Tell It to the Frogs

The very first episode of The Walking Dead established that the show would be both about gruesome zombie fun and deep character drama. (Indeed, it did so in the juxtaposition of the very first two scenes.) But of course, we can expect that the show will exist on a continuum between those two ideas, and that some episodes will sway more in one direction than the other.

Tonight was the most "zombie light" episode so far, but there were plenty of important dramatic moments to step into the empty space. The reunion of Rick with his family was the powerful moment I expected it to be. (And it came a whole lot earlier in the series than I would have expected if you'd asked me just two weeks ago during the first installment.) In particular, actress Sarah Wayne Callies did an excellent job of showing the many layers of emotion in her character at that moment. And composer Bear McCreary drove it home with his most overtly emotional music in the series so far.

Not only good people are going to survive the apocalypse, and to make a story more dramatic, the more not good people, the better. So this week we also got a wife-beating beating thug, and racist Merle's brother. And however much the former might have deserved the beating he took from Shane near the end of the episode, we all knew that wasn't what the brutality and aggression was all about.

There weren't too many great zombie moments this week, but I didn't mind the breather. The few tastes we got were pretty good, particularly the opening teaser with them trying to break onto the roof. (Though the deer feaster was a nice bit of work from the props and effects departments.)

Unfortunately, we're already half done with the run of episodes we're getting in this short first season. But if the next three hold up as well as the first three, it will be a great little run.