'Vatos' - The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead

Season One

Episode Four

'Vatos' - 9.0

At least he was decent enough to prepare.

Compared to the calm, character-based last episode, 'Vatos' is a cornucopia of chaos, destruction and so much plot it feels like it could have been its own season. A couple secondary players bite the dust in the final minutes, both of whom have direct connections to other members of the group, and that has little to do with all that went down in Atlantic City.

Before the Walking Dead's boring-as-hell title sequence rolls, we are showed a nice, serene moment between sisters on the lake in the quarry. It is a good scene, with the acting by both Emma Bell and Laurie Holden easily able to hold the realism and believability; we are supposed to believe that this is how we would live after the apocalypse. Amy and Andrea lament their missing parents, as well as come to realise that their father loved them both equally, catering to the different personalities of his incredibly dissimilar daughters with variations in his fishing methods. It sounds like a bizarre thing to spend a while discussing in a zombie show, but it is touching and wonderfully composed, and once you've seen the episode you know why it's there; Andrea and Amy are having their final sisterly conversation.

The opening credits now over, we switch to the four guys in Atlanta, where we pick up right where 'Tell it to the Frogs' left off; Merle has sawn off his own hand to escape the rooftop he was left on by Rick and T-Dog, and Daryl is understandably pissed. I'm surprised how effective Norman Reedus is as the agro redneck, and I'm just as surprised to find that I actually find him oddly likable. His character may be an over-the-top stereotype, but I respect his devotion to finding his brother, and I get why he's unhappy with how Merle was handled two episodes ago.

The group begins a slow, tense search through the department store following the trail of blood left by Merle. Of course, in this universe it would be hard to go anywhere without the trip being fraught with suspense, and part of the draw of the show lies in its constant threat of violence and/or zombification. Nonetheless the four of them encounter only of couple walkers, none of whom put up much of a fight against Daryl's crossbow, but in the end Merle is found to have escaped into the city and out of their reach. I didn't like Merle as much as Daryl, but with him out in the wild the show has obviously made it open for his return, but this being the Walking Dead, they could be smart enough to know that his survival is expected, and thus his death would be more of a surprise. However, assuming he is dead, how could anyone discover this?

There is a man back at the base camp named Jim. I hadn't really noticed him in the couple of episodes we've spent at the camp, but he certainly makes an impression tonight. Andrew Rothenberg plays the quiet, clearly depressed or manic man, who reveals not long into this episode that his survived a zombie attack due only to the zombie's preoccupation with devouring his family, i.e. his wife and children. It is a disturbing thought, but this show has never really shied away from making viewers uncomfortable. The gore and the silence see to that. Anyway, Jim spends the first part of the episode seemingly digging graves a little while away from the centre of camp, for reasons he can't remember after Shane forces him to stop. Seems his actions were scaring the other survivors, though to be honest I didn't really get this storyline. It has its eerie relevance at the conclusion of 'Vatos', but it still seems a tad too supernatural for the show's strict keepings to a sense of realism in its storytelling. Similarly, I had issues with the group's decision to actively prevent Jim from digging his holes, as it wasn't that freaky, was it?

In an attempt to salvage a rather fruitless trip to Atlanta the group plans to retrieve the guns Rick dropped in the overrun streets at the end of the first episode, but the plan goes awry when another group of survivors intervenes, failing to steal the guns but taking poor Glenn away. As anything with a brain would do, this new group - full of the titular 'Vatos' - promises to trade Glenn for everything in the bag, or die guns blazing. The 'Vatos' have more men, and apparently more thirst for blood, but looks are deceiving. Turns out after an effectively stereotypical Mexican stand-off situation this new group of annoyingly evil Latinos just... aren't. They are actually protecting an old folks home, and their leader Guillermo is the former janitor at the facility. I appreciate the contrast between our first impressions and the reality, but it did wrap up all the issues that arose with the bag of guns really nicely, maybe too nicely. It also managed to make Rick look more noble and kind, which is really annoying in a protagonist. We have enough noble protagonists, mate, be bad!

On the way back to the van they took to Atlanta, our four guys come across one more obstacle - someone has stolen the van. It's Rick who jumps to the conclusion that it was Merle, and for a brief moment we are anxious at the thought of an enraged Merle arriving at the survivor's camp and wreaking havoc on the innocents. It's a nice little red herring, although nothing really comes of it tonight except it slows Rick and his friends down significantly, forcing them to make for the camp on foot. Perhaps one day Merle will return and take his revenge.

Back at the camp, the delayed return of Rick with the new weapons has serious repercussions for some of the survivors. While for a while everything seems fine, we are waiting for Merle to emerge from the woods brandishing some deadly piece of hardware, or worse simply roar through the lot of them with the van. Alas, the show chooses to slow the worst down, having nice old guy Dale describe his habit of winding his watch. It is a well written little monologue, but it is only an entree compared to the main course.

Everything goes to hell quickly; a beaten and bruised Ed awakens alone in his tent to the sounds of rustling outside. Irritated as he usual is, he decides to zip open the door and confront whoever's there, only to be confronted himself by a very hungry zombie. Seconds later a whole hoard of the creatures are making their way into the tent for a meal.

Back at camp, little sister Amy comes out the RV after going to the toilet. Unlike Ed though, she is given no warning when a zombie appears from the darkness and bites into her arm. What follows next is the most muddled and bloody three or four minutes of a television show I've seen. Zombie's heads a blown clean off, their blood staining the camera lens, extras are torn limb from limb and Amy gets another, fatal bite to her neck and Andrea rushes to her side. It's over almost as quickly as it began, when Rick and the others finally return to the camp, their new guns hot in the arms, zombies falling left and right.

Once the worst is over, we exit the chaos and find ourselves back on Earth, and The Walking Dead reasserts its statement; Death matters. Andrea mourns her sister's fatal injuries while the rest of the group can only watch in a particularly bloody goodbye for Amy, who succumbs to her wounds without any sort of final words, only a meaningful touch to her sister's cheek. It really is beautiful, but the final words go to Jim, who states that he now remembers why he dug the graves.

The thought of a psychic is a bit much for me, but it depends on how they handle it over the rest of the show that matters. If they can make it similar to the mysterious River Tam of Firefly or Olivia Dunham of Fringe I'll be happy, but if they turn him into some sort of constant Deus Ex Machina like Bonnie of the Vampire Diaries I'll be pissed. That's if he really is psychic, he might just be nuts.

The end of 'Vatos' is dramatic and almost distressing, with how suddenly everything changes being the most affecting aspect of the entire experience. It will no doubt expand on the prevailing feeling of suspense and dread that we already felt, but here we have proof that it can happen at any time, presumably to anyone. In this world the zombie invasion is real, as are the people who won't survive it, and The Walking Dead wants us to always remember that.