I Love Television

TV is a godly pursuit, in my eyes at least. Imagine a world without it! There'd be no Buffy or... OH GOD, NO BUFFY!!!

Where was I? Nowhere, really. Anyway, one thing I realised while writing my reviews was that it isn't particularly fun. No matter how much I tried, having to watch all my favourite shows with a notebook on my lap and a pen in my hand while fully aware that once the credits start I have to pull out my computer and get to typing, had a habit of draining everything that was enjoyable about a television experience. Thus, the only sensible thing to do is to give it up. As determined as I was to have reviews up for every episode of my top shows I just couldn't find the actual motivation, nor the justification. Seriously, I was not receiving a single cent for my work, and the progress on the look and feel of the site was agonisingly slow. There was intention to redesign the background and get a real thumbnail and all that stuff, but unfortunately the urge to open up photoshop faded away along with the urge to open up Microsoft Word.

Should money be the only reason? Fuck yes. Money and time, anyhow. Towards the end of my run it was only taking half-an-hour to an hour to write a whole review, but tie in the hour I spent actually viewing the programme and you have up to two hours wasted doing jack-all, per episode. Most days I was watching at least one show as well, so that's fourteen hours a week. That's a part time job, and I was not having an iota of pleasure in this occupation, neither were my pockets getting fuller. It was an almost obsessive process for me, and I needed to stop.

But don't fret, I am not really leaving the word of blogging, and Whatever Happened, Happened will remain online. I even plan to post new entries every now and again, it's just that I hereby remove all sense of rigidity and predictability, so don't expect any kind of specific themes or recurring formats from now on. Get what I'm saying? Of course I will still focus on TV, but I won't just be writing reviews. I might have curse-ladden rants about specific actors or entire genres, or I might share a recent anecdote about my viewing experiences. Hell, I might give a personal anecdote that has shit to do with television. Who knows, right? Do I look fucking psychic?

I do have a lot of reviews still sitting in the back log, and one day I might develop the urge to post them. For those who want to know what shows lie waiting in the shadows just know that I compulsively refused to write a review for an episode if I had not reviewed all the episodes before it. That means that when I started posting reviews for season four of The Vampire Diaries or season five of Fringe, I had thoroughly written about EVERY SINGLE FUCKING EPISODE IN THE THREE OR FOUR SEASONS PRIOR. If my mother ever took me to a psychologist when I was younger I would surely have been diagnosed with some social problem.

The Walking Dead, The Vampire Diaries, Fringe, Homeland and Boardwalk Empire. Those are the shows with extra reviews. If you have a favourite episode or maybe one you absolutely despised give me a-hoy and I will put up the relevant review. Simple enough? Any episode before the 2012 season should have something to put up.

And so, I leave behind the first arc in Whatever Happened, Happened, and progress to a new era in my blogging, or whatever the word is. From now on, I'm going to do WHATEVER THE FUCK I PLEASE, whenever I FUCKING PLEASE, with WHOMEVER I fucking please and HOWEVER I fucking PLEASE. YAY FOR CONFUSING caps locking.

Stay tuned for more!

Falling Behind

I've gotten a bit slack lately. Whether it be my frequent trips away from home or the fact I've suddenly developed a life - totally overrated, by the way - I've completely and unavoidably fallen behind.

I'm near obsessive compulsive, by the most head-on way to deal with that condition is to totally fuck up my intricate and important systems for doing anything. In the case of this blog, that means I have to do something I swore I'd never do: skip a few episodes. I haven't quite decided what will be dealt with and what won't be, I do know that anything I watch this week will not be reviewed in depth for this site, with a few exceptions.

The episodes I will not be detailing are (I'll update this list as it grows):

'Two Hats' - Homeland, Season Two, Episode Nine
Simply put, I did actually enjoy this episode quite a lot. It was intense and emotional. The rekindling of Mike and Jess' affair was a long awaited development that was deftly handled and suitably resonant, yet understated. Meanwhile, the eventual apprehending of Roya Hammad was well-worth the wait, even if it did rob us of a major terrorist event.
Score: 8.5

Episodes I will be reviewing despite watching in my anti-work period include the Boardwalk Empire finale, simply because it is the big finish for the season, and anything I watch that is Fringe-related, because this thirteen-episode season is essentially the show's much longer finish.

'TS-19' - The Walking Dead, Season One

The Walking Dead

Season One

Episode Six

'TS-19' - 9.0

This is like a role call for the show, with all but six of the thirteen characters seen here no longer with us. 

You can tell from any specific episode of The Walking Dead that this show is not the cheeriest piece of popular culture. Every one of the last three parts of this season has featured the death of at least one of the group of survivors. In 'Vatos' we lost Amy and Ed, 'Wildfire' left Jim on the roadside and 'TS-19' sees another of the group bumped off, along with new character Dr. Jenner.

But death and misfortune aren't in the focus until the last twenty minutes of the season finale, with the rest being oddly optimistic and happy. This doesn't include the out-of-place flashback which opens the episode, focusing on Shane as he tries to rescue a still comatose Rick from the hospital. At the time the hospital was being overrun by soldiers and zombies, and Shane's determination and desperation to save his friend juxtapose nicely to what he is today. He even braves the military as they begin to massacre the people still located in the building, staying long enough to search for any vital signs of Rick's, only to come to the conclusion that he's already gone. Deciding to protect his friend, despite his apparent death, Shane places the gurney seen in 'Days Gone Bye' in front of his door, to prevent the walkers from getting in.

What a lot of shows like to do is redeem a character who is originally portrayed as a villain to main heroes, but while Shane's actions are commendable, in my view it highlights how far he has sunk because of his relationship with Lori. I'm not overly sure what the intention of the flashback was, whether we are supposed to like Shane now or if we are supposed to still despise him. I just don't know. Nonetheless, it is the most action packed location of any scene to that point, presenting a chaotic, foggy mess of blood and pain and death, and our first look at the world during the actual spread of the infection, rather than what happened immediately before or after it.

Once the credits have rolled and we get into the present day, we cut to the point immediately following last episode's ending; the group entering the CDC near Atlanta. Rick and the other survivors are slightly disconcerted by the lack of staff located at the facility, with Dr. Jenner revealed to be the only scientist remaining, though you could have assumed that from 'Wildfire'. Soon enough though, everyone decides to enjoy the food, the power and the hot water provided, but to the viewers it is implied that something is very much amiss.

As the survivors acclimatise to a normal existence of bathing, reading and sleeping for entire nights, we spend about fifteen minutes exploring who these characters are once the horrors of the outside world behind them. Dale comforts Andrea more as she continues to struggle with the death of Amy, as well as her assumption from Jenner's words and mannerisms that the whole of civilisation has crumpled in its entirety. I like Andrea, if only for Laurie Holden's gripping performance and delivery, and how easily she turns from strong to broken.

Andrew Lincoln gets to portray a different side of his generally strong character, as Rick admits to Dr. Jenner that he had begun to lose hope in his and the others' survival. It is the first time we have seen the weaker side of our protagonist, and this is something I am very eager to see more of. Unflappable, honourable heroes are seriously dull. Watch Terra Nova for an example of how not to do a main character. In fact, I've had minor issues with the stereotypical way in which Rick Grimes was presented earlier in this season, but he's improved on a deeper level to become a very multi-layered hero, with both potential for good and bad under the surface.

The most powerful pre-disaster development at the CDC belongs to Lori and Shane. Shane demonstrated last episode how he feels about Rick's return, coming very close to putting a bullet in the man he tried to rescue only a few months ago. His relationship with Lori, if I were to make a guess, is the only thing that Shane can accept as a benefit from the destruction of life-as-he-knows-it, and thus the only thing that needs to be held on to. Of course, I could be reading into something that is just supposed to be a point of conflict, with no great underlying meaning, but the way in which Shane confronts Lori in 'TS-19' is almost brutal. Finding her alone in the recreation room, the very drunk man begins trying to explain to her why he thought  Rick was dead. There's a possibility that the flashback at the start of the episode was only there to give this scene sense and a context. After Lori refuses to accept that Shane told her that her husband had died in order to get her out of their town, he resorts to telling her how much they are in love with one another, cause that always works in the movies right? Soon enough, it gets worse once Shane starts literally forcing himself on (and maybe in) a frightened Lori, who manages to give her former lover a nice big scrape with her fingernails, thus ending the conversation. It was intense for a show I had thought would be just an action-horror when I first tuned in, and a brave move by the writers. The attempted rape doesn't really lead to anything in the episode, since problems quickly arise that are more pressing matters for the pair, but I can tell this is going to end very badly for someone.

Eventually the survivors begin demanding answers about the disease, it is the CDC after all. Dr. Jenner shows the group a video of the death and reanimation of TS-19. It's difficult to describe without seeing it, but the entire sequence of the subject's transition is absolutely perfect. There is no sound from the video itself, but there is a terrific score and Jenner's narration is reflective and beautiful. Hell, the whole thing was beautiful, colours, acting (especially from Andrea), script, lighting, every damn thing is immaculate.

From the video we lead directly to the big problem of the episode - when the power in the facility runs out, the building blows itself up. It's a great plot twist, though it was an obvious next step to keep the characters running. It also gives them all a chance to make a choice - eventually Jenner gives them the option of staying or going, with everyone but Jenner himself, Jacqui and Andrea deciding to make a run for it. With Andrea staying, Dale refuses to leave as well, forcing her to choose between surviving or killing them both. Dale's lecture of her was a marvellous performance from Jeffery DeMunn, and hints at a possible romance between in the two characters in the future, even if it is a little creepy.

Luckily Andrea relents and the two make it out of the CDC, just as it goes up in a massive ball of orange fire and black smoke that rises above them all in a glorious mushroom cloud that sends out the first season of this impeccable drama.  Sure, the CGI was a little wonky, but it still looked good and was as spectacular as they intended for it to be. I did like how they seemed to decide not to end on a cliffhanger, choosing instead to have the group simply moving on from another tragedy, and back into the real world.

I guess that is the final notion of the Walking Dead; the horrors are inescapable, and the only options you have sometimes are to survive, or to not. So 'TS-19' continued the groups constant fleeing from the end of the world, and even if it had a bit of a slow start - or middle, the flashback cold-open was pretty awesome - the episode was as softly spoken yet loud and callous as the show loves to be. There was the lovely mix of characters and their gain and loss that will definitely not end, and it was a fine instalment to go out on, leaving any viewer fervent for the show's sophomore outing. 

'Ties That Bind' - Revolution, Season One

Revolution

Season One

Episode Eight

'Ties That Bind' - 1.5

This is a group of people who all need to die slow, painful deaths. 

No. Just fucking no. I'm tired of giving the stupidity of this horrid attempt at storytelling a pass. Revolution is just every type of idiotic, using every single cliché and over-used trope to give itself a sense of adventure and action, but in the end it is just sad.

Take the shoot-outs we see during 'Ties that Bind'. First, Miles realises he and his friends are heading towards an ambush, and rather than run straight away opts to continue moving closer to the trap, pushing themselves onto a bridge, preventing them from scattering. I swear you used to be a fucking strategist, and now you decide that you'd rather force your crew to run from gunfire in a straight line than let the enemy know they've been made too early. COME ON!!! General Strauss kind of sucks too, because they could have tried to AIM. This is one of those overused tropes I mentioned: action film bad guys can never, ever aim, despite supposedly being trained to do so. It's maybe a bit more passable in a story where guns are hard to come by, but they had machine guns and their targets were fleeing as a group in a straight-fucking-line. FUCKINGLY FUCKING FUCK.

The second and final shoot-out had pretty similar issues. Namely, why not aim? They had clearly been behind Miles and the crew for a while, but they decided that they'd rather fire a few warning shots, instead of taking out someone who could fight back. Yes, I know they wanted Miles alive, but not Charlie or Aaron. Aren't they supposed evil? Isn't that the terribly written idea here, that the militia is immoral and totalitarian and actually needs to be defeated, instead of just being like the police. That's right, according to the laws of the Monroe Republic, Charlie and the gang are criminals! I am yet to actually feel bad for anyone.

The total fail is exemplified when Nora shows up, knifes some guy in the back, takes his gun and TAKES OUT THREE MEN WITH THREE BULLETS. Screw you, show. That's not how real life works, at least one good guy needs to die. Kill Aaron, no one gives a shit about him.

I've said that sometimes watching a show with your brain deactivated can be a relaxing experience, but I have issues when the show's brain is deactivated. If apparent experts don't know how to hold themselves in a fire fight then I'm likely to pull a hissy-fit. It certainly isn't helping that I find Miles to be insufferable, both in the way he's written and the way he's played. Despite his experience, I feel like he should be dead, along with his moralistic niece. Nora, oddly enough, is possibly my favourite character.

Note that that doesn't mean I like her.

With the whole introduction of her sister, I did think that they might kill her off, and I came to the quick conclusion that either she was going to die, Mia was going to die and finally cause some character development, or the two of them were going to ride off into the sunset together. It's probably a good thing that none of this happened, instead Mia turned out to be a fraud who was working for Sergeant Strauss in order to save her sister's life. Fair enough, and I didn't predict it. For once, I did understand why Nora leapt back to go help her friends, ditching her desperate sister standing alone. The realisation that Mia had never actually been to Texas and found their father was probably more affecting though, and I'm practically begging the writers to play on this somehow, and build some of Nora's character up. Finally. 

This show seems to underestimate the intelligence of its viewers, and I've come to the conclusion that it is like an IQ test. If you don't notice the logical failures then you have below average intelligence, i.e less than 100 IQ points. If you do, then congrats you have at least 100 IQ points, like half the world. Anyway, it's patronising, infuriating and nonsensical at times, to the point that I can no longer ignore the stupidity of its writers. They don't even make it cheesy! If it was like Xena or Buffy-type ridiculous I'd probably really enjoy it, but they play it STRAIGHT.

I'VE JUST REALISED: 'Revolution' isn't a failed epic adventure, it's a failed comedic farce! That makes me feel better.

'Hounded' - The Walking Dead, Season Three

The Walking Dead

Season Three

Episode Six

'Hounded' - 7.5

Whenever characters get coated in zombie blood, I remember the eye-contamination scene from '28 Days Later'. 

You know how characters in television shows seem to experience weird, grief-stricken moments of schizophrenic hallucinations, such as talking to the deceased person and such? Having never really lost anyone particularly close to me, I can’t attest to the realism of such occurrences, but for the most part TV manages to make them seem a tad trite and a little stupid, yet Rick's phone chat with some of those we've lost was surprisingly affecting.

Amy, Jeff and Jacqui join Lori in their cryptic messages to poor Rick, who is led to believe that the initially unknown voices are safe in some secure location. This I guess has two meanings: first, Rick needs to get a fucking grip. Second, the only real salvation IS real salvation. That's depressing, though Rick only seems to focus on the first conclusion.

I did wonder where Dale was, though I guess Rick had a few issues with the moral man shortly before his death, unlike the others he talked to. I certainly didn't expect to hear from Shane. Maybe Dale's voice would have been too recognisable early on? 

Michonne has a pretty good day, slicing and dicing her way to freedom from the Governor's hounds. It was pretty goddamn tense, as it was Merle - who I don't really mind too much - versus Michonne, and it was starting to look like they weren't both going to survive. However, they both manage to make it out of their predicaments, even if Merle loses two of his four-man crew, then puts a bullet in the other when he got too keen on capturing the escapee.

I didn't see Merle's meeting with Glen and Maggie coming, especially considering that Michonne was already there. It is interesting that the Woodbury and prison populations are about to start mixing, as Michonne actually turned up at Rick's fence, covered in blood and carrying the basket of baby formula that Glen and Maggie had been retrieving. So who will turn up at the other's door first? Best case scenario would be Rick making a pilgrimage of peace to the Governor, as if he has to come first then we know shit's going to hit the fan. However, with Michonne being the prison-folk's tourist guide to Woodbury, I can't see them rushing off to meet up with the evil militia.

Nonetheless, what the writers have done in one episode sets all our characters up for a hell of a battle that - unlike the Governor's barrage of the military convoy earlier this season - could be an even match. Not only has the Governor lost a handful of capable soldiers, but his targets now have their own able fighter, who knows a little inside information on them. At the same time, Andrea will end up being in the centre of it all, along with Glenn and Maggie. That's assuming all three of them survive to the confrontation, as presumably the latter two will be tortured until their give up their group's location. Andrea's pretty much guaranteed to make it to the fight, now that she's sharing the Governor's bed.

Oh yeah, Andrea fucked the Governor. And what do I say to that? Finally! The two have been ogling each other since they met (which was only three episodes ago), and this was clearly the direction we were heading in. Yeah, I'm sure the Governor has some fiendish plot in mind for the poor woman, and we can't really be sure what Andrea's getting out of it - she did sleep with Shane that one time as well - but I have no qualms with this relationship. Hopefully it will lead to some good quality horribleness.

As normal there was some jarring moments of flinch-worthy violence, such as Michonne slicing two of Merle's crew in half, then later spilling the insides of an attacking walker all over herself. She'll clearly need to throw that outfit away once she's in the confines of the prison. Daryl also got to pull an off-target knife from under the skin of a downed walker's chin, revealing it to be Carol's. This then lead to a remarkably pleasant scene which had Daryl rip open a door, his blade raised to kill whatever lay inside, only to find a weary and bloodstained Carol. Her disappearance had clearly been affecting the poor guy for a while, so more for his sake than hers I'm exceedingly happy to see the character back in the fold and presumably alive. 

The arrival of Michonne, the healing of Rick, the rescue of Carol. All these things seem like a happy ending, even if Michonne will only inform them that two of their group have been kidnapped. Of course, she might just end up being treated like the original prisoners and either being killed or being locked in a separate wing. Or maybe they'll just look at her loneliness, her knowledge and her baby formula and realise that she could be of use. She might have to lose the katana though. 

'Say The Word' - The Walking Dead, Season Three

The Walking Dead

Season Three

Episode Five

'Say The Word' - 6.0

Could this be the least attractive view of Laurie Holden ever?

The Walking Dead has always prided itself on its thorough and unabashed portrayal of humanity at its end - and rightfully so, fuck the haters - but tonight I just felt that the chance for some real drama was squandered in favour of an over-the-top revenge massacre that sees Andrew Lincoln working in complete silence as he tears through some unlucky walkers. 

Yes, the silence is a good move. Buffy's 'The Body' showed how much more powerful a silent glance or an action is than someone bursting into tears and screaming 'WHY ARE THEY GONE :( :( :(!!!', and 'Say the Word' clearly decided to show Rick's regression to animalistic fury non-verbally. The title itself is a tad ironic to that regard, though in retrospect the silence itself was largely unnoticeable and a tad pointless. In fact, I think the rampage itself was pointless, and it wasted time that could be spent getting the character somewhere; preferably that isn't the bloody plate of leftovers that used to be his wife's corpse.

Did I fail to mention that? Perhaps it was because Sarah Wayne Callies was unavailable to play a body, but when Rick finally runs out of zombies to unreanimate, he discovers that his wife has already been devoured, and all that remains are odd bits of clothing and ICKY THINGS, as well as one walker who has gorged himself to the point of immobility. I felt kind of sorry for the bulbous thing, especially considering it doesn't even have the ability to try and defend itself against a vengeful Rick, who gorily eviscerates the satiated creature in a fervour of stabs and slashes. 

I understand that Rick needs to have sunk as far as possible, and that for the coming battle with the Governor we need to believe that he might lose, but simply sitting in sullen silence would have accomplished that. Hell, he could have just killed a couple of walkers, then walked back to the group with Glenn. The whole thing seemed to last an entire night, and it was a bit much. 

Speaking of the Governor, Woodbury is becoming a stranger and stranger place. To be perfectly honest it had not yet clicked in my mind that no one was actually allowed to leave the town, although it kind of turned out that they are. See you later, Michonne. If I know my tropes though, soon enough a whole squadron of the Governor's men are gonna come down on our mysterious, katana-wielding brooder. 

Michonne finally gets a little more fleshing out tonight, after so long was spent watching her brood. She is clearly a bit put down when Andrea opts to stay in the town rather than leave with her, likewise Andrea is a tad sad to see her off. I'm pretty sure that Michonne won't get bumped off anytime soon, because I can only imagine the fan backlash that would cause - even if at the moment her character still sinks a little. Still, she's getting better, with 'Say the Word' showcasing her biggest leap forward so far. 

Daryl and Maggie's trek out into the world-beyond-the-prison-fence demonstrated that this show has pulled off one of its goals; last episode's carnage has reasserted the feeling that anyone can die at anytime. I just kept getting sense that something horrible was going to happen to one of the two, who both would rank among my top five Walking Dead characters of all time. Who are the others? Rick, Andrea and Lori. Yes, I liked Lori. Wanna fight about it? 

Anyway, back to the suspense! Sure, the opossum trick was a bit cliché and manipulative, but it did the job to freaky effects. I was more worried about Maggie than Daryl, as the latter is just awesome and difficult to kill. Nonetheless, one must also remember that this is television and whoever the writers want to kill WILL DIE. Doesn't matter how terrific they are at zombie-killing, when it is their time it is over for them. Sadly, plot-brought abilities don't count for much in fiction.

I know many people who watch this show but are certain that Daryl can't be killed. This isn't real life, people, everyone's in danger! Especially if they are popular! I wouldn't say Rick is on the outs, nor Michonne, but I think anyone else could die just as easy next episode as make it out of the season. People have to die in the war with the Governor, and the writers will often pick whoever will bring about the biggest emotional impact. It's almost needless to say to everyone, but we have to prepare for carnage, and I just love that I have to say that. 

I am still having issues with the coldness of this season, but the scenes at Woodbury are interesting me, even if the whole zombie-ring-of-death was a bit insane for my tastes. I want the Governor to get on with the evil though, and stop beating around the fucking bush. KILL EVERYONE!!!

'Wildfire' - The Walking Dead, Season One

The Walking Dead

Season One

Episode Five

'Wildfire' - 9.5

Best day to be an extra ever. 

The Walking Dead doesn't have main plots or subplots, instead it really is just documentary-like A-B storytelling. That is reductive, of course, because it is a complex show underneath, with some of the best characters on screen at the moment. What I find is best about them is that they aren't just likable or not, they have personalities with negative and positive attributes. Rick has detractors, and Daryl has benefits, for example.

After the horrors that drew 'Vatos' to a thrilling and distressing end, 'Wildfire' opens with a slow, reflective tone as the survivors deal with the zombie attack on the camp. Of course the most poignant of the characters right now is Andrea, who is mourning the death of Amy, who died of her bites in her sister's arms. As the episode begins, morning has broken on the camp and Andrea has knelt over the corpse for the entire night, without doing anything to prevent her from rising again. Lori, Rick and Dale all attempt to comfort the grieving woman, but the former two don't get any edgeways. Lori is entirely ignored as she tries to convince her to let Amy be disabled, while Rick gets a gun pointed at him before he could finish a sentence. Dale has more luck, relaying the sad tale of his wife's gradual passing to cancer, and he and Andrea have a sweetly written and very true - if a little trite - conversation about whether either is to blame for their respective loved one's deaths.

Something we learnt in the second episode 'Guts' was that Amy's birthday was coming up, and if you can remember Andrea took a small mermaid necklace as a present. Well of course, this very day is the poor girl's birthday, and Andrea chooses to be uber depressing by solemnly draping the pretty thing over her sister's blood-stained neck. It is touching, but I'm a bit tired of shows making sad events more tragic and cruel by ruining happy days.

Other characters get a little screen time to deal with the previous night's disaster as well. Carol says goodbye to her abusive husband the nicest way she can; by desecrating his remains repeatedly with a pickaxe. The onscreen destruction of the man's skull - a man we kind of met, no less - was incredibly gross, and even I have my limits. Sure, we aren't supposed to like this guy, but it is just plain disrespectful to anyone to show their brains exploding again and again all over the camera. DEAR GOD NOW IT WON'T GO OUT OF MY HEAD.

Things don't look good for our deranged psychic Jim either, who is discovered to have been bitten by some zombie in the attack. He seems OK at first, but it doesn't take him long to deteriorate, the effects of which are shown through sweat, retching and frightening Exorcist-like flashes of disturbing images. I don't know why this is, but flashes make scary scenes infinitely more frightening; i.e. the slow exploration of the abandoned space ship in the sci-fi Sunshine. And they were just flashes of pictures featuring the ship's original crew! Anyway, Jim's condition is a catalyst for Rick's idea to take the camp and go to the CDC, which is apparently near Atlanta. This sparks a debate amongst the entire group, with Shane and Rick both wanting to go completely separate ways from one another, but it is poor Lori who winds up in the middle of the alpha-dog humping match. Of course she ends up siding with her husband, but that isn't without a good talking-to for Rick. To be honest I don't really like Lori much, she seems a bit moralistic and pushy.

Rick and Shane's disagreement comes to a subtle head as they go to scour the woods for any lost zombies. With Rick up ahead, Shane spends a brief moment with his sights set literally on his former friend and colleague, and it is kind of tense for a second. While I never expected Rick to end up dead at this point, I wasn't sure if Shane would try or not, and it was pretty touch and go for second there. In the end Shane does come to his senses and lower the gun, but not before being spied by a very confused and concerned Dale, who doesn't really make a big deal or anything, but it does hint towards problems for Shane down the line. This short lapse of judgment is the first clear and explicit depiction of his growing anger towards Rick, and it looks like this is only going to get worse as things go on.

In my favourite scene of the show so far, Amy does finally rise from death. It is quiet, without music and scored only by the soft sounds of her body reanimating. I was infinitely impressed by the show's ability to turn such an iconic zombie-film trope into a scene of true cinematic beauty, and the shot of Amy's eyes slowly opening to reveal the pale, dead stare of a walker is absolutely stunning. This single event is what the episode had led up to, with most of the sequences involving Andrea keeping her dead sister just in frame, if only to make us tense while we wait for her to leap up and eat somebody, but her real rise from the dead is so anticlimactic, it's almost sweet. Laurie Holden is perfect, like really perfect, as she says goodbye to what her sister has become, before putting the gun to the side of Amy's head and pulling the trigger. I wish the zombie-genre did more amazing scenes like these, because it is a disturbing but oddly heartwarming  depiction of human emotion and love.

As the group finally agrees to head to the CDC (well, most do), we flash to the very place in question, where scientist Dr. Jenner gives a video diary about the spread and status of the disease. I don't know if he actually named it 'Wildfire', but 'Wildfire' was declared 194 days prior, but that would be like saying 'Cholera was just declared'. Do they say that? Anyway, what really interested me was that whatever-it's-called went global sixty-three days ago, which means it was contained for what, 131 days? You couldn't kill all the zombies in like four months? Seriously?

Jenner is a clearly disheartened individual, obviously stumped by the disease and unable to find a cure, or a reason to keep searching. His last specimens are destroyed when the lab goes into 'full contamination' and he is also left without a way of researching it further, and in presumably his last webcast he describes his desire to end his own life, maybe.

Meanwhile, Jim finds himself unable to take the voyage, and asks to be left on the side of the road to die. If there is one thing to love about this show, it's its characters. We only really met Jim last episode, but in just this one scene he makes his farewell from the group a memorable one, if not for shocks or twists, but for the emotion of it all. Most members of the group say a final, heartfelt goodbye to their friend and leave him under the shade of a tree as they drive into the distance. I did remember for a second that Jim was psychic last episode? Maybe he knows what's waiting for them at the CDC? I don't know.

Something that seems to prevail this episode is guilt. Rick is clearly guilty over his late arrival to the camp the night before, and he asks many other characters whether he did the right thing or not, and you could argue that guilt is fueling his need to try and save Jim. Jim himself notices Rick's tendency to blame himself for everything that goes wrong, and in a sweet piece of dialogue attempts to absolve him, explaining that he is being left behind according to his own wishes. Andrea is also incredibly guilty, describing to Dale how she had never been there when her sister needed her, and as Amy rises again all she says 'I'm here now' repeatedly before putting her down. Even Jenner seems a bit of a slave to guilt, and there are implications - not that he caused the disease, mind you - but that he at least feels like he could have done more to slow the spread of the pandemic. I don't normally like themes, unless they are as seamlessly integrated as they are in 'Wildfire'. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was always good at burying its themes and messages deep enough so that you could ignore them if you wish, and 'Wildfire' manages that type of thematic content immaculately, and it ends up adding to the story rather than detracting from it.

In the final scene Rick and the survivors arrive at the CDC, which is pretty dead. There is a brilliant performance from Andrew Lincoln, as Rick bangs on the doors of the building as a horde of walkers begins to move in while darkness begins to fall. Jenner watches from his security cameras, but for whatever reason is reluctant to allow them in. It is very tense, and for a while it begins to look like there might be another massacre on the cards, but we wouldn't have met Jenner unless he was going to be a little important. In the end he opens the doors for the screaming Rick and the crew, bathing them in a brilliant and poetic white light as the episode draws to a close.

I think a two and a half page review indicates my feelings towards this fantastic, touching episode that manages to mix action, emotion, a great script and some perfect performances effortlessly and subtlety. My  only concern is small, in that I found the pick-axe brain fuck of Ed by his wife very cathartic, but also entirely too long and disgusting. It was important for Carol, but the extent of the violence was too much, and rids 'Wildfire' of the perfect ten the episode should deserve.