Yeah, this is long, so just a warning. I started a
blog devoted to "The Walking Dead" so I wanted to start my reviews off with a bang:
"Days Gone By," is about leaving a past life, and a past world behind. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) wakes up from a coma, only to find his Kentucky town, lifeless and destroyed by a zombie apocalypse.
I'm not going to do much of a plot recap, as that can easily be gleaned from watching the show. I'm just going to focus on what I thought, as this is a review, after all.
Let me start by saying "Days Gone By" is one of the best pilot episodes I've seen in a long time, if not ever. It is well filmed, beautifully acted, deliberate in its pacing, chilling, horrifying and an all around spectacle of TV.
For a show about zombies, the quietness of this first episode was remarkable. In Kentucky, most of the townspeople are dead. Rick does not encounter many zombies until he reaches Atlanta, where all hell breaks loose. Generally zombie movies start large scale and stay large scale. "Days Gone By" took the opposite approach by giving Rick small, single encounters with zombies for most of the episode so we could accurately feel the terror and horror that Rick was going through.
It made his arrival in Atlanta that much more effective, as Rick was completely out of his element. Fresh from a coma, Rick should not have survived his encounter with the zombie horde in Atlanta. The fact that he does, coupled with Andrew Lincoln's wonderful performance, allows us to immediately rally behind him. Rick is the center of the show, and making him sympathetic, capable, vulnerable and driven right from the get go makes him a worthy character to watch.
Speaking of Andrew Lincoln, he was perfect casting. While sure, one or two lines of his Southern accent sound off or too forced (Lincoln is British), Lincoln showed commitment to this role right away. I noticed this more on my second viewing of the episode, but where Lincoln impressed me the most was how nuanced his performance was. Whether it was his facial expression as he put on his hat to find some gas for his police cruiser, or a few moments later as he shot a young girl in the head (she was a zombie, of course), he has made this character his own and fans of the comic should be proud that an actor is taking such care of this iconic character.
I cannot mention acting chops without mentioning Lennie James, who was just phenomenal as Morgan, a man Rick meets in Kentucky who fills him in on what has happened. Morgan's grief and sense of loss over his wife practically oozes off of the screen, knocks you over the head and envelops you along with this stricken character. The pauses, the flinches, the lip twitches every time Morgan mentions his wife and barely holds it together are "wow" moments that stay with you long after the episode ends. I am calling a "Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series" nod right now, as Lennie deserves it.
Perhaps the largest deviation from the comic in this episode was the extra time spent with Morgan and Duane. Darabont and Co. really developed a special dynamic between these characters. Morgan and Rick are incredibly similar people, namely in their commitment to their families. With Morgan's wife a zombie, who haunts them at night, his son is all he has left, and Morgan's sole purpose now is to keep his son safe, while still teaching him how to be a good man when he grows up, despite all that has happened. In essence, Morgan represents Rick, just a month down the line. Rick is still terrified, worried and trying to accept what has happened, while Morgan is simply holed up and keeping his son alive.
There's some subtle and profound character development in Rick in "Days Gone By," that probably impressed me the most out of everything I saw. Soon after leaving the hospital and Rick finds his home empty, he finally shatters, losing all hope and wondering if he's even awake. By meeting Morgan and Duane, Rick slowly gets his groove back. His mood changes, he regains his strength, and he realizes he has to find out what happened to his wife and child at all cost. Seeing this kind of growth in the very first episode of a series is essentially TV magic (and reminds me of the first episode of Joss Whedon's "Angel").
So did I not like one single thing? Almost. My one gripe with "Days Gone By" was how Lori was introduced and handled. She comes off a bit cold, as we have not one, but two instances of characters questioning her parenting (Rick in the car with Shane, over something Lori said in front of Carl, and Shane telling her she should not get so worked up in front of her son). This just did not quite work for me, as Lori was developed and introduced as a much stronger character in the comic. That said, I like that she had a great idea about warning other people away from Atlanta. It was easy to take her side over Shane's, as he was an a-hole in the comic and an a-hole here as well.
Some other thoughts:
- Best scene? Easily the sequence where Rick returns to kill the emaciated, legless female zombie he encounters after leaving the hospital, and Morgan attempts to kill his undead wife. The music was haunting and the emotion pouring from both characters (and the undead woman) was intoxicating.
- Second best scene? Rick waking up and leaving the hospital. The cinematography was beautiful (although it is beautiful across the entire episode), Andrew Lincoln's horror was well played, and the set design was just fantastic.
- Favorite deviation from the comic? I already mentioned the expansion of Morgan and Duane, so another would be that the first zombie Rick encounters is the starving, legless woman he later returns to kill (in the comic he opens the cafeteria doors in the hospital and sees a room full). It makes the episode's best sequence even more powerful.
- Worst deviation from the comic? Nothing major, but I would have liked a scene or two of Rick talking with his horse, as I enjoyed that in the comic.
- Favorite zombie death? Young zombie girl. No other choice really. It set the tone of the series right away.
- Best shots? Two favorites here. The first being when Morgan's wife starts to turn the doorknob at their house and the camera stays on Rick's eye as it slowly looks down at the turning knob. Then, near the end after Rick enters the tank, shoots the soldier and recovers from the gun shot reverberation. He sits quietly, and the lighting was brilliant here, as he was completely silhouetted as he thought about what to do next.
- Poor Blade (Rick's horse)!
Bottom line: "Days Gone By" brings the comic to TV with more depth than I could ever have imagined. Dark, often terrifying, introspective and somber, this show is off to a brilliant start.