The Walking Dead
AMC's The Walking Dead scared up 5.3 million viewers when it premiered in 2010, making the episode the channel's highest-rated ever. A year later, the second season's premiere shambled past 2 million more sets of eyeballs. Why is a show that's been advertised with the slogan "Spread the dead" such a hit with the living? Because so many Americans love zombies—in all of their mindless, decaying "glory."
Maybe we can point a bony finger of accusation at film director George Romero. After 1968's Night of the Living Dead, zombies went mainstream, groaning and biting their way to our movie screens and comic book pages like never before. They were so "cool" in the 1980s that even the King of Pop himself used them to famous effect in one of his smash music videos. And speaking of Michael Jackson's particular breed of undead dancers, that's how we're used to them acting on TV. The Walking Dead changes all that, sending them shuffling onto our family room screens accompanied by the type of gore usually reserved for theaters with big black R ratings above the doors. Indeed, after visiting the show's set, horror film reviewer Jeff Otto, of bloody-disgusting.com, said, "This may well be the bloodiest show ever seen on television."
Based on the popular comic book series by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, The Walking Dead focuses on deputy sheriff Rick Grimes as he tries to lead his family and a small band of survivors to safety in a zombie-strewn world. Humans are minorities in this new landscape, and the "walkers," as they're called, have but one purpose: Kill and eat as many of the human survivors as possible. The only way to avoid such a gruesome fate is to become real handy with a gun. Or a baseball bat. Or a screwdriver. Or whatever other makeshift weapon lands in your hand.
The Walking Dead isn't, of course, just about slaughtering (re-slaughtering?) these mindless mounds of mangled flesh. Zombies have always owed at least some of their popularity to the fact that through them society is able to contemplate and grapple with deeper issues. Romero used his zombies to satirize conformity and consumerism. The Walking Dead doesn't seem to have its mind on satire; instead, its dead become more of a backdrop so viewers can examine the living. Themes of family, friendship and even faith rise up as frequently as the dead do. And it makes sense: I think even the most secular among us would give a extra thought or two to life after death if they saw their dearly departed Aunt Betty stumbling toward them, determined to eat them.
But that depth can't dispel the blood and gore that so incessantly spatters across the screen. This is munching-on-entrails, stab-that-zombie-in-the-eye-socket, Zombieland-level violence. And it's turned into something of an illustration of just what you can and can't do on basic cable these days: While there are still some restrictions on sexualized content and language, there seem to be little to none when it comes to gore.
Show producer/writer/director Frank Darabont told bloody-disgusting.com, "We can't say f‑‑‑, but you can shoot a zombie in the head at point-blank range. I love this business." And when Slate columnist Tim Cavanaugh discussed The Walking Dead's envelope-incinerating approach, he wrote, "It would be ironic if basic cable TV, which remains so squeamish on sexual matters but so tolerant of violence, became the medium for the kind of cannibal holocausts that used to be found only in unrated grindhouse gut-munchers. But it would still be welcome."
Welcome? By whom? Us or the zombies?
Episode Reviews
"Bloodletting"
Rick rushes his son, Carl, to a doctor after the boy's shot. The doctor determines that the pieces of the bullet have to be removed and an organ stitched up. But to do that, they'll need to put Carl under—and the nearest medical equipment is located in a zombie-infested school.
"Is that why I got out of that hospital?" Rick asks. "Found my family to have it end here like this? Is this some kind of sick joke?" He struggles with his need to do something—run and tell his wife, run and get the equipment—and his duty to stay by his son's side, both as a blood donor and as Carl's pop.
Carl's wound looks bad, for the record: The doctor fishes around in the bloody gash searching for bullet pieces as the boy screams in pain. A survivor recoils from the sight of a car seat plastered with gore. A zombie is smacked in the head with a bat and dispatched with a crossbow bolt to the temple.
Meanwhile, folks offer thanks to God for their safety and pray for the well-being of others (though one character says prayer is a waste of time). Somebody carries a stash of drugs, including crystal meth and Ecstasy. We hear the s-word once, along with "a‑‑," "p‑‑‑," "b‑‑ch," "d‑‑n" and "h‑‑‑." God's name is abused several times.
"Days Gone Bye"
Fleeing the gutted hospital, Rick stumbles upon survivors Morgan Jones and his young son Duane (a shout-out to the real-life Duane Jones who had a role in Romero's iconic flick). Then he heads to Atlanta to find his wife and son whom he believes are still alive. When his police car and a "stolen" truck (though who's alive to own it?) fail him, he takes to horseback. Of course the horse is graphically eviscerated by zombies.
One of the survivors prays over a meal, asking God to watch over them "in these crazy days." But mostly we just see multiple zombies getting shot through the skull. Rick even shoots an undead little girl for little more than shock value. He tenderly tells a suffering zombie that he's sorry she's now undead—then shoots her in the head. A suicide victim's skull is shown blown in half. Entrails, bones, flesh and brains are shown rotted or half-eaten by birds or zombies. Several people—living and undead—are beaten with baseball bats. Language includes multiple uses of the s-word, "b‑‑ch," "h‑‑‑," "d‑‑n," "a‑‑" and misuses of God's name.