less than a week. It’s all gone by so fast, but if the end of this episode is any indication, truly interesting things lie ahead. I can’t have been the only one to have been reminded of Desmond’s introduction in the season two premiere of “Lost” when we first saw Noah Emmerich as a scientist operating on his own and convinced that he may be the only person still alive. That final scene which saw Rick truly get angry and lose it after keeping himself together for so long was extraordinarily well-done, and both Andrew Lincoln and Emmerich did a terrific job with it. The opening of the garage with its flood of light was cool as well, and I’m very interested to see what happens inside. The thought of Morgan being out there as well is a nice way of keeping things going, and I’m looking forward to some things being resolved and others not in the finale.