Monthly Archives: October 2013

Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 3 “Isolation”

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“Isolation”

(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s The Walking Dead, unless otherwise specified.)

When we left off last week, the prison was under quarantine after an outbreak of the explodey flu, and, subsequently, walkers, in Cell Block D. In explodey flu, the infected person’s lungs reach max pressure and he/she dies from a surge of blood exploding out of all mucous membranes …totally gnarly, and btw, this is my name for it…not Hershel’s. All persons exhibiting the signs of explodey flu are quarantined in Cell Block D, which pretty much stands for Cell Block Die unless somebody gets some antibiotics in this joint.

Digging graves…the prison’s latest pasttime…Glenn and Maggie exchanging smoldering sex looks while doing the gloomy work. Maggie’s shooting Glenn a look like, “Mmmm, sweetie, your hair’s looking good, all long and shit, and you’re working that shovel…why don’t we sneak off and knock one out real quick?” and Glenn gives this cute regretful look back, like, “Girl, I wish we could, but, you know…we gotta dig these graves…” Back inside, Hershel and Caleb, the young med, are checking on a sick patient…Caleb checks the vitals, looks at Hershel, and they share a shake of the head, Goner. Caleb pulls out his knife for the rekill. On to number next in Cell Block Die.

Outside the entrance to the D block, Tyrese is boiling mad.  He’s not going to need any encouragement to exact his style of justice on whomever killed Karen and David. This scene is amazing, with Chad Coleman playing Tyrese as truly menacing and unpredictable in his fury and grief.  Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus kill it once again, as Rick and Daryl both bob and weave, light on their toes, keeping an eye on, and a step away from, Tyrese in serpentine unison. Daryl stays behind Tyrese, ready to jump in if needed, and Rick is face to face with Tyrese, trying to reason with a man who is not to be reasoned with. When Tyrese steps to Rick, Daryl reaches out a arm to try to restrain him, and quick as a whip, Tyrese shoves Daryl across the concrete and jacks him up on the bars. Tyrese is fast and crazy strong!

Even in Tyrese’s chokehold, Daryl puts his hand up to signal Rick back, letting Tyrese have his moment and get it worked out. (That is majorly cool of Daryl, who understands dude code pretty much more than anyone, ever.) Rick is behind Tyrese, giving him some weak sauce about how “We’ve all lost someone” and how Tyrese needs to “calm down.” This badly timed (and badly put) advice sends Tyrese right up, and he shoves Rick. There’s a great shot of Rick, looking kind of pissed and majorly sexy, then he says something stupid, and totally unsexy, like, “Karen wouldn’t want you acting like this.”

In the next instant, Tyrese is beating Rick down…Daryl jumps on Tyrese and pulls him back as Rick puts a shaky hand up to his bloody mouth. With one taste of his own blood, Rick leaps up and begins pounding Tyrese down berserker-style while Daryl tries to restrain him. Rick screams at Daryl to let him go, ready for more…he stops only when he hears Tyrese break down into sobs, lying on the concrete. The scene ends with a shot of Rick’s face, dazed, as he looks down at his bloody hand and realizes that he just totally lost his shit.

I got it DIY-style on my phone from the TV screen…prison-yard beat-down, Rick, Daryl, and Tyrese-style, while Carol looks on in horror…ummm, what did you think was going to happen if you kill sick peeps, drag them outside and burn their bodies, and then leave the whole mess for a bereaved man to find, Carol, you sloppy bitch?

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Later, in the prison, Hershel is fixing up Rick’s hand. He says it’s strained and basically tells Rick that he can’t play piano or punch anyone out for about a week or so. Hershel then tries to invite Rick to the next council meeting…they need him there. They are in super-crisis mode. Epidemic flu, walker attack, major casualties that keep mounting. “Everything we’ve been working so hard to keep out, it’s found its way in,” Hershel says.  Rick replies, “It’s always been there.” Perfect line, perfectly delivered. Then, Hershel gives Rick the first of many epic-Hershel-pep-talks of this episode, basically telling Rick that “everyone has a job to do”, and that his job is to keep the people safe as best he can.

“Everyone has a job to do,” is one of the main themes that run throughout this episode …it is Hershel’s teaching from years back, passed to his kids, and now it is being passed along to many key characters, like a mantra to live by, to keep steady and keep going in such dark and uncertain times.

Outside, Bob comes to check on Tyrese….I actually give Bob lots of props this episode for coming through, again and again. (Sorry I was such a dick before, Bob, but I still am keeping an eye on you!) Tyrese’s eye is swollen shut, refuses treatment for his wounds until the bodies of Karen and David are buried. He looks really burly with his black eye…check it out:

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Right? What a badass. Freaking awesome.

Glenn is looking for reassurance from Hershel, which he gets, to a degree…then Glenn and Hershel see Sasha, coughing…she has it…she can barely speak, says she’s going to see Doctor S. It’s a nightmarish, crazy scene when she’s weaving through the sick ward, looking for the doctor…all the sick and decrepit people are hacking and moaning; a flu-casualty-turned-walker rushes Sasha and tries to claw at her though the locked cell door. Oh, damn, Doctor S is sick too…”It’s starting,” he tells Sasha. This flu sucks!

The council convenes. Hershel tells them that antibiotics may help save those infected with the flu, and that there is a vet school about 50 miles away. They need to send a team to go try to get the needed meds…Daryl’s in, Michonne volunteers, and after Hershel reminds her that Daryl has been exposed to the flu and may be a carrier, Michonne answers, “He’s already given me fleas!”  Ha ha, thank you Michonne, for bringing the funny, because Glenn is looking pretty sweaty over there in the corner…and that is worrisome.

Carol and Rick outside, the water’s looking brown and shitty. Carol says the line in the river is clogged with mud and someone needs to go out and clear it. Great…sounds like a job for you, Carol, you cray bitch. Then, Carol sends Rick off to talk to Tyrese and pay his respects, but declines to go herself, coming up with some excuse in the moment…yeah, Carol…we find out why you couldn’t face Tyrese…it’s because your crazy ass killed his special lady friend, and another dude,  and burned their bodies.

My buddy’s good friend, Neil, totally called it with Carol…his initial theory was that Crazy Carol was feeding rats to the walkers. I loved that theory.  I called it The Crazy Carol Theory, a.k.a., The CCT.  Now I love The CCT even more knowing just how crazy Carol can be…she’s killing the sick people and burning their bodies…she may be feeding the walkers, too! My friend at work, Jeff, thinks it’s Carl who was feeding the walkers through the fence, doing it to up the risk ante at the prison, which would force Rick to give him back his gun.  Fascinating…The Carl Theory.  I love it too.  I guess I’m kind of a ho for a good theory.

All I’ve gotta say about Carol, and then I’ll move on, is that it’s going to be a total dealbreaker for Daryl when he finds out about this shit.  My best WD buddy agrees. He’s a moral dude she texted.  Way to blow it, Carol.  You used to be with Ed, who was an abuser, and gross, and now you are, or almost are, Daryl’s girlfriend, and now this… Way to self-sabotage.  I was totally rooting for you, and now I think you are gross. Next subject.

I love the scene when Rick approaches Tyrese as he finishes up with the graves, and apologizes to him.  Rick’s apology to Tyrese is direct and humble, and Tyrese accepts both the apology and his own responsibility in the brawl. Very cool of him. But Tyrese isn’t fucking around. He presses Rick to find whoever killed and burned Karen and David.  Tyrese serves Rick the biz, straight up,  when Rick tries to assure him that the perpetrator will be found…Tyrese basically tells Rick that he isn’t exactly “feeling the urgency” from Rick to go find out who did this (ouch, truth hurts!), and that it “seems like murder is becoming more and more ok around this place.” Rick denies this, saying that the first order of business needs to be saving people’s lives…”You worry about that,” a grim-faced Tyrese replies, “I’ll worry about what’s right.”  Aw, Deputy Grimes, I believe you just got served!

Maggie comes into the cell and finds out Glenn is sick. It’s so awful to think of losing Glenn. We are not ready for that, and by we, I mean me and Maggie. Get to that vet school and get those fucking meds stat, people!

It’s a powerful scene when Maggie and Beth are sitting back to back on opposite sides of the door.  Beth is shut in with Baby Judith to protect her from contracting the flu.  Maggie tells Beth that Glenn is sick. Beth is quick to administer the pep talk that Maggie needs.  “Maggie, we don’t get to be upset. We all have jobs to do, that’s what Daddy always says…focus on what you have to do…whatever happens, we’ll deal with it…we have to.”

Carl wears his father’s sheriff’s hat as he, gun drawn, accompanies Hershel into the woods so Hershel can gather elderberries to bring back to the prison…Hershel tells Carl he’s noticed that Carl has grown up  and made positive changes in the past couple of months. Hershel acts in a very easy and grandfatherly  way to Carl, who receives it well. It’s a nice exchange between the two. They encounter two walkers, but neither is a real threat….Hershel holds Carl off from making an unecessary shot at one when Carl instinctively raises his gun. “Don’t…you don’t need to.”

Tyrese is in on the road trip. After visiting Sasha, he is motivated to assist, especially after telling Sasha about the vet school run,and she says, “We could get medicine as early as tomorrow…we’ve got a chance.” Tyrese finds Daryl and tells him he’s in on the run, and Daryl says simply, “All right.” You can tell he’s relieved.

Tyrese finds Carol and asks her to look in on Sasha…he tells Carol he can tell she cares about people. Yeah she does…she cares so much, and has lost so much, that it has made her crazy…and overly dramatic, it seems, as she kicks over the good water in the water barrels and spills it all over the ground. Awesome hissy fit, Carol.  Even though she is being really annoying right now, I do like Carol’s boots and her general style in this episode.  Maggie’s, too.  I think the women are rocking some seriously cute, tough-gal looks in zombie apocalypse: layered cute shirts, jeans or some other cool sturdy pants, boots, belts, knife tucked somewhere in the pants or belt, and some leather type makeshift bracelet or necklace. Nice.

Maggie is totally freaking out right now…of course, Glenn is sick, which is enough to send her right up, and now she’s found out Hershel wants to go into Cell Block Die and bring elderberry tea to the sick people inside. Hershel is being so good and brave and wise as he gives Rick and Maggie the biz…I copied his speech word for word:

“Listen, dammit, you step outside, you risk your life…you take a drink of water, you risk your life…and nowadays, you breathe, and you risk your life!  Every moment now, you don’t have a choice…the only thing you can choose is what you’re risking it for…I can save lives, and that’s reason enough to risk mine, and you know that..”

Poor Maggie has to let him in, and Rick is once again witness to a heartbreaking moment. He stands in the background as Hershel enters the sick ward, slumped over in his grief and hotness…sigh…nobody does tragic hot like Rick.

Beth and Maggie talking back to back through the door again…”We all got jobs to do…we deal with it, right…we don’t get to get upset…” Beth’s voice has lost some of its strength and conviction…she and Maggie are so worried about their dad.

Rick is back at the crime scene, looking for clues…sees a bloody handprint on the door…

Carol on a water run…she is clearing the hose to the river, banging it on the bridge and attracting the attention of the walkers…Rick has to save her ass when her knife gets stuck on some walker’s skull.

In the car, on the antibiotics run, Daryl is telling Michonne that he knows she wasn’t running off when she went on her solo runs…he knows she was looking for the Gov…”You know that trail went cold,” he tells her, “Otherwise, I would have been right there with you.” She stares stonily ahead without answering, then gives him one of those Michonne looks.  Daryl asks for a CD and ends up turning the radio dial on a station with voices saying something about “survive” and “sanctuary”…the entire car is in shock..so much so, that Daryl runs the car right into a walker. And then, behold…the mega-herd!  Greg Nicotero said there was 7 500 walkers in this scene…and he would know.

The back end of the car gets stuck on a pile of walkers, and the crew has to abandon it…so gnarly, with the rear wheels skidding walker guts. An amazing hand-to-hand combat scene commences, with Michonne going at the walkers ninja-style with her sword, while Daryl stabs and runs through them, bayonet style.  Bob gets out of the car and begins shooting them, yelling for Tyrese to follow. Like I said before, Bob is still being cagey as hell, but  he’s also being cool, like in this scene when he’s holding the walkers off and waiting for Tyrese to get out of the car.

Tyrese looks annoyed as hell, like, “Do I really have to fucking do this shit again?” before getting out of the car and hacking at walkers berserker style…holy fuck…the others are battling through the woods, thinking they had to leave Tyrese behind…but there he is, emerging through the woods. While Tyrese is draped in walker guts, he otherwise seems miraculously unscratched or bitten…he’s a sexy tough mother, I tell you.

Back at the prison, Caleb just spewed blood on Hershel’s face, and Hershel, being the southern gentleman that he is, barely flinched…he merely took the bandanna off that was covering his nose and mouth and wiped his face with it. That, my friends, is the epitome of old-school good manners. Later, poor Glenn’s like, “Oh, man, after all we’ve been through, now I’m getting taken down by a glorified cold…” Awww…Hershel tells him that everyone has a job to do….I love Hershel in this episode.

Rick is giving Carol the biz in such a sweet way…and then he has to ask her if she killed Karen and David.  Carol says, “Yes,” and goes inside. Well, shit.

On Talking Dead, Marilyn Manson is dragging the whole conversation down…my friend and I texted back and forth, wondering what drugs he’s on…we agreed on pills…this panel has no chemistry, I am sorry to say…I texted my WDbuddy,This panel is like being at a bad party….Poor Chris Hardwick and Jack Osbourne……she texted back that MM was totally sucking pretty bad and that,  At times you see panic in Chris’s face. 

Chris Hardwick is getting pretty sick of MM at this point, you can tell.  He’s kind of disagreeing with him and mocking him, as MM keeps going off on boring tangents and referencing other shows and movies in a string of non-sequitars…now, Chris Hardwick is pretty much openly mocking MM about his irrelevant points and nonsensical theories (“at least I could follow that one.”)  It can be such a hard job to host…you have the responsibility of keeping the pace going but can’t be too much of a dick …OMG, he just straight up lauded MM for making “a straight-up lucid point” after “not understanding anything else you’ve said tonight.”  Is Gale Ann Hurd desperately dropping spoilers to defuse the tension in the room?  I can’t wait to see what the buzz on social media is like about this TD episode.

What advice would Hershel give to Marilyn Manson if he could?

Playlist:

Soundgarden,  “Fell on Black Days”

Neil Young, “Heart of Gold” (for Hershel)

Lana Del Rey, “Radio””

Ariel Pink, “Berserker” (for Tyrese…and Rick) ❤

Season 4, Episode 2, ” Infected”

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“Infected”

(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s The Walking Dead, unless otherwise specified.)

I will just preface this post with this: the Season 4 premiere episode of The Walking Dead,  “30 Days Without an Accident,” was watched by 16.1 million viewers, with over 10 million of those viewers being in the coveted 18-49 yr old demographic, outperforming all other programs showing at that time, including NFL football. Awesome!

“Infected”

Opening scene: it’s night, and some psycho with a flashlight is feeding the walkers rats through the prison fence. (Later on Talking Dead,  mental mastermind Greg Nicotero explained how they achieved the effect of the walker eating the rat…they used actual rats and “fed” them into an automated prosthetic robot mouth. While no rats were actually hurt during the shooting of this effect, I don’t know if any of us who watched it will ever be the same!)

Now, I know that in my last post, I was leaning pretty heavily towards Bob being the bringer of walker snacks…while Bob is still on my short list of prime suspects, I am also wondering if the walker-feeder may be Lizzy, the cute/spooky tween girl who has a penchant for naming the walkers outside of the fence. She hangs out by the fence a lot, actually, looking out towards the walkers as they hiss and snarl and bare their teeth back at her. By her own sister’s admission, Lizzy’s “messed up…not weak.”

I imagine we will learn about Lizzy, Bob, and everyone a little more as the season progresses.

While the night walkers are enjoying their midnight snack outside, inside the prison, Tyrese is making out with his hot girlfriend, Karen. He’s got the cell all cozy and shit…and then, being the male unicorn of sweetness and sexiness that he is, Tyrese actually sings to her: “I got you under my skin .” Our man is busting out all the love moves.

But maybe it’s all just a little too much, too soon for Karen, because she has decided not to sleep over and is going back to her cell.

I was watching this, thinking, “Ummm, wait…whut?”   I was thinking, Girl, you should stay with that big sexy man… and now, you are in the darkest bathroom ever, and that is not great for you!

Of course, the scene is shot amazingly as Karen moves through the bathroom and showers, all dark and inky and shadowy, like a horror movie…and we know who is in there..oh God, here he is, sitting up. Yes, people, Patrick Walker is about to go nucking futs on Cell Block D.

Karen makes it out of the bathroom and retires to her cell, not knowing that Patrick Walker is lurching about a half cell-block behind her. She pulls aside her flimsy curtain and settles down for the night…alone (for some reason I still do not understand).  

Damn, I thought they had doors on those cells… I would be like, “Um, can I get one of the cells with the locking doors and bars, please? Thank you!”

Here’s what happens when you go with the curtain option in zombie prison-dorm life…Patrick Walker is gonna come knocking on your curtain (or, at least until he hears a cough a couple of cells down and goes to investigate):

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Shot of my tv…sorry for the amateur technique…I cannot seem to find the images I want to use online…I thought there was a whole world of computer-obsessed insomniacs out there posting all the pictures and clips I want to use in my blog, but apparently not!

So, I tried to shoot some video of it all going down on my phone…it took about 45 minutes of retakes and rewinds to film Patrick Walker’s first neck chomp on the Red-Shirt guy to Red-Shirt Walker’s roll-over-and-spill-his-guts-out scene.  I then finally got it so it didn’t play upside down on the computer., and then, my blog wouldn’t let me insert it into my post…damn fickle technology!  (My brilliant friend just suggested we try to download the episodes, then use images and videos from that to use for the blog..genius…and probably not legal.).

I did get one shot of Patrick Walker chewing meditatively on some of Red-Shirt guy’s innards:

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Patrick Walker is by far my favorite walker yet…maybe it’s because he is so creepy yet cuddly at the same time.  Maybe it’s because he can really bring the mayhem. Maybe it’s just because that Phineas actor kid plays a really great zombie. He was probably valedictorian in Greg Nicotero’s famed Zombie School. Check out the link about Zombie School on the AMC website:

http://www.amctv.com/the-walking-dead/videos/inside-the-walking-dead-zombie-school

I thought the whole Red-Shirt wifebeater guy getting chomped and spilling his guts on the floor was pretty believable at first, but my best WD buddy wasn’t having it. She texted me, That guy didn’t even move!  to which I texted back,  Patrick Walker chomped him good right in the front of the neck.   She replied, Yeah, but no arm reaction at all?  

Excellent point.  I answered back, Maybe he had an instant heart attack.  Pretty weak, I know, but I really didn’t have anything else. It was kind of not believable, once she pointed that out.  (Ha ha, later on Talking Dead, they refer to the red shirt dude as “Deep Sleeper” in their In Memoriam segment, when they honor the fallen, live and undead alike.)

Meanwhile, the sun’s come up and it’s time to rise and shine at the prison. Glenn wakes Maggie up taking a Polaroid of her sleeping…and who can blame him? I mean, we all have a crush on Maggie, don’t we? I am a happily married woman, and even I am a little lady-gay for Maggie.  Lauren Cohan is stupid hot.  Steven Yeun plays Glenn perfectly as the geek guy who can’t believe he landed a stone fox like Maggie.  You gotta love Glenn and Maggie. They’re so cute and flirty with each other. They manage to keep the zombie apocalypse sexy.

Out in the garden, Michonne is on her horse, ready to ride off on another weird solo adventure…Rick and Carl are seeing her off before starting work on the garden. Before she rides off, Michonne asks Carl why he doesn’t wear his (Rick’s) hat anymore…Carl answers that it’s “not a farming hat”…awww, snap! That’s gotta sting a little, but Rick plays it cool, even when Carl hints at going with Daryl on a run…and then after apologizing to Rick for his resistance to Rick’s new farmer lifestyle, Carl outright asks Rick when he can stop being gun-grounded and get his gun back. Rick doesn’t reply directly, just suggests that Carl add some worms to the slop to give the pigs more protein…I really liked the communication between Rick and Carl throughout the whole episode…by the episode’s end, you see how far they have come in their father/son relationship.

Then the gun alarm goes off, and all epidemic hell is breaking loose at the prison. It’s another wild, great scene…last week, it was raining walkers in the store, and now this week, it’s a walker prison riot.  Season 4 is not fucking around, people!  In one hot and gratifying instant, Rick drops the farmer act and becomes Rick In Charge, ordering Carl to the tower with Maggie and assessing the situation (Cell Block C is clear, Cell Block D is fucked) before running in to battle the walkers in Cell Block D.

The mayhem is so fast, with major carnage.  Rick hands off his shotgun  to someone else and turns his energies to helping get the panicked masses to safety. Glenn pulls off some major ninja-style knife kills, and Daryl saves the little curly-haired boy from Red-Shirt Walker, then saves Glenn from getting chomped by Patrick Walker by ordering Glenn down and shooting a crossbow into Patrick’s brain. “Awww, it’s Patrick,” laments Daryl as they stand over his rekilled form…yes, Daryl, your young fanboy is super dead.

The scene with Michonne and Carl at the gate is great….Two walkers on top of Michonne, and Carl blows the top walker guy’s brains in with one shot…you can see the joy in his face. My buddy texted me, Carl’s still got it ..Yes, he does, just like his dad!

Greg Nicotero said later in Talking Dead that the prison attack casualties totaled 14 civilians…men, women, and at least one child. That is a major theme in this episode, a mother losing her child in the zombie apocalypse.

In one telling scene, Beth is wrapping Michonne’s ankle in her cell while little Judith is seated on the floor, playing with red plastic kegger cups…Beth asks Michonne if there were any children killed in the attack. Michonne nods. Beth wonders aloud what someone who loses a child would be called, “We see all these widows and orphans, but what do you call someone who lost a child?” Baby Judith starts to cry at that moment, and Michonne flinches, gets a pained look on her face, like the sound of a baby crying is unbearable to her. “She always cry?” she manages, her voice tight.

Later, when Beth asks Michonne to hold Judith for a moment, Michonne hesitates before reluctantly taking the baby. She holds Judith at arm’s length at first, unable to look at Judith.

Judith begins to cry, and Danai Gurira plays it so beautifully as she slowly turns her head to look at the baby, then smiles at her and pulls Baby Judith closer to her chest. Michonne’s face lights up as she holds the baby, smiling, then dissolves into silent tears. Beth watches from a distance, realizing (as we do) that Michonne has probably lost a child herself, before walking away to leave Michonne and Judith in their moment together.

My heart felt like it had been torn from my chest watching those scenes…it’s a parent’s worst nightmare.

Daryl and Rick have to go around and rekill all the bitten people…Rick continues to show more and more edge, mixed with his beautiful look of sadness and regret…sigh….sorry, getting totally derailed by Andrew Lincoln…again.

Anyway, Rick and Daryl find a young walker teen shut in his cell…the kid that sleepwalked… Charlie…he wasn’t bitten or scratched, just the bloom of blood around the mouth and streaming from the eyes. Hershel and some young med student guy come look at the body and agree that there is a virus or aggressive flu in the works…a fast-acting flu that basically makes people’s faces explode blood out the eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

Wow, just when you think shit couldn’t get any more fucked up than it already was in zombie apocalypse. Now people can die from some Explodey Flu and turn into a walker literally overnight! Remember Ol’ Bloody Eye, the first walker featured last episode? He had the streaming blood from his eyes…Greg Nicotero said that this flu has changed the overall look for the walkers in Season 4.  Deliciously gruesome, Greg Nicotero.

Outside, digging graves, Daryl thanks Rick for his help in the prison and asks if maybe Rick is ready to come back to being in a leader role in their community…Rick hems and haws, brings up all his mistakes from before…Daryl is having none of it, reminding Rick that he is always there and always solid when the shit goes down…then Maggie comes running, yelling for Rick and Daryl to come help…the walkers are rushing the outside ring of prison fencing, and it’s starting to tip over.  Rick, Daryl, Maggie, Sasha, Tyrese, Glenn are stabbing the horde of walkers furiously (“culling the walkers,” Greg Nicotero calls it…love it!) and pushing back desperately as the fence continues to give. Maggie and Sasha see the dead rats on the ground and realize that someone from the inside has been feeding the walkers.

The fence keeps coming down…and Rick looks wistfully at his garden…he tells Daryl to get the truck…he gathers up the piglets, and they drive outside the prison gates into the mass of walkers.  This scene is so symbolic and sad, with Rick’s face a study of loss and determination as he slashes each piglet that he raised in the hind leg to draw blood and disable it before tossing it towards the walkers.  My friend had such a hard time with this scene…she texted me that the pig scene really messed her up. The music, another work of genius by Bear McCreary, was really haunting and added to the feeling of grief at the loss of Rick’s dream to rebuild a simple and peaceful life at the prison.

Honestly, I am a little on the fence about Carol right now. I totally get that after taking years of abuse by her shitty husband Ed and losing Sophia, she would feel the urgency of needing to teach the kids at the prison how to defend themselves, but I think she’s being a little weird about it,  like not telling the parents and telling Carl, “Don’t tell your father!”  All she’s gotta do is assemble a prison-PTA meeting and tell the Woodbury parents something like, “Look, I know at Woodbury you had Do-Art and Dunkin’ Donuts and shit, but around here, kids need to know how to defend themselves!”

And I’m sorry, but she was totally creepy to let Lizzy try to rekill her own dad…that girl was so not ready for that…she almost unhinged Lizzy, and then later was all like, “You’re weak, Lizzy!” I mean, I’m glad she gets to be a mom again and all, and I know she’s out of practice a little, and now it seems she and Lizzy made up, and Lizzy has a knife now…and I really don’t know how I feel about that.

Love the last scene with Rick and Carl, when Carl tells his dad about Carol teaching the kids the art of the knife kill.  Rick listens, dismantling the pig pen and pouring gasoline over it and setting it on fire.  He thanks Carl for telling him and assures him that he won’t tell on Carol.  He then opens up a tackle box, takes out Carl’s gun, wrapped in cloth.  He unwraps the gun and hands it to Carl.  Then he takes his shirt off and tosses it into the fire…yes!  Shirtless Andrew Lincoln, like a panacea for the soul after such a burly episode.

But, for poor Tyrese, the episode is not quite over. He goes with flowers to visit his sick girlfriend, and instead finds her cell splattered with blood and a big smeary blood trail meeting with another blood trail…he follows the blood trails down the hall and discovers two charred and smoking bodies, a man’s and a woman’s..sitting next to the bodies is a gas can. As he stares down at the bodies, Tyrese recognizes with horror the bracelet that Karen wore on her right wrist.

So, there it is, and here’s a playlist to wrap it all up tight like Carl’s gun.  And this last song is for you, Tyrese…so sorry about your beautiful lady friend!

Playlist:

Submarines  “1940” (Amplive remix)

Rise Against  “Death Blossoms”

Those Darlins  “Waste Away”

Season 4, Episode 1 “30 Days Without an Accident

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“30 Days Without an Accident”

(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s The Walking Dead, unless otherwise specified.)

It’s 8:30 pm, and I am  rewatching the finale episode of  The Walking Dead’s Season 3, “Welcome to the Tombs,” on AMC,  researching and writing during commercial breaks.

Crap, it’s the scene where the Gov gets the super crazy eyes (or, rather, crazy eye) and guns down all his makeshift Woodbury army.  And now, he’s sitting in the truck, motioning for his two henchmen to get on in. They do so, slowly and reluctantly, and then off the three go,  on the Worst Road Trip Ever….

Where are they going?  Who knows?  I imagine we will, eventually,but until then, one thing’s for sure…I know who’s going to get to pick all the music in THAT vehicle…and the pee stops…and  the not-so-scenic routes.

Hershel just had to break it to Rick that Carl’s gone a little psycho, which we all already knew (Rick included), and back in Woodbury, Andrea has been a little too chatty with About-to-Be-a-Zombie-Milt and not doing enough of the getting out of the freaking restraints of her torture chair and getting the fuck outta that room, and now that he’s all dead and not talky, she’s trying to focus on the task at hand…but, of course, she’s dropping the pliers…so annoying.

Back at the prison, Carl just told Rick what time it was: it’s time to kill the motherfuckers, apparently, before they kill you, and that’s the living people, not the walkers.

Carl disses, then dismisses, his openmouthed father with a, “Now, go, before he kills any more of us.”

Ouch! Even in the face of getting served by his son,  Rick is basically looking like the hottest single dad ever. Poor guy!  Hang in there buddy…tweens are tough, especially the post-apocalyptic ones. Speaking of post-apocalyptic teens,  Beth is looking pretty fearsome crowbarring the prison walkers through the chain-link fence…you go, girl!  I have a feeling that Beth is going to be a major player by the time this is all said and done.

Aggh, the scene where Andrea has been chomped by Zombie Milt and Michonne stays with her…we’ll talk about all this later on…this scene is such a bummer for me.

I love Andrea and Michonne, bad bitches on the run together, getting in a huge BFF-turned-frenemies fight, and then coming together and Michonne sticking by Andrea’s side at the moment where it really counts, the bitter end.

And the scene, with the men, Rick, Daryl and Tyrese, sitting outside the door, it takes a moment, then the shot rings through, and it’s so beautiful and sad how each of the male characters register their sorrow in that moment.

I’m an Andrea fan, I’ll say it now, and I will make my case for her in future posts. Stay tuned. You may throw many insults at me for this one, and I will probably deserve most of them, but I can’t lie.  I love a crazy bitch who can hold her own in a fight.

Ok, a commercial for the new Carrie movie…Julianne Moore as Carrie’s crazy-ass mom. It’s brilliant and maybe a little too believable? Some roles you don’t ever come back from, Julianne…think Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest…just saying.

“30 Days Without an Accident”

Ok, here we go. Armed with w beer and laptop… the prison’s looking homey, barrels filled with fresh water to drink or wash your face with.  Rick’s looking fine hoeing the garden; he’s got earbuds in the ears to rock the gospel classic,  “Precious Memories.”  The song’s lyrics are relevant (“As I travel down life’s pathway, knowing not what the year’s may hold,  As I ponder, hopes grow fonder, Precious sacred scenes unfold. Precious memories, how they linger. How they ever flood my soul.”).

The music and lyrics also serve to drown out the pesky hissing and snarling of the walkers on the other side of the fence.  While digging in the soil, Rick uncovers a gun that was buried in the mud…probably from the prison battle with the Governor. He pulls the gun out of the mud and regards it, pulling one earbud out of his ear, letting in the hellish noise from the hungry zombies who are snarling and snapping at him through the fence.  Rick cuts his eyes at one particularly ugly walker who has blood streaming out of his red, glassy eyes…the first walker close-up and.he is awesomely gnarly and truly terrifying…Ol’ Bloody Eye.  Bravo!  This show knows how to bring it.

I couldn’t find an online picture of Ol’ Bloody Eye, so I took a pic on my phone…behold the first close-up walker cameo of The Walking Dead’s Season 4:

IMG_1029

So far, I like it… Rick is a hot farmer, the garden’s looking good, and they even have pigs, fondly named by Carl. As they look on at the mama hog, languishing in the mud, Carl wonders aloud what is wrong with “Violet”.  Rick gently chastises Carl for naming the hogs when they are just going to end up as food, but then, in a moment of Rick-sweetness that we all understand, Rick says to the ailing hog, “Get better, Violet.”

Awww, Rick… We know your days as a mere farmer are numbered, but I am going with it and enjoying the moment…while it lasts.

OMG, Carol and Daryl are so cute, flirting over breakfast, and it seems everyone at the prison (like the rest of us) has a crush on Daryl. He’s like the president and the resident rock star of the prison.

“Just remember, I liked you first,” says Carol.  Cute!

That means they are totally doing it, right?

The little bespectacled geek tween has a little man-crush on Daryl….he wants to shake “Mr. Dixon’s” hand for bringing in the deer the other day. “It was a real treat, sir,” he says.  I’m sure it was…now get in the back of the line, Harry Potter!

Ha ha, Daryl licks his fingers clean of his morning bowl of venison mush before shaking the kid’s hand… probably making the kid have a geekgasm in his chinos.

Poor Glenn and Maggie. Their pillow talk is so gloomy: “You shouldn’t go on the run today.” I totally missed this the first watch around, but I guess they are worried Maggie’s pregnant. That would kind of suck.

Sometimes,  I like to imagine what Glenn and Maggie would have been like as a couple before the apocalypse. They probably would have had some really cute apartment in Atlanta, hosting fun dinner parties, telling their guests stories about how they met in the country, when Maggie rode up to Glenn on a horse in the woods.

Ok,  I always thought Tyrese and Sasha were together, but now he’s acting all boyfriendy to the beautiful Hispanic-looking woman.. and now he’s kissing her. Are they all in an open relationship?  Maybe the post-zombie-apocalypse dating credo is: everything goes!

(In the comic series, everyone starts getting it on…Dale and Andrea, even…not to player-hate, but yuck!)   Tyrese is man enough to go around…he is like a big sexy huggy bear, a total lover, not a killer. He only kills when he has to, but he doesn’t have to like it.

OK, who the fuck is this woman in the woods? Rick is so kind, he gives everyone a chance, but I don’t fucking trust her…she looks like a freaking walker already.

Creepy Clara.

Hey, Rick, the council voted on something else…don’t give Creepy Clara your knife! Like, seriously, dude, does everything have to be some social experiment with you?  What is up with her mossy-looking face?

And I don’t trust that bald guy who Daryl rescued…bad feeling about that one. Creepy Clara and Baldy Bob. Fuck the both of them.

The prison kids.. how much do I love them naming the walkers on the other side of the fence and waving to them?  “Hi, Ned!”  Carl is totally blowing it with the cute tween girl. Don’t be a funkiller, Carl. Keep that shit up, and there will be no spin-the-bottle for you. Only comic books!

This Creepy Clara and her pretentious sculpture babble is really fucking annoying me…get over it, lady.  It’s zombie apocalypse. Nobody cares about that shit anymore.

Store run. Unbeknownst to the crew, there’s a crashed helicopter and walkers wandering the roof. Not good. The ceiling is dripping on Baldy Bob, who is giving the sneaky look-around before considering slipping a bottle of wine into his backpack and taking it back to the prison for a one-man party later in his cell. He hesitates, like he had a problem with the bottle at some point. Hershel would understand.

But, alcoholism aside, would bringing a bottle of wine back to the prison be against the rules? Honestly, I’d be getting one of those damn carts and stocking up.

And then, instead of slipping the bottle of wine into his bag, Bob tries to put it back on the shelf and ends up pulling the entire janky setup on top of himself. Wrong answer, Bob. This, of course, gets the attention of the roof walkers, who start getting agitated and stomping around the rotten roof, punching holes in it and falling through the ceiling.

And then, it’s literally raining walkers into the store.

Amazing scene. Beth’s little boyfriend, Zack, gets chomped…and Bob tries a new zombie-killing move, trying to tear the crack in the walker’s head open to get at the brain before Daryl comes and saves his sorry ass….inventive, and disgusting, Bob.

I actually almost pulled a shelf like that on top of me, once, in front of a cute new boyfriend…it was a shelf full of books, not wine, but still, it was pretty much one of the more humiliating moments of my life.  The cute boyfriend broke up with me soon after. Apparently, getting really stoned and almost pulling an Ikea-style bookshelf on top of yourself is a total dealbreaker.  I can see that, I really can. In fact, I think the prison should take a cue from my old boyfriend and dump Bob.

Back to Rick and Creepy Clara, making small talk as she leads him back to her camp. Great shot of a spider in a web, just an instant, looking like a frame from the comic. Love it.

At first, I wondered if Rick was testing Creepy Clara about the sculptures. I wondered if there was really one of the kids playing leap frog, if he was baiting her to see if she would lie. But, I think Rick was just being unfailingly polite, like he always is.  That’s why we love him.

Then, the conversation turns darker, when Rick asks Clara the things she had to learn to do to survive.  He’s testing her, and she asks him if he thinks that one can come back from the things they had done.

“I hope so,” Rick replies.

Then, the scene seemed to go so fast, and suddenly, Creepy Clara was talking to a bag that was moving.  My first thought was, ‘Oh fuck, does she have a fucking walker baby in that bag?’ (P.S. I say “fuck” a lot when I’m stressed.)

My friend and I texted back and forth about it…we agreed it was maybe a baby or her husband/boyfriend’s  head. Then it all came together. Eddie. Eddie the husband’s head was in the bag. And apparently, Eddie’s head was wanting a chew toy, and Creepy Clara thought she was going to feed him Rick.

Bitch, please…it’s going to take a lot more than your mossy ass to take down Rick Grimes!

Then, Creepy Clara does us all a favor and stabs herself, and Rick is so good he actually gets teared up. That man has a heart of gold, I tell you.

Creepy Clara asks to not be rekilled after she dies…she wants to be with Eddie the head. Just when I thought she couldn’t get any creepier!

Then, Creepy Clara asks Rick what his three questions were:

How many walkers have you killed?

How many people have you killed?

Why?

Creepy Clara, in her last moment, pulls off some powerful last words: “You don’t get to come back from the things you’ve done.”

Shit!

Later, in Talking Dead, Scott M. Gimple dangled a brutal teaser about Creepy Clara’s final words to Rick.  He said it’s like a curse that may come back to haunt Rick in future episodes.

Ok, is it just me, or is Scott M. Gimple totally kicking all our asses right now?  He is, and so is Greg Nicotero, the executive producer and pioneering makeup/effects artist who directed tonight’s episode and has now helmed six episodes of The Walking Dead.  

Well played, gentlemen, well played.

I found a great interview with Greg Nicotero in Hero Complex about what we can expect from Season 4 of TWD. Check it out:

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/tv/walking-dead-greg-nicotero-season-4-premiere/#/0

Back at the prison, the geek kid is sick and the female hog is dead.  Is there a zombie swine flu in the works?  Maggie is not knocked up…yet. “I don’t want to be afraid of being alive,” she tells Glenn.

Poor Glenn is perpetually worried these days. And Daryl has to tell Beth that her boyfriend got chomped…she’s all like, “Ok, no biggie” and goes and starts to take down the “30” from the “30 Days Without an Accident” sign, then says, “I don’t cry anymore.”

Then, she gives Daryl a wayyy long hug.  Chris Hardwick noticed it, and so did I.  Watch out for jailbait, Daryl…that shit’s nothing but trouble.

Oh, man, the geek kid’s about to keel over…and, down he goes, dead on the shower floor. Shot of the dripping shower head. Ugh, is the zombie virus in the water? Well, I guess it is now, after Patrick (the geek kid’s name) sweated and hacked into it!  Fuck, he’s turned! (P.S. The kid who plays Patrick is the voice of Phineas in Phineas and Ferb…wow, thanks, Chris Hardwick, crown geek prince of basic cable, for sharing that fact…  I am actually a little starstruck right now… Phineas!)

Man, Chris Hardwick has it so bad for Andrew Lincoln.  I do love his unabashed man-crush on “Andy,” as he calls him...me too, Chris Hardwick, me too!

So, as we head into next week, Patrick’s a walker and he’s in the prison and everyone’s asleep. That is some fucking bad news for our gang at the prison.

And from the sneak peek of next week’s episode on Talking Dead, someone from inside the prison is feeding rats to the walkers through the fence.  Now, I’m not trying to jump to any hasty conclusions about who this stealthy saboteur may be (Bob), but whoever it is, he or she is a REAL asshole (Bob) and needs to get caught, killed, and rekilled ASAP (BOB!)!

Ok, apparently, straight from both Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus, Episode 2 is going to be rough, and Episode 3 is going to be rougher. Scott M. Gimple just confirmed it.

I tell you, people, I may have to go Bukowski on that shit next week.  I may need strong drink to get through it…just saying.

Wow, just figured out how to insert my fave pic from the episode! Enjoy! xo

4X1-30-Days-Without-An-Accident-Screensot-Daryl-and-Carol-the-walking-dead-35643998-595-419

Until next time, and enjoy the playlist:

Playlist:

Jim Reeves, “Precious Memories”

Hot Water Music,  “Our Own Way”

The Runaways,  “Dead End Justice”

Cypress Hill, “When the Shit Goes Down”

Introduction

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The first step in my journey with The Walking Dead began back in the fall of 2004, when I went to my favorite comic book store to buy my friend a birthday present. My friend was a salty tattoo artist who took great pleasure in hating most things…he and I did, however, share a love of graphic novels and comic book art.  So, there I was in the store, combing through the rows and rows of comics, looking for a couple of issues of something cool enough not to incur his withering ridicule or bored disinterest.   I knew what he liked:  dark, compelling story lines with great artwork.

I went up to the counter and asked the young clerk if there was anything he could recommend.  He immediately put down the comic book he was reading, and with a gleam in his eye, came around the counter, pulled an issue off one of the front promotional racks, and handed it to me.  I looked down at the cover, and my first thought was, “Wow.”

The art on the cover was amazing…a perfect snapshot image of total mayhem, drawn, inked and colored in an inimitable style. Emblazoned across the top, the comic’s title, The Walking Dead, glowed bright red like fresh blood.

The cover image showed a lone sheriff’s deputy in full uniform:  wide brimmed hat, jacket,  muddied boots, standing his ground against an oncoming assailant.  The deputy’s broad back faces the reader at a 3/4 angle, his legs are braced shoulders’ width apart in a defensive sideways stance. His head is turned to face his attacker, and we see his narrowed eyes and squared jaw as he sizes up his foe.  His look is grim and unafraid as he loads, or reloads, his shotgun with (perhaps his last) two bullets.

All around the deputy, it looks like the world has gone to shit.   Beside him, the smashed front end of a car has rammed into an overturned fire hydrant.   A shattered storefront window behind the deputy exposes the store’s dark, empty interior, with toppled mannequins inside peering lifelessly through the gaping holes in the jagged glass. Lying amidst the broken glass and bricks on the ground is an arm,  and while it looks as if the arm came from one of the mannequins inside the store, there is an eerie suggestion that the arm could have just as easily been ripped, or gnawed, off some poor doomed person.

And, reflected in the shards of broken storefront window glass, the reader sees what is coming for the deputy:  the  sunken faces, wild hungry eyes, bared teeth, and the crooked, hunched posturing of a horde of zombies.  World’s end.  Zombie apocalypse.  It was like a choir of twisted angels singing inside my head, “Awwwe-some!”

I just stared down at that cover for what felt like forever.  I had never seen anything like it. The drawing style was simple and stylized, but full of nuance and detail, like the rendering of the zombies in the shattered window glass. The inking was dark and shadowy, and the coloring was simple, sepia-toned with hints of yellows and oranges and reds.  Down at the bottom right-hand corner, I read the names of the writer and artist:  Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore.  That explained the amazing cover art.  Tony Moore’s drawing and inking style, especially in his graphic novel, From Hell, was one of my favorite styles.

Check out the cover of the first issue of The Walking Dead for yourself:

comic1

See what I mean? Love at first sight.

While I flipped through the comic,  the young clerk began to tell me about the series, happy to share his enthusiasm with an appreciative audience. He told me that they had just recently gotten it in the store, and that the series was generating a real buzz around the comic book community.

He outlined the basic story line:  a sheriff’s deputy, Rick Grimes, is injured in a shootout and wakes from a coma in a hospital to find the world around him overrun with zombies. He searches for,  eventually finds, his wife and son in a small group of survivors…but his wife, thinking her husband was dead, has hooked up with Rick’s best friend and patrol partner, Shane. The series follows this bizarre love triangle, and the hellish plight of the human survivors, as they try to stay alive in a hellish post-zombie apocalyptic world.

I’ll never forget one thing the clerk said:

“And the name, ‘The Walking Dead’….it’s like you don’t know if it applies to the zombies or the human survivors.”

Sold! I bought the first two issues for my friend’s birthday present and ended up keeping them for the next week before giving them to him.  As I did with all my favorite comics, I spent hours reading them and trying to emulate the drawing style of certain frames I especially liked in my sketchbook.  One of my favorites from the first issue showed a half-eaten female corpse, all ribcage and bones, beside a bicycle frame…like some poor woman either had been on a bike ride when she got attacked, or she had tried to escape the hell around her on bike.  In the story, Rick approaches the woman’s body beside the bike and is about to take the bike for his own use, thinking the woman is dead.  There is a great frame, a close-up of his face registering his wide-eyed horror, his hand clamped over his mouth and a tear running down his face when the corpse actually moves and he realizes she is, to some degree, alive…or undead.

bicycleWalker

I drew the zombie woman with her bike in my sketchbook, and it turned out so well that I gave the drawing to a guy I had a crush on at the time and labeled it, “A Happy Ending.” You may be  thinking, as you read this, that I have a pretty bizarre flirting style, and I will tell you, my friend, you are absolutely correct!

(Of course, this character has become one of the iconic walker characters of the show, Hanna, the bike walker.  More on Hanna in later posts…we have a lot to discuss with that one!)

Anyway, back to 2004.  Of course, my friend loved his present and became hooked on The Walking Dead comic series.  I borrowed issues from him from time to time, but life took me in a different direction, and my friend and I fell out of touch.   Time passed.  I fell in love, had a kid, got married (yes, in that order), had another kid, and life became full of more immediate concerns besides comic books.  While I knew that my focus needed to be where it was, on my babies, on being a wife and (gulp!) a grown-up,  I did yearn for the day when I would have some time again to explore those things that I loved, like comics, and drawing, and writing…and sleeping.

Fast forward to the late fall of 2010.  I was catching up with an old friend on the phone, and she told me her new husband was obsessed with the new Walking Dead series on AMC. I had heard of the series, and while I was intrigued,  I wasn’t so sure I could handle it at that point in my life. I tell you, something happens when you have kids.  It’s like your heart explodes open into a million pieces and you start to feel everything…you don’t have a filter anymore.  I had a three-year old, I was still nursing my youngest son, and sleep was elusive enough without hellish images and zombie dreams keeping me awake even more than I already was.

So, I held off…for a while. But I kept thinking about that show.  And I couldn’t stay away. I started looking it up online, and from what I read,  The Walking Dead  television series seemed to be a really quality adaptation of the comic series.  I was glad to see that the comic’s creator, Robert Kirkman,  was both an executive producer and writer for the show.   I began to read the synopses of the first season’s story line, and I saw that it diverged from the story line of the original comic.  While I don’t usually go for spoilers, I just couldn’t take any more surprises than life was giving me on a daily basis.

My online poking turned into my DVR’ing the second season of The Walking Dead  while beginning  to watch the first season on Netflix streaming. And, once again, it was love at first sight.  The writing, the acting, the design and cinematography, the makeup and special effects, were all groundbreaking.  And of course, the super-hunky actors like Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Lennie James, and Norman Reedus were a definite draw…all the characters were compelling, whether you liked them or hated them, and it was perhaps a little too easy at times to imagine what it would be like to actually be among them, navigating the hells of zombie apocalypse.

And so, despite my initial hesitation, I became one of the Walking Dead Obsessed (WDO  for short). On Sunday nights, after the kids went to bed, my ritual from 9pm on became wincing through horrific scenes of zombie carnage, OMG plotline twists, and furiously texting my best WDO buddy about how hot Rick and Daryl were.  I would go to work and seek out the student interns to talk WD.  I would think about it throughout the day, turning the show’s plotlines around in my head while my kids regaled me from their car seats with everything I ever needed to know about Transformers.

My husband does not share my love of the WD.  He is a good, intelligent man who likes to watch documentaries, comedies, and This Old House.  He invariably will come in the living room while I am watching WD just in time to catch a particularly gory scene, like Glenn curb-stomping a walker.  Never fails.  He never gives me shit about it,  but he can’t help but react like any normal, sane person would….“Ewwwww, god!”  One time, he turned to me and asked,”What is the appeal?” He wasn’t trying to be a dick, he was truly mystified.  I just smiled weakly and shrugged…I had nothing!

I mean, honestly, what is the appeal? I didn’t have the words to explain it, but I know I love it…and I know that maybe it’s not the best use of my time to stay up late and watch the gory, disturbing show with the bleak story line, the  walkers chomping the hapless victims, the loss of beloved characters, the decapitations and the blood spatter.  Week after week, I go to bed, shaken at the latest episode’s turn of events, fall into a troubled sleep full of zombie dreams, then jolt awake at 6:30 am to get the kiddies off to school and myself to work… What can I say? I  love our show, people, and because I love it, week after week, I take another one for the team.

And  apparently, I am not the only one.  The Walking Dead television series has received strong Neilsen ratings and has set new records for a television cable series, reaching 12.4 million viewers for the Season 3 finale episode, making it the most-watched drama  series telecast in basic cable television history. Ok…if that sounds like it reads like a Wikpedia entry, that’s because I got it from there.  Sue me.

I’ve been kicking the concept of this blog around in my head for months now…a blog based mainly on The Walking Dead  television series, filtered through my perspective, my world, and yes, at times, my crazy.  The basic concept:   write a post centered around each episode of The Walking Dead series, shooting from the hip but also including, at times, factual and technical tidbits about the episode.  Initially, I wanted to write about each of the episodes, in order, leading up to the Season 4 premiere episode…but with two young kids, a marriage, a household to manage, and a job, things didn’t quite turn out like that.

So, the entirely new plan is this:  post an introduction and a pre-Season 4 post  (you know, feelings, hunches, predictions, worries, reminisces about the shit that’s gone down so far and what’s gonna happen next kind of post), then just dive in with the premiere of Season 4 on October 13th.  And along with each week’s new episode, I will begin the journey with posting an entry about the “Episodes Gone Bye,” starting with the first episode of Season 1, “Days Gone Bye,” and continuing from there in sequential order.

In addition, at the  end each post, I will include  a playlist of at least three songs that I feel correspond to the episode and characters the episode focused on.  My friends have been a little confused about this one. “You mean songs from the show?” they asked. No, just songs, songs from the huge list I have been amassing on my phone as I stream music.  I have heard more than one actor from The Walking Dead series say that they use music to both prepare for, and come down from, some of the more intense scenes they film.

So, basically it’s a blog half about my Walking Dead obsession and half about the damn skeletons in my own closet, or, my own damn barn fulla walkers. With a soundtrack.

I don’t know if I am ready to take the ride…at this moment, I am thinking of so many reasons to back out, but when are we ever ready for zombie apocalypse?  The premiere of Season 4 airs tomorrow night, 9pm.  So here we are. Let’s just see what happens, shall we?

Intro playlist:

Arcade Fire,  Ready to Start

Drake,  The Motto

TV on the Radio,   Staring at the Sun