'Tell it to the Frogs' - The Walking Dead, Season One

The Walking Dead 

Season One

Episode Three

'Tell it to the Frogs' - 8.0

Along with zombies, there's also a serious sentimentality epidemic here. 

Despite sounding to the uninitiated like a dumb, shoot-'em-up zombie flick, but made a couple times longer and with commercial breaks, The Walking Dead continues to establish itself as something much more complicated; a character drama.

What is important to note about the premise here is that any single character can die at any point, because they effectively live in a world largely populated by danger. Unlike the universes of almost any other show there needs to be no motive or opportunity, rather death can happen whenever the writers want it to. Oddly that isn't that important in 'Tell it to the Frogs' since no one dies, but the constant threat does open the stage to an intriguing character study.

The cast of this post-apocalyptic tale is surprising extensive. Aside from Rick, his wife and son, Shane and the few Rick met in Atlanta, there are whole mess of people we meet at the survivor's camp outside the city, which our protagonist arrives at in the early scenes of the episode.

It is impressive how moving Rick, Lori and Carl's meeting was, considering we hadn't actually seen these people as a family yet, but it managed to be incredibly touching. I can't really give credit to the writers because the scene was largely dialogue-free, but the composers and actors clearly worked hard to make it relevant and realistic. Obviously Andrew Lincoln is especially good; his bewilderment and happiness are palpable and stirring, while Sarah Wayne Callies manages to appear conflicted in one of the few times I've seen an actor actually accomplish conflicted.

Laurie Holden is also a significant player as Andrea, who oozes the much needed feminine strength amidst an environment inhabited by male leaders and soldiers. I'm no feminist, but when a cast only has well developed male characters, people will notice; like me. It is something that is clear in the first few seasons of Lost as well, and you can often tell the target demographic through the number of strong women on the series. Before you ask though, Lori doesn't count. Anyhow, Andrea comes through the best during the clothes washing scene, which ironically deals explicitly with the role of women in this new society. She challenges misogyny itself when she gets between the prick Ed and his wife Carol, and even earlier breaks feminine convention by explicitly talking about her love for her long-lost vibrator. I like this woman, which undoubtedly means she won't last much longer - not a spoiler, FYI, I don't actually know if she survives.

Jon Bernthal does a terrific job playing a character who effectively falls from grace. In his first scene of the episode he is almost joyous to be inducted into his believed-to-be-dead best friend's family, a status that changes only a few minutes later when Rick arrives in his rescue vehicle. Just one moment destroys everything he had gained, and you can see it in his face then, but he really shines in the scenes at the quarry, first with Lori and then with Ed. Lori reveals that Shane had said her husband had died - an obvious move by the writer's to ensure that we don't dislike Lori for her actions - and makes it clear and plain that he can have nothing to do with her family. Bernthal is near silent during Lori's confrontation but his acting is effective enough to not need him to speak; we know how he feels about all this. Only a short while later, a frustrated Shane takes out his agitation on Ed in an incredibly brutal beat down that says to me that Shane probably won't live very long. It was a good scene, yeah, and very affecting, but in most television shows characters who severely assault anyone for no terrific reason, not a long time after doing the protagonist's wife aren’t particularly popular among audiences. It doesn't help that he isn't the most original creation, nor does he add anything to the group now that Rick can fill the role of former-policeman current-leader.

It might not make sense to you, but I watch way too much television and I'll be surprised if Shane makes it through too many more episodes. I won't really miss him if he dies, but I know my tropes and it isn't looking good.

'Tell it to the Frogs' only features a handful of zombies over the course of the episode, and none of them do anything except die and eat deer. Oddly enough however, it doesn't feel like it matters too much, and the characters of the show manage to hold it up without blood and guts with the help of terrific acting and a fine script.