Review: Season 5 of Walking Dead...the first half

Oh, it's just so good. There's so much to say, and I really wish I'd had the time to address it episode by episode, but alas, here's my take on the first half of The Walking Dead's fifth season.

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First of all, all the stuff with the Termites was perfect. It was the perfect amount of creepy and they served their role as bad guys without overstaying their welcome. At the beginning of the season, I was a little concerned that the show was going to try to turn Gareth into the next governor and would have him hanging around for the entire season. I just didn't think that would age well, so I'm glad they didn't go that route. They were the right amount of faithful to the comics, and they really nailed one of my favorite comic book moments (aka: "Tainted MEAT!!!"). I was really pleased with Lawrence Gilliard Jr.'s performance in his final episodes. He made that excellent moment come alive in a believable and haunting way, and he died with a great deal of dignity.

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As for Gareth's last stand, I was also pleased. In the comics, the cannibals are killed in an absolutely excellent bloodbath of vengeance carried out by Rick, Michonne, Abraham, and Andrea with Father Gabriel watching in horror. It's probably my single favorite panel in the comics because I think it says a lot about the theme of the narrative. I was worried that the show would screw this up by not doing it the same way. Even though they didn't do it the exact same way as the comic, the message was the same and I left satisfied. The brutality of their slaughter, justified as it was, was still very clear. It was an excellent moment of television and one of the real high points of the series.

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Additionally, I'm really happy with Seth Gilliam's portrayal of Father Gabriel, who was introduced in the season five premiere. He is doing a good job of communicating Gabriel's crippling cowardice. It seems that some viewers find him to be a frustrating and useless character, but I would say that he's anything but that. We need to see people like Gabriel in this world because many of us would be very much like him. It's easy to think that you'd be Michonne, slashing down the dead and walking through hordes without blinking, but that's a romantic lie. No one would survive this long without being a little selfish and putting their needs above the needs of others. Another great example of this is Eugene, he's being brought to life in an entertaining and dynamic way by actor Josh McDermitt.

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Of course, any review of the season would be remiss if it didn't mention the unifying of the group in the first episode. That was well executed from a writing and story perspective, and it was a great episode for one of my favorite characters, Carol. It was fitting that, after her excommunication, she would be the one to save Rick. It really taught him a lesson about right and wrong, one that he seems to be incorporating into his character. And if you didn't cry when Daryl hugged Carol, or when Rick hugged Judith, or when Sasha hugged Tyreese...well then you're just a monster.

One of my issues with these episodes was that after only a few episodes of the gang being back together again, they had to all fly to the corners of the earth again. I was glad to see them united in the midseason finale, and I hope that they stay that way for a while. While there are drawbacks to having episodes with every single character present, namely that you don't get enough time with any one character, having them split up all the time drags out the narrative in a way that can be a little annoying at times. It's not that I don't enjoy a good character building episode; I really enjoyed the episode on the road with Abraham and crew (aka: GREATM), but sometimes, such as in the episode with Beth in Atlanta, there's just not enough there to sustain a whole episode.

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I have to mention the Beth episode a little more. I hate to do it, because I don't like to speak ill of the dead and all, but that episode was the worst one of the entire show. It was boring, the acting was bad, and Beth is just not an interesting enough character to serve as the crux of the conflict. Generally, I felt that the episode was poorly directed. Dawn was a better character in the later episodes, but in her first appearance she felt unrealistic. A good villain should seem believable, have a purpose that the viewer can buy, even if they don't agree with it. The idea that she really still believed in salvation that long into the apocalypse was a tough pill for me to swallow as a viewer. Also, her management style seemed rife with flaws, so I had trouble believing that she'd held them all together that long when she seemed so weak and disorganized. And if she was supposed to be OCD and a control freak, I can't buy that she'd allow the amount of free movement from people like Beth and Noah that they clearly had within the hospital.

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I do like Noah though, and I'm looking forward to where he'll go. This may be extremely callous to say, but I can't help but think that if we had to trade Beth for Noah, it's probably an upgrade as far as character. It's not that I won't miss Beth; I will, and her death was both brutal and extremely well executed from a narrative standpoint. I always appreciate when characters go quickly in films and television, not giving the opportunity for a farewell. It's brutal, but it's a brutality that is true to life and the effect it has upon those who survive is interesting plot (I'm looking at you, Alan Tudyk in Serenity). I just feel that maybe Beth's character arc had run its course, and the best thing her character had left to offer was to give Daryl another reason to be damaged and angry. She had a good run and she went out like a real beast. That scene at the end with Maggie seeing her was pretty brutal and sad. I won't lie though; there was a part of me that was like "Girl, didn't you just remember that you even had a sister like 45 minutes ago??".

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I'm looking forward to season two and Washington DC, which is where I'm assuming they will be headed next. Great conflict awaits there, but I think it will take until season 6, maybe even the midseason finale of season 6, before we get to meet one of my personal favorite characters: Negan. I'm also really excited to see Morgan's return in the second half of the season. Even though he's only been in a few episodes, Lennie James has made that character so dynamic and engaging. It was the right choice to bring him back as they do in the comics, but I hope he gets to have more of an active role than comic book Morgan did.

So I guess it's a long wait until February, but I'm excited to see where this will go!

Review: Z Nation Season Finale...and Beyond

http://www.syfy.com/znation/photos

Well, the ending of Z Nation certainly didn't hold anything back. The introduction of a human "big bad" who was most likely the father of the zombie pandemic, further de-evolution of Murphy, the death of Cassandra (probably?) and, of course, lots of freaking nuclear warheads. It left many viewers wondering...where do you go from here? It's kind of like if there had been a season six of Angel. How do you explain away a situation that would seemingly have to kill almost everyone in the show? It's a big question and it presents a big challenge to SyFy, one that they could either really nail or totally screw up.

Although the situation seems pretty futile, I have some ideas for how they could go on with the narrative.

Idea #1: Only Murphy Left Alive

http://www.syfy.com/znation/photos

Murphy is the only person from the show that could even plausibly have escaped the blast zone if, in fact, the nukes do detonate. If they follow through with that idea, then he could hypothetically find a new group of survivors or the next season could be a lot of him exploring his role as "king of the zombies". I would applaud the idea in some sense because I really am a fan of the realness of the narrative in which lots of people die because, you know, it's the freaking apocalypse. Also, Murphy is the best character, so keeping him alive would give the show the opportunity to create new characters that match his level of intensity. I would especially miss Citizen Z if they did this, though. Citizen Z is a good tool for the writers to be able to see the scale of the zombie plague and comment on larger themes about humanity (aka: Citizen Z's reaction to the nuclear launch: "What is wrong with us?"). It would be a daring turn that might lose a lot of fans for them though. Not sure if they are willing to take that chance. Also, I'm really worried about how Murphy is going to look sans skin. I'm just not sure they're going to be able to pull that off without it just looking hecka silly. They've done very well with his makeup effects thus far though, so hopefully that's a baseless concern.

Idea #2: Hackers Save The Day

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In episode 9, Citizen Z thought he was being hacked by someone else. At the time, I attributed this to the fact that he was suffering from oxygen deprivation and was clearly experiencing some powerful hallucinations. But...what if that part was real? If he was, in fact, being hacked, that means there's another facility out there with the same (maybe even better) capabilities as Citizen Z. That person could potentially scramble the nuclear warheads, causing them to veer off of their targets and detonate somewhere that would cause less damage (the upper atmosphere, unoccupied tundra in Canada, the desert, etc). That could really set season 2 up for some interesting conflict for Citizen Z, who is also one of my favorite characters. How does he deal with the idea of not being the only one watching, the only one in charge? How might he like it when his privacy is in jeopardy just like all the other people that he watches, hacks, and follows? That would provide an excellent opportunity for theme and plot, so it might be interesting to go that route.

Idea #3: Citizen Z Saves The Day
This one is probably the least likely since he seemed to flee his computer console pretty quickly, but what if there was a scene that we didn't see where he scrambled the warheads just like in my last idea? Again, there's not much in the episode to support this claim, but I did keep wondering why, if he's such a computer genius, he didn't at least try, especially once his life was at stake.

Additionally, there are some other elements of the finale that are worth examining. First, how/why is Mack still alive? I thought he got shot. If he didn't get shot, what the heck is he doing? His reason for leaving the group was to stay with Addy, but he doesn't seem to actually be in the compound or attempting to get in. Given, we only see him for a second, but I was a little disappointed to see him alive, not because I don't like him, but because it seems to take some of the impact out of the earlier episode.

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Also, there's the issue of Cassandra's transformation. I'm not 100% clear on what Murphy's bite does, but we seem to have a little bit of contradiction on that matter based on the handful of examples the show has given us. At the very least, we know it puts them under Murphy's control. But with Cassandra, it also seemed to turn her into a mini-Murphy, but also into the hotter, cheaper version of River Tam from Firefly. If she basically becomes like Murphy though, is there a chance that even a nuclear explosion at the facility wouldn't kill her? After all, think about Murphy 1.0 (aka: that rotting pile of yuck draped over the lab counter). Seemingly nothing except a headshot can kill Murphy's breed (which, on a side note, I'm salty about because that's one of the details of a YA zombie fiction piece I'm working on). If that's the case, could we see Cassandra down the line, walking around the planet killing doctors in the name of Messiah Murphy?

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And, sadly, we have to discuss Doc. Now, I know that SyFy is very good at explaining away logic, but the man took a bullet to the chest. That often equates to death, even in a world with emergency rooms, surgeons, anesthesia, and antibiotics. In the world of the dead, not only do you not have medical attention, but you also have nowhere to rest or recover. That can lead to things like infection and a weakened immune system, even if they are somehow able to keep his organs functioning and stop the bleeding. If the show goes on and the nukes don't kill everyone, my guess is that he'll live, but I'm already side-eyeing it. Not because I don't love Doc (I do), but because it's just a little ridiculous. Kind of like Carl getting half his face blown off without dying or suffering severe brain damage...but hey, another comment for another day.

Whatever the writers decide to do going forward with the narrative, they'll certainly have to do something because season 2 of Z Nation is greenlit and has been since October. That means they've had time to plan ahead and are probably already working on the next step in the journey. Knowing SyFy, we probably won't find out until Fall 2015, but I'll certainly be tuning in. Will you?