TAG TEAM REVIEW: THE WALKING DEAD #5- WILDFIRE

Going between this and the discussion thread in the TV forum is amazing. There, every one is complaining about how unrealistic the characters are acting whereas you all are saying its the first time they are acting realistically. It's bizarro world.

In any case, I loved the previous eps and I loved this one. A lot of great character work happened this past ep and I couldn't be happier.

I'm not done reading - but Jeremy - the RV got "magically" fixed because Shane & TBone went up the road a bit to a gas station to look for a part. Them coming back with it and fixing the RV isn't on screen, but that would be a pretty boring scene...

Well there ya go! I was wondering why they left the whole gas station thread dangling as well. Granted, that shit was handled poorly - at the VERY least they could have had someone give a throwaway line in the vein of "Okay we're back - van's all good." But either way.

I had the same reaction, Jeremy. It was definitely poorly handled.

Awesome. This makes perfect sense to me. It frankly makes less sense to me that someone who liked the previous episodes would view "Wildfire" as comparable or in keeping with its predecessors. The ep felt so different to me that logically it seems like those who had been enjoying the show would dislike this shift. Though it is interesting that those who found the show believable, no longer do.

I will find it extremely humorous if all the early adopters who have been enraged by our negative commentary all lose interest and turn on the show and we continue to enjoy the new direction. Bwah ha.

Classic case of editing for flow, but losing a bit of realistic clarity. Like when they cut out shots of people reloading guns in action movies.

After last week's episode the only thing that brought me back was the fact that I paid ten bucks upfront for a season pass on itunes. As of last week I was not planning on watching season two. This week's episode has managed to keep my interest piqued.

While I still think a lot of it comes across as stilted, and I feel like the show should be called The Walking Dumb Southern People, this episode finally showed a little bit more realism with its characters, which should feels weird to say as compliment.

This was also the first episode I felt had any sense of scope, and that the world of The Walking Dead might be a little bit bigger than an RV, the woods and a couple city streets. While structurally the introduction of Noah Emmerich's character was a bit odd (I would have just showed the posse's POV this episode and saved the video diary section for next week's cold opening, leaving the door opening/camera more of a mystery), it suddenly made the world of the show much bigger, and I actually felt like there might be a direction and a deeper sense of mythology which is essential for a show of this nature, and something that was severely lacking.

So far though the leads are letting me down. I kind of get behind Shane, but that pointing the gun at Rick seemed a little out of place and rushed to me, that's something that needs more buildup. I absolutely hate Lori, I hope Emmerich infects her to use as a sample. So far Rooker, Reedus and DeMunn are playing my favorite characters of the bunch.

ETA: Also wanted to mention that I found it real funny when Andrea was saying a heartfelt goodbye to her sister amidst her zombie transformation and her sister just wanted to eat her brains.

Hahaha, I was like "Oh...is she going to HUG HER CLOSE? Because that jaw is working overtime for some warm flesh..."

For all the bitching I've done in the main thread about dropped callbacks I must say that the "I know how to work the safety" line worked for me. It called back to Guts when Rick had to explain to Andrea why he wasn't afraid of her shooting him, she had the safety on.

I continue to agree that the show is clunky, I was a bit miffed at the fixed RV scene even though I understood why it wasn't shown it was just clunky as hell. The show is full of these moments.

Andrea should have been more torn up over ventilating her sister, that was a clunky moment after such a well executed build-up.

And I didn't bring it up in the main, but yes, Lincoln did drop back in the pack from being one of the better actors to Bernthal level emoting outside the CDC doors. The only consistent performances that have consistently improved as well are Reedus and DeMunn. Even Glenn, whoever plays him, stumbled this week with the half-hearted bury not burn speech.

Reviewers, I brought it up in the main but didn't notice that anyone else caught it but this episode utilized two jump scares where the show has reliably used tension to created fear. What are your thoughts on that different tack? My biggest problem with them is they continue to illustrate the shows lack of cohesiveness. Past shows had tension and were shit on the acting and script levels, this episode had jump scares but somewhat better writing and two "leads" dropping the ball on their scenes.

When the cars all pull out and they start the driving scene the music used for the sequence was from Boyle's Sunshine. It added a lot to that scene for me personally, because I really like Sunshine and the music carries emotion with it from that context. The show didn't earn that emotion though, it just picked good music to use (Kick-Ass used it too). Bear McCreary did good work on Galactica, not sure why they sampled from John Murphy for this episode.

Rick backing away and repeated apologizing when Andrea points the gun at him rang so empty for me. It really felt like watching kids play in the back yard.

Shane taking aim at Rick felt like a non-sequitur at this point. If they'd established more angst in Shane prior it might have worked, but it felt cheap and rushed.