Posts Tagged ‘existentialism’

WD3:11: “I Aint a Judas”…but I am a ___

Posted: February 25, 2013 by zombieprofessor in Zombie
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Here there be spoilers.

Episode 11 is one of those sideshow episodes where we wander off and focus on one or two secondary characters for a while.

We start off with Merle laying down his knowledge of the Governor, talking up the Gov’s tactical brilliance and his superior numbers in terms of troops and guns. It’s kind of a great scene: Merle is always bitching about back when he was locked to the roof in Atlanta and had to cut off his hand. And now he’s right back in Rick’s captivity. He’s almost sympathetic, especially when conversing with Herschel. We learn Merle even has a brain as he starts citing bible verses and spouting scripture back at Herschel. I guess if East Texas cheerleaders can surprise us with scripture, so can Merle.

Merle’s warnings about the Governor establish the raised stakes: There are underdogs and then there is the Rick Grimes Gang. It’s looking like an Alamo kind of situation. But at least the good guys have the prison on their side, and the fact that they aren’t (like the governor) trying to raise a child army.

Then we get the big Herschel/Rick confrontation. “You once said this isn’t a democracy? You have to own up to that. I put my family’s life in your hands.” Exactly. Rick, please stop following hot hallucination/ghost Lori around the prison yard. Even your son wants you to back off.

(And Rick does. It’s not his episode.)

Much of the episode is dedicated to Andrea’s journey to the prison and back, in direct defiance of the Governor’s orders. Her exit isn’t exactly the Great Escape. It’s unclear why she appeals so idealistically to Milton and asks him to help her get out of Woodbury. Of course Milton goes straight to the Governor with news of Andrea’s “betrayal” (Milton’s entrance falls immediately after the Governor takes the bandage off his eye—looking uglier by the day, Gov!). “Help her,” the Gubernator says. It’s clumsy evil but still evil enough to keep us going, all things considered. With walkers crawling around all over and Rick descending into madness, we don’t need the Governor to be anything more than a straw man with an army.

Andrea’s quest allows us the gruesome scene of her going all Michone on a walker, first double amputating it and then using a rock to take out its teeth, while Milton holds it down. I’m going out on a limb and saying that this scene was the second most disturbing example of “curbing” ever caught on camera, after this one. I guess the joke is on Milton after all! He seems like the kind of guy who has bad dreams.

The problem with Andrea’s quest is that no one believes her tie to the Governor, or “Phillip” as she calls him. He keeps heads in fish tanks and his zombie daughter in a closet—typically a bad sign in a man. So her need to be this mutually interested ambassador between her friends (understandable) and this guy (fish tanks!) falls a little flat.

That said, the prison visitation allows for some intense moments for Andrea, especially during the scene with Carol and the baby, when Andrea first learns 1) that Rick killed Shane; 2) that Shane loved Lori, and in fact loved her enough to try to kill Rick; 3) that Shane probably wasn’t all that into Andrea, however it may have appeared at the time; and 4) that her post-apocalyptic track record with men is shoddy.

Even as Andrea’s episode sunsets, we see the raising of other stakes: The chess pieces are moving. The Governor gets his military intelligence: First by picking up Dennis-from-”The-Wire” and his fellow rejects, who know the inside of the prison and don’t like Rick; and second from Andrea, who confirms that Michone and Merle are with his other enemies. Of course he doesn’t know that his enemies are moving against him, with Rick promising to leave on a run in the morning. He’s taking Michone to test her, and Carl.

Some fathers and sons fix a car together as a rite of passage, but not Rick and Carl Grimes. No, they go on a “run” through zombie country to fight a cyclops. Could Carl’s Rite of Passage possibly be as bizarre as Harmar Cow Jumping?

WD3.10: “Home” Sweet Home?

Posted: February 21, 2013 by zombieprofessor in Zombie
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As usual you are in Spoilerville. Proceed at your own risk.

Sorry to have been absent. Officially I’ve been on non-zombie matters. Unofficially I’ve been boycotting writing about The Walking Dead until Rick got over Lori.

I’m hoping my boycott can end now that we’ve slogged through episode 3.10: “Home.” What a painful episode it was. We can recognize the long-term character benefits of Rick seeing his dead wife Lori all over the prison yard. (How bleak is this show that she looked regal down by the barbed-wire fence?) But do we really need our protagonist to go on a micro-journey to the underworld? He’s already in hell as it is, hiding out in a “Home” carved out of a penitentiary. You might think you couldn’t lay this absurdity on too thick, but Lori looking hotter than ever in a white dress, making the prison yard blush, is asking too much.

Lori, let me remind you, was the root of so much trouble (hence my boycott). Harken back to the first season. Shane knows he’s in trouble given he’s been sleeping with Rick’s wife, presuming his best friend was dead, only to see Rick return. For maybe an episode and a half, Shane keeps it together, and his intentions are aligned with his best friend’s. But then comes the “Tell It To the Frogs” episode. Lori goes apeshit during the frog-catching adventure and tells Shane to stay away from her family. Her vicious, guilt-consumed reaction cuts Shane off from the only thing he was striving for: Lori and her family. Shortly afterward, stripped of any meaning, Shane flies into a rage. He beats up Ed, who is clearly a douchebag deserving of a beating, but still: Goodbye ego, hello id. Thanks, Lori, for triggering that. And now your visage is leading our hero around the woods in a daze. This is supposed to be a zombie series, not 127 Hours.

The most understated revelation of this episode was Rick’s admission to Herschel that when the phone rang in the prison it was Lori and Shane on the line. These hallucinations have been going on all season. His journey outside the prison walls, into the unsafe land of the dead, takes on a kind of listless Orpheus and Euridice quality, with Lori slipping away each time Rick nears her. (Myth nerds: Feel free to commence an argument on Edith Hamilton vs. Thomas Bulfinch in the comment thread if so inclined).

Of course all this fits well with the existential themes we’ve been talking about for a while. Rick’s visions are hand in glove with the doubled-down sense of confinement, trapped in a prison that could seemingly get overrun at any point, with the world around them offering few options but to continue this confinement.

Fortunately, we also have the Governor. I have never been so glad to see his ugly face. He shows up at the prison in the final ten minutes with various gifts: thugs, automatic weapons, a U-Haul full of walkers. Nothing like violence to snap our protagonist back into Ranger Rick mode. The attack also gives cover for Daryl to bring Merle back into the fold. I’m sure there will be a debate about whether or not Merle stays, but Rick can’t say no to Merle when the guy just saved his life.

While the Governor’s entrance snaps us back on track in several respects, he still finds time to remind us he is the most grating character on the show. I could have done without his Cobra Commander-style, from the hip machine gun play.

Bold prediction for next week: Shimmering Lori apparition appears over a herd of charging walkers. Yawn. Hopefully the single descent into the underworld was sufficient and I won’t have to resume my boycott.

Walking Dead 2:13: Beside the Dying Hope

Posted: March 22, 2012 by zombieprofessor in Literary criticism, Zombie
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Spoilerama

At last the finale, the day we all knew was coming eventually: The day the farm ceases to be a viable microcosmic civilization for Rick Grimes, his family, Herschel’s family, and their ragtag social contract. And, more essentially, the day we find out the secret that was planted just out of our earshot at the conclusion of the first season.

But first we get a little Planet Earth-style walker footage, with the story of a walker migration told through a series of powerful visual anecdotes. First, the helicopter. Where did that come from? Someone’s flying it, and if you know anything about helicopters you know they are a bitch to maintain. So there’s capacity to keep the thing in the air. OK. That sounds like infrastructure. Good sign.

But I digress. First we have the walkers shuffling in pursuit of the helicopter and, apparently, never stopping. A walker in motion stays in motion. Do they follow flocking rules the same way that birds do? Flocking rules call for alignment—averaging out the distance between members of a flock—and cohesion—steering toward a common long-term location. For birds, it also includes separation—avoiding obstacles and other near-term navigational hazards. While the flock of walkers seems to abide by the rules of alignment and cohesion, they utterly lack in the separation department—as we see when they coalesce behind a fence en masse until the pressure grows too great and they burst through. This inevitable force never met an immovable object.

And what an unfortunate thing to come creeping up just as Rick was dispensing Shane. It makes for a taut opening to the episode: The long shot of Rick struggling through the difficult revelation to his son of if/why Rick killed Shane. With darkness as a backdrop, we’re left with a delicious bit of dramatic irony, waiting for the walkers to emerge out of the darkness behind our heroes. And as soon as we see them, we know it is on.

Things move quickly from here. How apt that Rick and Carl end up trapped in the barn—now it’s the walkers on the outside and the people on the inside, an inversion on the farm when they found it, with Herschel hoarding loved-ones-turned-walkers in the same barn.

The rest of the farm springs to action and the fog of war takes over. As everyone in the house takes to the cars and starts picking off walkers cavalry-style, it becomes hard to account for everyone. Andrea gets separated and no one knows if she is hurt or dead. Rick tries to be noble but gets talked out of it by Herschel, who points out it’s all about the boy. We’re reminded of The Road, where the hope we place in the offspring becomes the only meaning left on a bleak landscape.

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Walking Dead 2.12: Better Angels and Civil War

Posted: March 15, 2012 by zombieprofessor in Literary criticism, Zombie
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Warning: Spoilertown

The title of the latest Walking Dead interests me. “Better Angels” evokes Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural, a speech steeped in good intentions that still couldn’t stop a civil war that was already fomenting and that officially began a month later with the attack on Fort Sumpter.

Rick’s eulogy for Dale in which he appeals to everyone’s better angels is an earnest attempt to restore togetherness. It’s like a plea for the former way. But the earnestness is undermined as scenes of zombie butcher are interspersed, just as Lincoln’s speech was undermined by the fact that the South had already seceded from the Union following his election. Dale wouldn’t have been happy to see Andrea cruising around in a truck looking for chances to stick a pitchfork through a zombie’s face. Come to think of it, Abraham Lincoln probably wouldn’t like it either.

Despite the attempt at rhetorically-induced peace, there is conflict coming. Early on we have Lady MacBeth herself taking pity on Shane as he toils alone repairing some kind of tower. She tells him she appreciates him, and that it might be his baby but that, as far as the two of them as a couple go, sorry not gonna happen. But you sure are great!

Lori seems very sincere in this scene. Maybe she’s driven by guilt for planting a homicidal notion about Shane in her husband’s ear; I can’t help but feel that she’s the one that upsets the first rock that starts the rockslide. Why tell Shane it might be his baby? Lori caveats her appreciation by disclaiming her appreciation with “even though things got confused between us.” If a woman said this to me I’d flip. Sounds like a semantically camouflaged way of saying I’ve convinced my husband to kill you.

If Lori Grimes’ motives are in doubt, Carl Grimes’ are not. (In fact it seems that preserving Carl’s innocence is one of the big changes in the show from its comic roots.) Carl just wants absolution from Dale’s death, and for some reason he seeks solace in Shane. As discussed, Shane has a different appeal for a young boy. Of course Carl’s confidence in Shane has an unexpected outcome in the hands of all these “better angels.” Carl gives up his gun to Shane, who gives the gun to Rick and offers some sound parental advice, provoking Rick to give the gun back to Carl so that Carl can eventually use it to kill zombiefied Shane. Got it? By acting like a concerned parent Shane eventually undoes his undead self. This comes full circle when Shane claims he is a better father than Shane.

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Walking Dead 2.11: Stomachache

Posted: March 8, 2012 by zombieprofessor in Literary criticism, Zombie
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Spoiler alert: I had to wait an excruciating three days for my Walking Dead fix but perhaps some of you are later still. This week’s review includes several big giveaways if you haven’t yet seen the “Judge, Jury, Executioner” episode.

There’s a Thom Yorke song that shares the same name as the latest Walking Dead episode.


Somehow Yorke’s crooning isn’t melancholy enough to be the anthem for The Walking Dead Season 2, Episode 11, “Judge, Jury, Executioner.” This episode serves up the death of a conscience, a Darwinian assertion, and taut suspense that left me feeling sick to my stomach.

Things get off to a quick start, with Daryl going Guantanamo on Randall. The Jack Bauer routine results in some key news: Randall’s people include 30 or so rapists. This is grim stuff, Cormac McCarthy bleak. If any cinematic entity could get away with roasting a baby on a spit, it’s The Walking Dead.

Amid the grim decisions, Dale is still trying to keep it real. “Keeping our humanity: That’s a choice.” We’ve heard this sort of thing before. Just as we’ve heard Shane at the other end of the spectrum: While speaking with Andrea outside the shed, Shane claims the people making the rules are the source of the problems, not him.

Well, the rule-makers are about to be tested.

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Walking Dead 2.10: “Shane…Shane…Come back, Shane”

Posted: February 29, 2012 by zombieprofessor in Literary criticism, Zombie
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Spoiler alert: There be giveaways

Could we just get on with the final showdown? The next time Rick and Shane fight, someone needs to die.

Continuing on a theme, The Walking Dead Season 2, Episode 10, “18 Miles Out,” begins with the second season’s unavoidable dualism: Rick and Shane facing off. Rick tries to reason with Shane. But Shane doesn’t reason. Shane is one big muscle. I mean please: His name is Shane. He fucking leaves.

There’s the persistent question of Lori and how she navigates this love triangle. Somewhat mercifully, we see early on that Rick is not going to be conned by Lori’s run at Lady MacBeth. He tells Shane what his wife told him—that Shane is dangerous. While there are plenty of undercurrents to this, it isn’t a precursor to a MacBeth style murder-him-while-he-sleeps moment. Rick is going to try reasoning it out, until gravity takes over and they descend to blows again. The only thing that prevented homicide this time was the surprise walker infestation that overran the scene. But after Shane threw a hundred-pound wrench at Rick’s head, the will to kill is now on the table.

Of course the show’s creators have to leave this impending collision between Rick and Shane to simmer a bit further first. In the meantime we have a few other things to look forward to:

  • Suicide pacts  So if Lori isn’t Lady MacBeth, what is she good for? She impotently implores Beth to stay strong for her family. “We can make now alright, and we have to.” This proves counterproductive with Beth, who shortly afterwards tells her sister “I want to go, in this bed, tonight.” Will there be accomplices? Maybe Andrea walks someone else up to the existential edge and back. As Camus said, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” Is the farm about to turn into Jonestown?
  • Can any rule endure?  “There are no rules, Shane,” Rick says. Though we know Rick has one rule: Protect his family.
  • What is up with the walker in the field? Does Shane somehow identify with it? Does Rick see it? Is it a sign this place is actually crawling with walkers? Is it Shane’s worse fear: Wandering brain-dead in the wilderness? Why am I reminded of The Stranger?

The episode ends the way it began, with the two men in dialogue. “If you’re gonna kill me, you have to do better than a wrench,” Rick says. “If you’re gonna be with us, you have to follow my lead. You have to trust me.”

But I thought there were no rules?

Three episodes or less to the next collision. There can only be one Nietzchean Superman.

The Walking Dead 2.8: Going Nietzsche in “Nebraska”

Posted: February 13, 2012 by zombieprofessor in Literary criticism
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Be warned: A couple spoilers in here if you haven’t seen the Feb. 12 episode.

Anyone following the Walking Dead has been waiting since Thanksgiving weekend for Season 2 to pick up again with Rick, Shane, and Herschel and their teetering grasp on humanity. The appropriately named “Pretty Much Dead Already” episode that left us all hanging over leftovers featured Shane’s revolt against Rick’s moral authority and Herschel’s fool’s hope. The culminating heartbreak and disillusionment over what all they found in the barn was one of the finer scenes in zombie history.

Which leaves us to pick up the pieces in “Nebraska,” though it turns out what we want is not what we get. The namesake scene—as Rick, Glenn, and Herschel meet the strangers Dave and Tony in the bar—speaks for itself.

Dave: Every group we came across had a new rumor about a way out of this thing.

Tony: One guy told us there was a Coast Guard sitting there in the gulf sending ferries to the islands.

Dave: The latest was a rail yard in Montgomery running trains to the middle of the country. Kansas. Nebraska.

Glenn: Nebraska?

Tony: Low population. Lots of guns.

Glenn: Kind of makes sense.

Dave: You ever been to Nebraska, kid? There’s a reason they call them flyover states.

Laughter. Rick takes a shot.

Dave: How about you guys?

Rick: Fort Benning, eventually.

Dave: I hate to piss in your cornflakes, officer, but we ran across a grunt who was stationed at Benning. Said the place was overrun by lame-brains.

Glenn: Fort Benning is gone? Are you for real?

Dave: Sadly I am. The ugly truth is, there is no way out of this mess. Just keep going from one pipe dream to the next, praying one of these mindless freaks doesn’t grab hold of you while you sleep.

What was the quest for Sophia but another Nebraska? Or (apparently) Fort Benning. Or the CDC? Which gets at what makes this show so compelling: the mix of suspense and existential dread.

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