WARNING: Spoilers ahead! Do not pass GO if you have not seen the episode, do not collect 200 fake dollars.
And we’re back! The Walking Dead, television’s biggest show, premiered its sixth season last night with “First Time Again” and proved that one thing is constant this year in television: massive zombie armies are in.
Just the week prior we watched the finale of Fear the Walking Dead in which a zombie army overruns a military base, and earlier in the year Game of Thrones unleashed an undead army unlike no other in its Hardhome episode. It’s no surprise then that the team behind Walking Dead decided to show the rest of entertainment who the real granddaddy of zombie entertainment is and unleashed an army so enormous that walls made of aluminum needed to be erected. Take THAT Jon Snow.
But we’ll get to the zombies later. The walkers are, as par for the show’s course in recent years, grease on the gears of the plot but not the fuel itself for the engine. The show still revolves around Rick Grimes and his decisions, and this premiere makes it ever so evident that he sees the world as no one else does. Perhaps it is apt then that the device used in this episode — switching between past and present — was done with black & white and color separating the two.
The episode itself takes place just a week after last year’s amazing finale and the Rick/Pete incident. From that first day on until just before what we assume is the present, we see the story unfold through a black & white lens. The effect isn’t anything new in film and is done fairly often, as it is a direct homage to half a century of film prior to colorization. Showing something in the past as black & white or grainy makes it look older, in other words. But the effect serves a dual purpose here, a much more powerful and important one.
Last season, Rick fought to gain control of the town.
“These are our methods, and they work.”
“We need to do things a certain way, because that’s the world we live in now.”
“Survival at all costs.”
He used every advantage afforded him, killing if he had to, to make sure that people followed the “new world rules” (his rules) and not just be safe. In his mind, there are only definites, there is only cause and exact effect; everything is either right or wrong. Nothing is gray, nothing is in between, and nothing needs consideration. Everything is black or white. And so the past we see is just that; Rick has wrested control, and his way is the right way. He lashes out at Carter, nearly killing him. He tries to force his way into Jessie’s life, alienating her.
“You can’t take this town from us. Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”
Rick is judge, jury and executioner, basing all of his decisions on some fabricated sense of absolution in his head. Rick is still living in black & white, and as we see his reactions and methods in the past he seems so sure. Nothing can go wrong if they just follow his rules.
But when we get back to the present, we see that the world is full of much more color, of more variations and uncertainties. Rick’s plan to get rid of the army of walkers seems bulletproof, until it isn’t. Until a semi falls off of a cliff opening the way for the undead to stream towards Alexandria earlier than anticipated. Until Glenn and Nicholas and Heath have to take a detour to empty out a dangerous building full of the creatures. Until Carter, who had finally learned to trust Rick, becomes Walker food himself.
Until, well, a loud horn sounds and begins drawing the unstoppable waves of undead to Alexandria.
It’s apparent that we’re going to get a Rick v Morgan face-off at some point this season. After losing literally everything in his life of emotional value, including his family, the nomad made his way to Alexandria somehow with a smile still on his face, only to have that shattered when he saw Rick kill Pete in cold blood. Throughout the episode we see Morgan try to feel out Rick, to see what he’s become. He earnestly asks him to remember his past, to remember what kind of man he once was, but Grimes is still only living for the present circumstances. Morgan wants to live, whereas Rick just seems to want to survive.
The dual timelines of the episode are a nice hook, and some of the scenery (zombies falling over ledges) would actually be great on a 3D screen. There are tense and unnerving moments strewn throughout, as characters are morphing into new roles and alliances are forming or broken. The buildup is slow, the climax singular, but when we hit that roller coaster’s peak and the horn sends us heading downhill at mach speed… Well, next week should be an absolute blast. In fact, the episode was extremely solid, and nearly hit on all cylinders except for one thing: Who the hell is Heath and how have we not even heard of him until now? We comic readers know Heath’s character well, and he’s a joy to read in the books, but he is totally shoe-horned into this episode. I’m glad he’s here now, but his introduction will most definitely leave fans of the show scratching their heads.
At least those heads won’t be exploding like the walkers’ as they hit the corrugated metal walls, because that is deliciously gross.
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