Walking Dead Season 1 Review

Apocalyptic Amorality: Walking Dead Season 1 Review

(Contains Minor Spoilers)

June 12,  2013

Society has fallen into cataclysm. Humanity falls into peril, and people rise from the dead. These are essentially the core tenets of any zombie apocalypse narrative. The Walking Dead, AMC’s new series based off Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel, which bears the same title, is no exception to these conventions nor does it to deny them. However unlike recent portrayals of this subgenre in pop culture that focus on the exposition of gore, series creator Frank Darabont, director of Shawshank Redemption and producer of The Terminator, reimagines the genre with an ultimate aim to explore the human condition. How does one come to terms with the reality he or she faces, and overcome the anxiety that overwhelms him or her in an absurd world? Thus for a seemingly orthodox story, the Walking Dead elevates itself from the zombie-apocalypse genre by addressing the notions of morality and humanism in face of a grim reality. Though admittingly, like any other visual medium in entertainment the question comes to the acting, cinematography, and overall narrative the show presents to its audience. Does the show deliver on its promises and succeed on its own merits as a TV show.

For the most part The Walking Dead adheres to the realism it tries to convey in this gloomy and sullen world it depicts. Following the aftermath of a police shooting, Sheriff Deputy of King’s County, Georgia, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) wakes up in abandoned hospital unaware of the destruction that pervades his surroundings. His slow, discomposed, dialogue-free exploration of the abandoned hospital in which he wakes up emphasizes television’s development toward expressing a cinematic focus on fluid, atmospheric, and engrossed visual storytelling. Rick's terror at discovering a room full of zombies, rotting human corpses that surround the hospital grounds is tangible because it mounts in such a way that it gives you the illusion of a real-time event. The frame by frame shot of Rick’s disillusionment and consternation mirrors those of the intended audience, who together slowly come to understand the anarchy that has risen. Complementing the Rick’s imperceptions of his situation, is the cinematic lighting that the show presents, creating a blinding color palette of whiteness that permeates Rick’s surroundings and reflects the Rick’s unawareness of his situation. Darabont's desiccated world is remarkably lush and vivid, shot by cinematographer David Tattersall with a wide-angle lens camera encapturing the raw atmospheric world, and populated by gut-churning makeup designs by Greg Nicotero. Darabont has molded an entirely realized alternate reality, and makes it a cathartic experience for the audience.

Rick awakes in an abandoned hospital isolated from humanity and plagued with fear from the unknown that surrounds him.

           

Darabont’s focus on humanizing Rick delves into the question of retaining a code of ethics and morals in an infrastructure that has been long forgotten and apply them to a bleak reality. Following his revelation at the hospital, Rick Grimes immediately goes to his home only to find his wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callis) and his son Carl (Chandler Riggs) are long gone. However this simple fact does not deter from Rick’s clear conscious to search for his family. He observes that his home has been scavenged for supplies; however he also notices that the family photo albums and portraits are gone. He ultimately comes to the understanding that his wife and child did indeed escape King’s County. Though it is not stated whether Lori and Carl were assailed as they ventured outside their home, Rick chooses to side with hope and optimism in favor of the pessimistic outlook on life that can arise from chaos that surrounds him. In essence he embodies the archetype set by his occupation; he views himself as an authority figure who attempts to reconstruct an orthodox viewpoint in face of an unorthodox situation. Darabont chooses to juxtapose Rick’s idealism to that of Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal), Rick’s partner and best-friend, who is now living in the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia with Lori and Carl. Being the last person to see Rick at the hospital before all hell broke loose, Shane tells Lori that Rick is dead, knowing that his chances of survival were at a modicum at best. Manipulating Lori and causing her to fall into infidelity Shane embodies the survivalist mentality; Shane chooses to live with the situation he is dealt with and fully recognizes that morality is not a factor in the zombie apocalypse but a detriment to one’s survival. In comparison Rick searches for what he once had, portraying the mindset of maintaining a sense of morality in spite of living in a world where amorality, such as stealing supplies and taking advantage of people, is a more favorable in this environment. This juxtaposition is visually produced through the actors presentations of these ambitions and the editors work on paralleling Shane and Ricks ideals through sequential shots of Rick’s struggle being followed up by Shane’s adjustment to the apocalypse. This contrast produces a cognitive dissonance of the means through which one goes to survive in this vivid yet opaque world that Darabont depicts.

After the pilot, Rick does come to find his family and Shane with a group of other survivors, who unlike Rick have become detached of their former lives and more focused on the present. Additionally, Darabont presents newcomers that were not present in the comic which create some deviations between the graphic novel and the television show. The group includes a Latino family known as the Morales’s family, an African American woman known as Jacqui (Jeryl Prescott), and a character that is known to the group as T-Dog (IronE Singleton). The show tries to further augment is presentation of realism by bringing a myriad of characters into the show, ultimately it proves to be a greater detriment than a benefit that it can build off of.

The faults of the show begin to project onto the overall narrative from the second episode, titled Guts. An ensemble cast of characters, which are nonexistent from the source material of Kirkman’s graphic novel The Walking Dead, are less human and more mechanical than the main cast. Whereas Rick and Shane present the physical and mental anguish that is exhibited against this fortuitous scenario, these supporting characters provide no real humanism to complement the pathos the show attempts to convey. Though it is avowed that the characters receive plenty of screen time, they receive minimal amounts of dialogue and a lack of development in comparison. The characters portray emotionally devoid mindset exemplified by their contributions towards the overall narrative: providing pedestrian information such as what they did before the apocalypse and fighting off casts of the undead horde that surround them only to be overshadowed by the main cast of The Walking Dead. At one instance the Morales family sporadically decides to leave from the main group, in order to search for distant relatives. However one should ponder if their presence was even necessary to begin with.

However that is not to fault Darabont’s deviations from the graphic novel. Among the other new characters, Merle's (Michael Rooker) brother Daryl (Norman Reedus) worked much better. Like Merle, Daryl is presented to the audience as a rash and loquacious simpleton, yet was presented with enough nuances to make his character believable and concrete. This is augmented by the dynamic acting of Norman Reedus, conveying Daryl’s deeply rooted anguish from the misfortunate situation he is put in; he struggles to find solace within the group he lives with and the mysterious unknown whereabouts of his brother, after Rick and several members of the group abandon him handcuffed to a ventilation pipe on the roof of a building.

Additionally what the audience gets to see from Darabont’s portrayal of Kirkman’s Walking Dead is a slight deviation from the apocalyptic genre all together. Traditionally in apocalyptic narratives, they is a tendency to stray away from context of how the apocalypse came to be, this includes Kirkman’s graphic novel, however Darabont chooses to allow the characters to question their fate; and they ultimately come to great realizations about themselves. As seen in the season finale titled TS-19, the Rick’s group arrives at the CDC, The Center for Disease Control, in search of a cure for deadly plague. Though the ultimate aim of the finale is to answer questions regarding the whereabouts on how the apocalypse came to be and whose fault it is, there is also a visitation from remnants of their past lives including beds, hot showers, and even cooked food. The characters derive enjoyment from such factors, creating an ironic contrast to the audience who lives with these objects on an everyday basis. Additionally we see Shane struggle to cope the acceptance that Lori is with Rick now, and the emotionally withdrawal he goes through. Contrasting again, what use to be and what is now reality. Darabont highlights an emotional purging through these objects that hold positive connotations to that of their dark, opaque, and perilous world creating an imbalance state. The survivors have scavenged for food and supplies, but now they can simply relax and relish from what is simply presented to them. A drunk Rick speaks to Doctor Edwin Jenner (Noah Emmerich), the doctor who allowed their group access to the CDC, stating his gratitude for the man that they would have died if they did not take them in. Rick’s anguish overshadows his optimism for a better future, but only through the lens of a drunkard is he able to realize the dreariness of his situation. Andrew Lincoln’s shambling and loss of words when speaking to Jennner, realizing that if his son and wife were dead, he would ultimately succumb to suicide is Darabont’s purest conveyance of existentialism; how can he find purpose from a world that is purposeless.

Ironically Edwin Jenner decides to let the survivors in and relish in what life once was, only to take it away through them by denying them the information that the CDC is running on a short power supply; once the power is cut off complete decontamination will occur, self-destructing the building that they are contained in. Jenner tells them that there is no cure, and that he has spent his life’s dedication to finding a cure including testing on his deceased wife, whose body was decontaminated. Losing his friends and family, anxiety and anguish have overcome Jenner’s psyche leaving him with the only viable option in face with such a situation, suicide. Jenner recalls that Rick told him, that they would have simply died outside, and that by staying inside the CDC they can keep the little humanity that they have left. In other words now they can die with a peaceful state of mind, rather than becoming dehumanized mentally or physically by becoming part of the undead horde that is the walking dead. Rick avows that he may have stated he would have died, but he chooses that he will take his chances and keep whatever part of is human till they the day dies. In essence Rick is the existentialist hero, who chooses to revolt against the forces that oppose him and becoming self-aware of his situation and propagating his own existence through his own means. Jenner hesitantly lets them go, telling them they will regret their decision to leave as Rick and the other survivors escape the CDC to find someplace that will bring them purpose. Only time will tell if Jenner was right to choosing suicide over hope, and if their search for purpose will ultimately lead to their demise, transforming them to morally devoid beings in the second season.

Rick and the survivors escape the CDC in search for a means to define their existence.

The first season of the Walking Dead expresses the psychological trauma one endures from waking up one day, only to find out everything that once was is now gone and that the reality that this individual faces is bleak. Sure there is a multitude of shots demonstrating the mutilation of the undead, but the Walking Dead goes beyond the gruesome exposition of violence to manifest a realistic portrayal of how characters would act in this dark yet, absurd world. Darabont questions whether humanism, the value of putting the utmost emphasis on humankind over all else, is viable in face of the zombie apocalypse and contrasts this notion with the ultimate physical representation of dehumanization, the undead. It can be viewed that due to the show’s short season with a six episode length that the faults of the show are more apparent than they should be. However this does not denote Darabont’s triumph of imagining this desolate, yet lush landscape of atmosphere and raw emotion produced through the actions of the characters within the show that is AMC’s The Walking Dead.