The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season (2011/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B     Sound: A-     Extras: B     Episodes: B

 

 

Zombies are the new vampire I guess as The Walking Dead (along with other ventures) has become the new breakout hit on AMC.  The Walking Dead (not to be confused with the 1936 or 1995 films) originally was a comic series first issued in 2003 by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore.  Tony Moore has since been replaced by Charlie Adlard.  The comic series grew in popularity over the years eventually inspiring the 2010 Frank Darabont series to be created.

 

The Walking Dead is a horror/drama series that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where a ‘virus’ has invested a bulk of humanity, turning them into ‘zombies’ or as the few remaining humans call them ‘,walkers.’  How the ‘virus’ originated has yet to be divulged, but the rest of the storyline follows typical zombie mythos.  Zombies roam the earth at sluggish rate at times being incited to swarm and pounce when fresh meat (human) is present.  It is unclear how many non-infected humans are left in the world or how far the zombie apocalypse has reached.  Is it across the USA?  Across the world?  No one is sure.

 

The First Season took off like a rocket and introduced the audience to a host of characters.  Some that have survived into Season Two, but more that have met their maker.  Robert Kirkman never had trouble killing off main characters and in turn Frank Darabont has followed suit, mostly sticking to the comic’s story structure with only slight derivations and additions of characters.  With this said (for those familiar with the comics) The Walking Dead as the First Season progressed it did derivate from the timeline created by Kirkman, but I see this more as a creative liberty to keep the storyline fresh; rather than doing an exact blow –by-blow from the comic.  Mixing it up a bit helped and managed to deliver a quality, exciting product.

 

For a look back at our coverage of The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season please refer to the link below:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10864/The+Walking+Dead+–+The+Complete+First

 

Moving into Season Two, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) remains the theoretical leader of the group; a group of indecisive, faltering people who spend more time in Season Two bickering about leadership and current social norms than popping zombies.  Whereas there is a similar degree of intensity to this season as last, it is not nearly as much and the on screen action has majorly been cut back.  That is not to say there are no gun slinging, zombie chopping, blood curdling clashes but it just doesn’t arrive with the same vigor as that found in Season One.  I realize Frank Darabont was attempting to portray a floundering society on the edge of collapse, but what I saw all season was a group of very whiny, annoying individuals.  Rick was weaker than ever and just when you thought he was going to come around and grab the reigns, he took three steps back.  Rick’s wife Lori (played by Sarah Wayne Callies) was the worst this season; having me hope every episode she would be the next to go.  I believe Lori endured the same fate that many wives on great television series (in recent history) have suffered; with writers that don’t know what to do with a woman who isn’t a house wife, nor is she the ultimate ass kicker.  When a female character (especially a wife) has been on series for an extended period, writers eventually turn her into a wishy-washy character that consistently goes against her husband, attempting to portray her as an independent but in actuality destroys the audiences’ esteem for her, making her unlikable.

 

It happened on Nip/Tuck, then Mad Men, then Breaking Bad, and now we see it here again on The Walking Dead.  This is not to say we need submissive female characters (quite the opposite), but instead of making them strong, compassionate, steadfast women instead writers manage to make them difficult and unbearably frustrating; where you know they are just going to mess something up.  Whereas Lori was one problem this season, the rest of the camp wasn’t much better; the camp being mostly male.  Again they are petty, constantly arguing, and idiotically ponder societal norms that no longer exist.  You might be thinking, well that mean Darabont did his job portraying a collapsing culture, right? No, because the manner in which it is done is awkwardly destructive to the point of unrealistic; as each passing episode seems to bring up the same issues again and again.

 

The gripes mentioned above are this reviewer’s attempt to dissect an evolving series.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching the season and liked it even more so the second time around.  The Walking Dead is fun, engaging, captivating, and extremely violent what more could you want.  It is hard for me to get more into this season as every episode is a cliff hanger, every morsel of detail is very revealing.  Even to the point that many things mentioned in Season One and Two I am sure will greatly impact the upcoming seasons.  The Walking Dead is a wonderful series that whereas not for the faint of heart could pull in the most skeptical viewer. Yes, this is a monster/zombie series.  Yes, it is super cool that things are shot, stabbed, and blown to smithereens. But the best part of The Walking Dead is the overall evolution of story and what a wonderful cast/crew bring to the table.  I have faith in this series and feel it will only get better from here.

 

The technical features of The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season are very nicely done with the sound being superior to the picture, but both nice.  In line with Season One, the Second Season continued to be filmed in 16mm presented here on Blu-ray as a 1.78 X 1 1080p High Definition image.  The series is meant to have a dirty, unkempt, worn look and film gives it just that.  Whereas bright color does occur in splashes of blood and such, mostly the series sticks to earth tones again giving it that dry, worn appearance.  The gritty, worn look does have its drawbacks as clarity can be sacrificed at times and the image appears somewhat soft, especially in brighter sequences.  Like previously mentioned the most ‘bright color’ that appears on screen is seen with flashes of red as blood hits the air, other than primary colors are pretty absent.  The sound is a VERY nice 7.1 Dolby TrueHD, which I was surprised about because I am a DTS man myself.  There is a great directionality and ambience to the soundtrack; though much of the sound is dialogue it never comes solely from the front.  Whether it is a zombie hoard closing in or the camp bickering from all directions the 7.1 track makes a brilliant soundscape.

 

The extras include:

·         Audio Commentaries (5 commentaries)

·         Live or Let Die

o        A nice (short) peak into why certain characters get to last longer/shorter than they did in the comic series; along with why it was necessary to derivate from the original work

·         All the Guts Inside

·         Fire on Set

·         The Ink is  Alive

·         The Meat of the Music

·         The Sound of the Effects

·         In the Dead Water

o        A look into the awesome well zombie sequence.

·         She Will Fight

·         You could make a Killing

·         Extras Wardrobes

·         The Cast on Season Two

·         Webisodes

o        Internet episodes that follow a woman who wakes up after a car accident to find her children are gone and the world has been overrun by zombies.

·         Deleted Scenes

o        Eight (8) different Deleted Scenes exist in total, but the most interesting and revealing is the Alternate Season Two Opener.  It is completely different from the one used and it gives insight into the aspects of the series that have yet to been discussed.

 

 

-   Michael P. Dougherty II