The Walking Dead: Bloodletting – Dork Review

Last week, The Walking Dead opened their season by outdoing themselves, in terms of both zombie-lurching set pieces and horrendous splatterage. So, as one might expect, this week sees consolidation, as they introduce new non-decomposing characters and turn the screws on our existing ones.

So do they keep the momentum going? Or is it a dead stop?

The Uneasy Farm

The first few minutes of the episode aren’t what I expected. We get a welcome flashbacks to pre-apocalyptic times, and they never bother showing us the minutes immediately after last week’s cliffhanger. It was a leap, but retrospectively, would anything have happened that we couldn’t intuit from what we got here?

And then the medical crisis, a few zombie encounters, soap opera and, a Walking Dead staple, the sense of creeping unease. Because surely one or more of the scenarios introduced here has to end in utter disaster?

For example, where’s the little girl? Will she come roaring back as a tiny zombie? And is T-Dog suffering from a “blood infection”, or was there a zom-tooth embedded in that car door? Most crucially of all, and surely a major plot point in the future, surely Hershel’s farm didn’t escape untouched by the undead because they were “lucky”? There must be more to it…

Soap Bubbles

Against all this new material, the same old characters still rage against the dying of… well, everything. I’m pleased Shane’s getting some redemptive material again, as the show is a lot more interesting when the love triangle isn’t as simple as Good Guy vs Bastard.

On a similar theme, we see the less admirable and amazing side of Rick coming through again. Or at least, we’re reminded that it might not always be easy being married to a stoic cowboy action man. More of this ambiguity, please.

Oh, and more material for Glenn. That kid’s lust for life provided some fun moments in the first season, it’ll be a shame if he spends the second one stomping around and complaining.

Nonetheless, another good episode. Signposted promising directions for future stories, and without subjecting us to epic tracts of exposition. Excellent.

More The Walking Dead on Dork Adore | The Walking Dead: What Lies Ahead – Dork Review

Nick Bryan

Nick learned to read and write at an early age. This has developed into an unhealthy need to either write stories or consume them for later dissection. He reviews film and TV on Dork Adore and The Digital Fix, lives in London and enjoys a nice white beer.

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