Review: The Walking Dead ‘After’

It is finally here folks, the return of the The Walking Dead. After a two-month hiatus, the show has returned and I was eager to see what they were putting together for the second half of season four. With people dead and everyone scattered to the four winds, it’s only a matter of time before the writers start killing off more of our favorite personalities. So who shall go next? Well, the first episode, ‘After’, doesn’t have the answer to that question, but it does present a solid lead-in to this next block of eight episodes.

‘After’ follows just three characters post-prison-war. In one group are Rick and Carl, in the other group a solo Michonne. Michonne walks the landscape with some new walker buddies to keep her from being detected by the zombies, trying to figure out what’s going on and fighting the urge to give up. Rick, after a sound beating at the hands of the Governor, is messed up so bad that he’s close to dying and Carl has to watch over him until he recuperates.

What we see in ‘After’ is a deeper look at some of the characters that have been left out thus far. We see that Carl is growing up and begin to get a picture of why he’s such a jerk to his father. He thinks he’s ready to be out on his own, that he can handle the zombie-infested world without anybody’s help. A few chance encounters with some undead nasties cure him of that delusion.

With Michonne, the story is one of the past. She remembers back to when she had a family. She recalls some of what happened once the zombie hordes were set loose upon the world. She feels the loss of her old world, compounded by the loss of the prison community, and wanders with a herd of walkers, unwilling to do anything other than wait to die.

This episode presents a good mix of both action and character development. We see Carl shooting zombies and Michonne chopping zombies’ heads off. But the real story is about the characters. This is a prime example of how The Walking Dead should be, a balance of the best elements of the show. Though some will likely complain that it was too slow, it was, in my opinion, a perfect way to begin this new season.

Next week, the show moves on to trace the paths of some of the other survivors. Check out a preview of ‘Inmates’ over at this site.

Photo Credits -           

After courtesy of pastemagazine.com