Guts

Another outstanding episode of The Walking Dead tonight proved that the quality of the premiere episode was no fluke.

It also proved that as indelible as Shaun of the Dead's "pretend you're a zombie" sequence was, a serious zombie tale could "go there" and still come off completely serious. It helped that they got there by way of a very cool (and thoroughly disgusting) concept that I don't recall seeing before in any zombie tale -- slathering yourself in viscera to mask your smell. Ewwwww. And cool. But mostly ewwww. And I was shocked at just how much of it they actually let us see, given that the show doesn't air on HBO or Showtime.

But as with week one, this installment of The Walking Dead was more than just cool zombie action. The characters mattered, and were interesting. Michael Rooker's racist redneck character was a compelling nuisance. (And speaking of something I can't believe they actually showed on non-premium-channel-television, his shocking racial slur was a bit of an axe to the head of its own.) Plucky sidekick Glenn (aka, the voice harassing our hero in the tank at the end of the last episode) was someone I soon found myself rooting for as much as Rick; I also felt a thrill at his joy ride at the end of the episode.

I hadn't noticed it last week, but this week I spotted composer Bear McCreary's name in the credits. I'm a huge fan of his Battlestar Galactica work, and appreciated what he did in this episode on a completely different level. The music of The Walking Dead is actually quite sparse. (No doubt to leave room for the awesome soundscape in scenes like the corpse dismembering.) But in the few moments where music is deployed, it really packs a punch. Bear McCreary's other work has routinely made it to formats where it can be purchased, so perhaps I'll have a soundtrack of The Walking Dead to look forward to some day.

The only aspect of the show that isn't quite gelling for me -- yet -- is the encampment of survivors outside Atlanta. But I think mainly this is only because they haven't had much screen time yet... maybe just 10 minutes total in two episodes so far. At the moment, I don't mind, though. The other action has been so compelling that I wouldn't want to break away from it to see more of this group of survivors. I also assume that we'll get more about them soon enough in episodes ahead.

I'm looking forward to more next week!