Ant’s Rant: The Walking Dead: Episode 3 “Tell It To The Frogs”

The third episode of The Walking Dead aired this past sunday and we’re already at the middle of the season. I’m disappointed that the first season is so brief, but that’s not to say that I’m disappointed in the show in general. This just leaves me wanting so much more. This episode, titled “Tell It To the Frogs”, brought more human characters (mostly new but some from the books) to the mix in an episode that I can easily describe as being a more human experience. This episode was mostly about the human characters, as there were barely any scenes with zombies at all. There was only really 2 run-ins with zombies at all in the entire episode, everything else was just introducing us to more of the characters and dealing with the reunion of Rick and his family.

So far the show’s been focused around Rick Grimes and his search for his wife and son. He met a few people along the way but one group was actually able to bring him to safety, and coincidentally back to his family. It was a very touching moment that you’d expect to see during the season finale, or even later. Most shows would make an entire season around one man’s journey to be reunited with his loved one(s). This show does it differently, because it has much more to deal with than just that simple of a plotline. It has to deal with what makes the comic book series stand out, which is the other human characters that are also involved in this zombie survival scenario. The comic series deals with many different characters surrounding the central Grimes family, and is actually focused on their individual stories in the apocalypse. Most other zombie tales take a group of human survivors and lumps them together in a faceless pile and treats them as if they’re just one mouse trying to run a deadly maze to the finish. There’s nothing personal about any of them and there’s no reason to care what happens to anyone but the main character(s). This show seems to be dealing with the characters in much the same way the books are.

To start, we have Shane Walsh. Shane is Rick’s best friend and partner in the police force. During Rick’s coma, Shane helped Lori and Carl Grimes escape to Atlanta (thought to be a safe zone) and eventually a camp with a bunch of other survivors who arrived at Atlanta too late. Believing Rick to be dead in the hospital, Shane assumes the role of father figure to Carl and secretly dating Lori. Upon Rick’s arrival at the camp, Shane is cast out of the family and must resume the role as the friend of the family. Lori, feeling regretful for what she’s done, starts to develop a hostility towards Shane. She believes that Shane knew Rick was alive and lied to her by telling her he was dead. Lori doesn’t tell Rick what has been going on, either because she doesn’t have the strength to yet or just doesn’t want to destroy Rick’s friendship with Shane.

In episode two we were introduced to the survivor camp’s supply running team. One new character of importance is Merl Dixon. Merl is a gun-toting, criminal druggie racist bigot with an authority complex and no concern for the lives of anyone but himself. After beating and nearly killing one of the survivors, Rick handcuffed him to a pipe on the roof of the department store they were staying at. During the escape from the department store, T-Dog, new character and the man who was almost killed by Merl, locked the roof access door to prevent the zombies from getting up onto the roof. Throughout this episode, T-Dog is dealing with the guilt of having lost the handcuff key and having no choice but to lock Merl up there. Unbeknownst to Rick, Merl has a brother back at camp named Daryl (played by Norman Reedus, from Boondock Saints). Upon Rick’s confession of Merl’s situation, Daryl takes a knife to Rick, only to be taken down by Shane. Once Daryl is calmed down, Rick and a few others agree to go with Daryl back into Atlanta to go and rescue Merl, despite his being a danger to himself and others.

Another set of characters featured in this episode are book characters Carol and Sophia, as well as Carol’s abusive self-centered male chauvinist husband named Ed (who was never in the comics and is a new addition to the show). Sophia isn’t really featured, but Carol and Ed are. Carol is shown to be a sheepish, submissive wife to an abusive husband who takes the beatings out of fear and some twisted sense of love. Ed stomps onto the scene whenever we see him huffing and puffing with his air of self-importance and an attitude that just makes you want to chain the jerk to a zombie pit. At one instance during the last few minutes of the episode, Ed interrupts the women’s laundry duty to get Carol to follow him. When he expresses his attitude towards women as inferiors and gives the “know your place in the kitchen” type of response, the women all start to gang up on him and help Carol. Ed starts beating Carol right in front of the women to show his stupid sense of superiority and Shane does something that made me instantly start to love his character. He pulls Ed aside and beats his face in so severely that you can actually see it start to swell up to the point of being useless. You know he won’t be able to give women any lip any time soon when you see how savagely Shane gets with the fists to his mouth. Shane, as a character who couldn’t be loved in the comics, is actually shaping up to be a very likable character in the TV series.

This episode really didn’t have much to do with zombies outside of the two times they scared a couple of survivors. It was mainly about the characters, and I appreciate that. After the adrenaline pumping tension of the last episode, it’s good to take a break and get to know some of the characters. We got a little more time with Dale, seeing that he’s just an older man that happens to have what everyone needs to survive and is there as a shoulder to cry on or just as someone to talk to. We got more of the Dixon brothers, both of which are complete jerks who I wouldn’t mind seeing get left behind in a zombie stampede, playing cowboy going down in a blaze of glory. We got Carol’s family, who is typical trailer park white trash with a drunken abusive husband, I hope to see Ed get taken down so that Carol and Sophia can be saved from any further unnecessary abuse. We got the Grimes family back together again, a very soft and nice thing to see after the hopelessness and desperation Rick’s had so far. We got Shane proving himself to be just as useful with or without a family of his own. Oh, and we got the death of the brand new Dodge Challenger (sad face). The episode lets off with Rick and a handful of the campers getting to the roof where Merl was locked up. The next episode continues from there, and I can already assume it’s going to be right back to the action after this week’s breather. I’m looking forward to it.