Changes in pace would be fine if the writers had used that time well, which they have not. The pace during the first half of this season has been brutally slow. The Walking Dead's second season has so far delivered a more compelling, thought-provoking program than the entirety of season 1. In fact, they have practically put on a clinic in terms of decompressed storytelling. The Walking Dead writers have taken advantage of the breathing room a 13-episode season has granted them. Season 2 started off strong, dipped, and ended with a legitimately screwed-up finale.įor all my quibbles about lazy Southern stereotypes or occasional clunky dialogue, the plot arcs have been masterful again this season. I've been underwhelmed by a good chunk of the season so far, but tonight's closing scene was so effective that I think I'm going to remember it far more strongly over the next two-plus months than I will a lot of the dull moments we got during this long stay at Hershel's farm.
#WALKING DEAD TRAFFIC JAM SERIES#
This was an independent and wildly wrongheaded decision to transform a promising series about surviving a zombie apocalypse into an overheated soap opera about rural campsite tension. It's important to remember that someone actively chose for it to play out like this, to begin the eagerly anticipated sophomore season of a highly rated show with a never-ending traffic jam and end it stalled out in a field. It became a parody of a Samuel Beckett play. Occasionally someone reminded Rick they're supposed to be headed for Fort Benning and he gets all huffy about not leaving any child behind.
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Every week, it seemed, a passel of folks went out and rooted around for awhile, came back to camp, and everyone lives off the fat of Hershel's land until it was time to go out and search for Sophia again. The show has turned into a nighttime soap with occasional appearances by deceased but moving, flesh-rotting, flesh-eating cameo monsters. It's still been good to great television, depending on the episode, but it hasn't felt epic. The second season had a great debut, but since then, the fire has gone out of the show in a sense. For the first time in a long time, I'm feeling confident that the show's going to overcome the quibbles I've had sooner rather than later. The Walking Dead is still not as great as it should be– they've got the ingredients for something amazing here, not the least of which is a truly talented cast-but the show's made some notable improvements over the course of the past half-season, and tonight's episode contained a biggie. That's been one of The Walking Dead's problems for a long time now. But characters need to have a certain level of coherency in which their goals drive the plot, and not the other way around. Until that last sequence, "Pretty Much Dead Already" was the usual mix of pretty good and deeply irritating, with characters having confrontations and big dramatic moments that would've been more impressive if they hadn't all seemed to happen independent of everything else.I can live with a show with unlikable protagonists. If this is a taste of what a post-Darabont 'The Walking Dead' will be like, sign me up. I've enjoyed a couple other episodes, but the ending to tonight's half-season finale, if you will, was the first time that I felt any real amount of emotion. The biggest problem with the first half of season 2 is that it was about two hours of viable storytelling stretched out over seven hours. The time spent on Hershel Greene's farm was often a waste, not just of time but of the relatively sturdy momentum the show had cranked up in its short first season. Too often this season, the humans on the show have been idiotic, annoying or sanctimonious - sometimes all three.
#WALKING DEAD TRAFFIC JAM FULL#
We have collected their comments below click on any publication name to read the full review. While many critics originally reviewed the second season (quite positively) a few months ago after previewing the first two episodes, now that they have seen the entire half-season arc in its entirety, many television writers have taken the opportunity to reassess Season 2, in most cases downgrading their original opinions.
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And, of course, the events that occur during the episode's final few minutes mean that much of this season's ongoing story (and we really do mean ongoing) have finally concluded as well. Not only is it the midseason finale (the show now goes on hiatus for several months, returning on Sunday, February 12, 2012), but it is the last episode with Frank Darabont as showrunner the next batch of episodes will take place under the guidance of producer Glen Mazzara.
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Directed by Breaking Bad vet Michelle MacLaren, last night's seventh episode of Season 2 of The Walking Dead, "Pretty Much Dead Already," marked an end in many ways.