Fans of “The Walking Dead” were eagerly anticipating the return of the AMC’s hit zombie themed television series. For those not in the know, the show premiered last year on Oct. 31, with a slew of rave reviews. TV Guide stated that it was a zombie show “with more heart than brains.” As a fan and an avid viewer of the show myself, I would have to agree with that.
The first season’s finale left viewers with Rick and the gang escaping from the CDC explosion. The season two premiere catches up with them a day after that.
The episode starts off with Rick talking to Morgan over the radio (who he presumably still has not heard from) telling him of the danger he will encounter if he goes to Atlanta and informs him where the group is headed next. The group then travels down the highway leaving Atlanta behind.
They head toward Ft. Benning but do not really make it that far as they run into a pileup of abandoned cars, essentially making it a graveyard. Rick, being the leader that he is, tells them to start scavenging for supplies. In the midst of this, a herd of Walkers are spotted and the gang is left to scramble under cars (or hide in a bathroom in Andrea’s case) for safety.
Just when they think they are safe and start to emerge from their hiding places, a justly frightened Sophia comes out a bit too soon and is hunted by two hungry Walkers. She flees into the woods for safety, and of course, Rick is the one who does not hesitate and goes right after her. He catches up to her and hides her in a little spot by a lake and gets the Walkers to follow him, after which he quickly ends them.
However, in the time it takes him to kill the Walkers and return to where he left the others, Sophia has gone missing. And this is where it starts to get good. At this point, the audience is still relatively early into the 90-minute premiere. A major character has already been lost, and the rest of the group is clearly on edge. The feeling of anxiety can be felt among them, and as the tension rises, so does the expectation of where the episode is heading.
With Darryl leading, they go search for Sophia. The first day ends, and they see no sign of her, even stopping to search inside the belly of a zombie for her remains, which was very disgusting, might I add.
The next day, the majority of the group goes off into the woods to search for little Sophia. Dale and T-Dog stay behind; Dale with the excuse that he needs to fix the broken radiator. He actually confides in T-Dog that the radiator has been fixed, and the only reason he has not told the rest of the group is because he knows it will force them to continue searching for the missing girl.
In the woods, the group (including Rick and Lori’s son, Carl – the last kid standing)stumbles upon a tent while searching for Sophia. Darryl stealthily searches it, finding only a dead man. They hear bells ring in the distance, and run off, hoping that maybe it is Sophia calling for help. They find out the bells ringing are church bells, and they are on a timer. How disappointing. However, the church does strange things to the group, as they begin to realize that perhaps things are hopeless.
Earlier, Shane and Lori have an argument, during which Shane declares his plan to split as soon as possible. Andrea overhears this, and confronts Shane at the church and practically begs him to take her along, proclaiming the two of them are the obvious outsiders of the bunch. She may have a point there. Shane is not able to give an answer, as they are interrupted, but it is unclear whether he is convinced or not. The group then decides to split up. Shane, Rick, and Carl stay behind as the rest head backs to “camp.”
Before Rick goes off to continue searching for Sophia, he takes a moment to “pray” to the Jesus statue in the church, in a plea of desperation. He asks for a sign, and they think they’ve found it when they stumble across a lone deer. Caught up in the moment, Carl starts moving closer to it when suddenly he gets shot in the chest. Talk about a “WTF” moment.
All in all, though the episode is fairly long, it moves along quickly and with the anticipation of what is going to come next. There were a lot of added twists and surprises, and though nothing major was revealed, the shock of Carl getting shot kind of made everything else non-important.
What a way to end a show. As far as season premieres and cliffhangers go, “The Walking Dead” has outdone itself.
“The Walking Dead” airs on the AMC network every Sunday at 10 p.m.
Alanna Smothers is a second-year student majoring in early grades preparation education with a minor in reading. She can be reached at AS620230@wcupa.edu.