Walking Dead Guts & Tell it to the Frogs
"I'm a glass half full kind of guy..."
---says Glenn to Rick before scaling stairs leading to the top of a building in zombie overrun Atlanta in the first season episode "Guts". Don't think he is quite the same way now, not whistling the same tune.
"If bad ideas were an Olympic event, this would take the gold."
--Glenn. Heh, I imagine some feel that way about the writing and characterizations on The Walking Dead.
Michael Rooker, as I have begun today to get reacquainted with the show, cracked me up. He cracked me up primarily because of the dialogue and character he was given. He immediately is saddled with a real piece of work for us to despise. I think he's on screen maybe thirty seconds before Irone Singleton gets the n-word hurled at him along with punches and a gun pointed at him. Then he slings out "honeybritches" at Laurie Holden, along with "sugar tits" and asking her if she'd like to "bump uglies". When he's handcuffed to a pipe and left for dead at the top of the building, there's this distance shot of him proclaiming that those who left them are damned to hell. Cracks me up.
Briefly on Glenn, I couldn't help but notice how young and fresh-faced he is. Give him six seasons and that changes for sure. A lot of shit he'll encounter.
Sarah Wayne Callies, as Rick's wife: ugh, I can't stand her.
What I liked from "Guts" was the early energy in the direction and the
ingenuity in action. Obviously the Atlanta entrapment and how the introductory characters Rick becomes acquainted in the department store high rise after narrowly escaping the numbered dead when fleeing from a tank offer plenty of suspense and curiosity in just how the writers will allow them to get away. Rick has a gun pointed at his face by Andrea, who takes him to task for drawing the dead their direction. She has the gun on safety which Rick informs her, doing so respectively. I'm not an Andrea guy at all. She has the tendency to irk me with her behavior, her reactionary attitude during key moments in the series. Seeing her and the others (Jacqui and Morales) cave to Merle with little resistance until Rick emerges as leader, taking matters into his own hands... because no one else will.
My zombie fansanity is tickled by the shots of the dead suffocating Atlanta streets. The dead congregating upon the department store windows and in the alley reaching for Rick and Glenn as they scale the ladder to the top to get away both are gnarly scraps tossed my way and others who appreciate that whole zombie apocalyptic aesthetic.
"We're going to need more guts...."
---says Rick as Andrea, T-Dog, Jacqui, Morales, and Glenn while they do their best not to hurl.
Before I shuffle off to 4th of July festivities, I still rather amuse myself with thought of this scene from The Walking Dead episode, "Guts". The department store group prepare to leave with plans by Rick and Glenn to smother themselves with the entrails and true of a zombie. Rick is built in the first season as a leader and to establish this the scene has him steeling the resolve of the others by reading from the wallet of the zombie. The driver's license reads off a name and there's a picture of a loved one. It's a clear dramatic reach for an audience beyond us gorehounds looking for the other part of the scene: the zombie body chopped up for his bits and pieces. The music dramatizing the moment with the apex a body axed real good. Good times.
I had watched "Tell it to the Frogs", the third episode of The Walking Dead, and had thoughts on it to share here on the blog, but with a powder keg world, entertainment seems minuscule. Horrible things happen everyday. But volatility is at an all-time high. Hate and rage are quite common emotions. Division among many.
The news of today bleeds into what you see on screen. Domestic abuse. Racism. Jealousy. Envy. Discontent. Strife.
It is all here in this episode.
Rick had been looking for his wife and son, Lori and Carl. Left for dead by Shane in the hospital, you can Polaroid his facial expression when Rick emerges from a van and its a beaut. Absolute shock and the realization his perfect family with Lori and Carl is detonated. Rick wasn't supposed to survive. Lori also has this look of stunning realization that her husband isn't dead. She had believed him dead due to Shane's telling her so. Later on in the series, we see it for ourselves.
Lori had given her body and love to Shane, accepting Rick's demise, trying to adapt to a new life with a new man. In the episode, late, it is established that Rick and Lori (it was also recognized at the very beginning in the very first episode) were having trouble in their marriage. Perhaps it was easy to move on. There's an interesting duplicity in how Lori brings up Rick attending to a rescue mission of Merle. Although afterward, she commissions Rick not to go, she still brought it up when Daryl returns from the woods on the outskirts of Atlanta when hunting for food. Daryl and Merle are brothers, rather intimidating and intense. Merle is loud, abrasive, foul, and volatile. Daryl isn't as unpleasant or obnoxious, but he's tough and no-nonsense. He isn't one to cross. Daryl insists on going after his brother, returning to Atlanta to the top of the building where Merle was handcuffed to a pipe. This season's Rick is honorable and accepts his responsibility as the one who cuffed a reckless Merle to the pipe. He is willing to return with Glenn and T-Dog (both volunteering, T-Dog out of guilt for dropping the key to the cuffs and Glenn reluctantly at Rick's urging) to find Merle while Daryl is adamant to get going. A hand and the cuffs are what they find.
Early in the series, Carol (Melissa McBride) is presented as a subservient abuse victim of repugnant husband, Ed (Adam Minarovich). Along with the soap opera plot regarding Lori, Rick, and Shane, this here is a second introductory scumbag to hiss and boo. Ed isn't presented as anything more than a wife-beating louse who looks for any opportunity to punch and demean her. Carol is weak and under the thumb of Ed. Ed is a thug. A block of wood on a fire is an initial unveiling of Ed's antagonistic nature. Shane reminds him of the flame possibly bringing the dead. Shane confronts him aggressively and Ed backs down. Shane isn't Carol, the punching bag.
So Carol, Andrea (Laurie Holden), Andrea's sis (Emma Bell), and Jacqui (Jeryl Prescott) are scrub-washing clothes while Shane teaches Carl to hunt for frogs. Ed comes along while the ladies discuss what they miss prior to the zombie apocalypse, including their vibrators. Ed hears Carol laughing, so he can't have her actually enjoying anything. He's looking for a reason to hit her. Andrea addresses him and an incident develops.
Because Shane was told by Lori to not associate with her or Carl, blaming him for telling her Rick was dead, there was some growing rage. Ed was an outlet for him to release some rage. Pummelling Ed's face to a pulp and warning him not to hurt another woman, Shane was able to unleash the beast on him.
It is a moment to celebrate a beatdown. A woman beater gets a beating of his own. Merle is recalling knocking a fellow soldier's teeth out, remembering it with great pleasure, returning to the present horror as the dead try to break through a chained door, knowing he must free himself from the handcuffs. So both unsavory individuals are shown in bad situations much to the adulation of an audience certain to enjoy their dilemma.
I have a friend, Matt, who has given up on The Walking Dead, but I talk a bit about my revisit to the series and he recalls the monikers so prevalently attached to it: sometimes nothing is as it seems and the worst kind of monsters on the show are human. "Vatos", the next episode in my walk through the first season, is probably my favorite next to "Days Gone By". I really liked it. Up until this episode, Jim (Andrew Rothenberg) was a rather minor, insignificant secondary background character. He was kind of Dale's (veteran actor's actor, Jeff DeMunn) sidekick needing repairs on his van. He negotiated with Rick to receive the van in return for letting him take a pair of wire/chain cutters with Dale's blessing. T-Dog had borrowed Dale's toolbox and tools, accidentally leaving them behind on that rooftop with Merle. So when Rick, Daryl, T-Dog, and Glenn return to Atlanta to find Merle, Dale wants his tools retrieved along with the bag of guns accidentally left behind on the street near the tank in "Guts".
The subplot involving Jim's dream and the holes being dug gave me chills. Yeah, it was done for dramatic effect, but it worked on me. So Jim is seemingly digging holes intensely after a dream he experienced the night before. The camp starts to worry about his mental state...that perhaps the sun has baked his brain a bit. Shane confronts him rationally and calmly about putting down the shovel. Jim doesn't think he's hurting anybody so he plans to continue until Shane subdues him. Carol's daughter and Carl are a bit creeped out by him. He apologizes but feels confident that Rick will return to Carl...his dream seems to reassure this. Yes, it's obvious screenplay foreshadowing with the camera emphasizing bodies laid strewn throughout the camp, a mixture of walkers and their own members at the end of the episode. He remembers his dream, and those holes he dug will be accepting bodies now. I guess eyes rolled, but it certainly worked on me.
---says Glenn to Rick before scaling stairs leading to the top of a building in zombie overrun Atlanta in the first season episode "Guts". Don't think he is quite the same way now, not whistling the same tune.
"If bad ideas were an Olympic event, this would take the gold."
--Glenn. Heh, I imagine some feel that way about the writing and characterizations on The Walking Dead.
Michael Rooker, as I have begun today to get reacquainted with the show, cracked me up. He cracked me up primarily because of the dialogue and character he was given. He immediately is saddled with a real piece of work for us to despise. I think he's on screen maybe thirty seconds before Irone Singleton gets the n-word hurled at him along with punches and a gun pointed at him. Then he slings out "honeybritches" at Laurie Holden, along with "sugar tits" and asking her if she'd like to "bump uglies". When he's handcuffed to a pipe and left for dead at the top of the building, there's this distance shot of him proclaiming that those who left them are damned to hell. Cracks me up.
Briefly on Glenn, I couldn't help but notice how young and fresh-faced he is. Give him six seasons and that changes for sure. A lot of shit he'll encounter.
Sarah Wayne Callies, as Rick's wife: ugh, I can't stand her.
What I liked from "Guts" was the early energy in the direction and the
My zombie fansanity is tickled by the shots of the dead suffocating Atlanta streets. The dead congregating upon the department store windows and in the alley reaching for Rick and Glenn as they scale the ladder to the top to get away both are gnarly scraps tossed my way and others who appreciate that whole zombie apocalyptic aesthetic.
---says Rick as Andrea, T-Dog, Jacqui, Morales, and Glenn while they do their best not to hurl.
Before I shuffle off to 4th of July festivities, I still rather amuse myself with thought of this scene from The Walking Dead episode, "Guts". The department store group prepare to leave with plans by Rick and Glenn to smother themselves with the entrails and true of a zombie. Rick is built in the first season as a leader and to establish this the scene has him steeling the resolve of the others by reading from the wallet of the zombie. The driver's license reads off a name and there's a picture of a loved one. It's a clear dramatic reach for an audience beyond us gorehounds looking for the other part of the scene: the zombie body chopped up for his bits and pieces. The music dramatizing the moment with the apex a body axed real good. Good times.
I had watched "Tell it to the Frogs", the third episode of The Walking Dead, and had thoughts on it to share here on the blog, but with a powder keg world, entertainment seems minuscule. Horrible things happen everyday. But volatility is at an all-time high. Hate and rage are quite common emotions. Division among many.
The news of today bleeds into what you see on screen. Domestic abuse. Racism. Jealousy. Envy. Discontent. Strife.
It is all here in this episode.
Rick had been looking for his wife and son, Lori and Carl. Left for dead by Shane in the hospital, you can Polaroid his facial expression when Rick emerges from a van and its a beaut. Absolute shock and the realization his perfect family with Lori and Carl is detonated. Rick wasn't supposed to survive. Lori also has this look of stunning realization that her husband isn't dead. She had believed him dead due to Shane's telling her so. Later on in the series, we see it for ourselves.
Lori had given her body and love to Shane, accepting Rick's demise, trying to adapt to a new life with a new man. In the episode, late, it is established that Rick and Lori (it was also recognized at the very beginning in the very first episode) were having trouble in their marriage. Perhaps it was easy to move on. There's an interesting duplicity in how Lori brings up Rick attending to a rescue mission of Merle. Although afterward, she commissions Rick not to go, she still brought it up when Daryl returns from the woods on the outskirts of Atlanta when hunting for food. Daryl and Merle are brothers, rather intimidating and intense. Merle is loud, abrasive, foul, and volatile. Daryl isn't as unpleasant or obnoxious, but he's tough and no-nonsense. He isn't one to cross. Daryl insists on going after his brother, returning to Atlanta to the top of the building where Merle was handcuffed to a pipe. This season's Rick is honorable and accepts his responsibility as the one who cuffed a reckless Merle to the pipe. He is willing to return with Glenn and T-Dog (both volunteering, T-Dog out of guilt for dropping the key to the cuffs and Glenn reluctantly at Rick's urging) to find Merle while Daryl is adamant to get going. A hand and the cuffs are what they find.
So Carol, Andrea (Laurie Holden), Andrea's sis (Emma Bell), and Jacqui (Jeryl Prescott) are scrub-washing clothes while Shane teaches Carl to hunt for frogs. Ed comes along while the ladies discuss what they miss prior to the zombie apocalypse, including their vibrators. Ed hears Carol laughing, so he can't have her actually enjoying anything. He's looking for a reason to hit her. Andrea addresses him and an incident develops.
Because Shane was told by Lori to not associate with her or Carl, blaming him for telling her Rick was dead, there was some growing rage. Ed was an outlet for him to release some rage. Pummelling Ed's face to a pulp and warning him not to hurt another woman, Shane was able to unleash the beast on him.
It is a moment to celebrate a beatdown. A woman beater gets a beating of his own. Merle is recalling knocking a fellow soldier's teeth out, remembering it with great pleasure, returning to the present horror as the dead try to break through a chained door, knowing he must free himself from the handcuffs. So both unsavory individuals are shown in bad situations much to the adulation of an audience certain to enjoy their dilemma.
I have a friend, Matt, who has given up on The Walking Dead, but I talk a bit about my revisit to the series and he recalls the monikers so prevalently attached to it: sometimes nothing is as it seems and the worst kind of monsters on the show are human. "Vatos", the next episode in my walk through the first season, is probably my favorite next to "Days Gone By". I really liked it. Up until this episode, Jim (Andrew Rothenberg) was a rather minor, insignificant secondary background character. He was kind of Dale's (veteran actor's actor, Jeff DeMunn) sidekick needing repairs on his van. He negotiated with Rick to receive the van in return for letting him take a pair of wire/chain cutters with Dale's blessing. T-Dog had borrowed Dale's toolbox and tools, accidentally leaving them behind on that rooftop with Merle. So when Rick, Daryl, T-Dog, and Glenn return to Atlanta to find Merle, Dale wants his tools retrieved along with the bag of guns accidentally left behind on the street near the tank in "Guts".
The subplot involving Jim's dream and the holes being dug gave me chills. Yeah, it was done for dramatic effect, but it worked on me. So Jim is seemingly digging holes intensely after a dream he experienced the night before. The camp starts to worry about his mental state...that perhaps the sun has baked his brain a bit. Shane confronts him rationally and calmly about putting down the shovel. Jim doesn't think he's hurting anybody so he plans to continue until Shane subdues him. Carol's daughter and Carl are a bit creeped out by him. He apologizes but feels confident that Rick will return to Carl...his dream seems to reassure this. Yes, it's obvious screenplay foreshadowing with the camera emphasizing bodies laid strewn throughout the camp, a mixture of walkers and their own members at the end of the episode. He remembers his dream, and those holes he dug will be accepting bodies now. I guess eyes rolled, but it certainly worked on me.
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