Took
me longer than I thought to get round to this but I am finally doing a review
for The Walking Dead season two. As always these reviews contain spoilers so I
advise you not to read this review unless you have watched season two first.
This
season begins almost immediately after the events of the final episode of
season one and Rick and his group have now left the Atlanta
What
I immediately like about this season is that the number of episodes has been
increased from six to thirteen and it introduces more characters from the
graphic novel. However while this is great it is also a let down because it
means more room for filler that was not included from the source material. A
notable example of this is that a lot of the content for episodes one through
seven focuses on finding Sophia Peletier (Madison Lintz), the daughter of Carol
Peletier (Melissa McBride). Even thought this story arc is interesting I just
felt that it did not need seven episodes to devote to it. Also another example
stretching out something that seems trivial is that half of an episode is about
the group trying to pull a zombie out of a well and another is deciding whether
or not to kill someone they captured who is from a dangerous group. I know
deciding to kill some one is a serious thing to do but it took a whole episode
and really nothing else happens in it.
However
I am not saying that all original stuff in this season is bad there is a great
episode where Shane goes to a school to find surgery equipment, a shootout at a
bar, a fight between Rick and Shane and the final episode are all great
moments. The final episode is really great because any zombie killing action
moments that might be lacking in some of this season’s episodes are all made up
here.
The
new cast additions are great, especially Hershel who is really similar to is
comic counterpart and whose acting is great. It is really seeing him and Rick’s
conflicting views on the zombies for the first half of the season. The rest of
Hershel’s family and friends are great as well and the old cast still does a
great job but once again this is let down slightly by Andrea who I have
mentioned before as being a complete miscast and annoying character. She is
more annoying than ever now that she wants tries to act tough with a gun; she
listens to no one and thinks she is the best zombie killer of the group. There
is a scene where Lori says she dies nothing to help out anymore only stands on
the RV with a gun getting a tan and she is right about that. Andrea contributes
nothing to this season what so ever; her character development is uninteresting
and not done well and she has no major consequence on what is happening.
Now
I will be talking about the deaths of a few characters now so I am saying again
to be wary of the SPOILERS a head, I am leaving nothing out now:
First
let us focus on the death of Sophia; in the graphic novel she is a minor
character who is mostly there as a romantic interest for Carl. She does not die
but neither is she really the most interesting of characters, so since her
death scene was done so well in this really took me by surprise. It was really
so emotional and you can really tell how hard it was for Rick to but her down
when they found her as a zombie. This was one hell of a great moment for the
Walking Dead series.
Another
death that I think was completely unnecessary however was the death of Dale
near the end of the season. He lives a lot longer than this in the graphic
novel and was such a major character as well, so killing him at this point at
Hershel’s farm was something I did not like even though I did not see it
coming. Another thing about it was that he was killed by just one zombie so it
was a poor way to kill him, plus Jeffery DeMunn as Dale played the role
perfectly so I really wished that is they had to kill a major character early
it should have been Andrea.
Finally
the death we graphic novel fans have been waiting for was the death of Shane at
the hands of Rick and then shot in the head as a zombie by Carl. Like Sophia
this was done really well because you can just tell that Rick seriously did not
want to kill Shane that he was made to do it. It is a shame that it was not
exactly like the death in the graphic novel, fans will notice that the roles of
Rick and Carl are reversed in his death. Still it was a good way to end his
character who has been around a lot longer than his graphic novel counterpart.
Overall
this is a good follow up to season one with interesting new story arcs and
characters but it is however let down by those same story arcs being dragged on
for an unnecessary long length so it makes some of the episodes feel more or
less like filler. No matter how good the rest of the season was because of this
fact I have to give this season a lower score than the first one.
SCORE:
6/10
