AMC’s The Walking Dead
Season 1, Episode 2: “Guts”
Directed by Michelle MacLaren
Written by Frank Darabont; based on the comics by Charlie Adlard, Robert Kirkman & Tony Moore.

* For a review of the premiere episode, “Days Gone Bye” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “Tell It to the Frogs” – click here

 

After the initial episode, The Walking Dead switches gears slightly. We cut back to the camp of survivors on the outskirts of Atlanta. There’s Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn), Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and her son Carl (Chandler Riggs), Amy Harrison (Emma Bell). They’re each doing the best they can to get by, for the time being. Everyone has their share to do, and every thing has a purpose. Still, while Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) is currently stuck in a tank surrounded by zombies, his wife Lori is out there with his best friend Shane (Jon Bernthal), unaware he’s alive, all but moving on without him entirely.
But back to Rick. An amazing, impressive overhead shot comes down from on high to the tank again. Over the radio is Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun). He and Rick talk for a minute, almost a darkly comical back-and-forth between the two. Glenn calls the zombies geeks, so I dig how everybody has their own term for the undead; first it was Morgan (Lennie James) with the word walkers, now Glenn has his word.
When Rick forms a tenuous plan with Glenn, it sees him fleeing the tank with a gun in hand, only the dead in front of him. Eventually, he reaches Glenn in an alleyway. They climb up one of the buildings. “Nice moves there Clint Eastwood,” says Glenn after they pause for a breather. Below them a fierce pack of zombies crowds the alley, trying to reach up towards the living flesh. Rick and Glenn find their way down into one of the nearby buildings, which takes them through a path with which the latter is obviously familiar. Once they reach another building, out come a couple people with padding, helmets and baseball bats to fend off a few of the undead.
Inside? Things aren’t much friendlier. Andrea Harrison (Laurie Holden) confronts Rick with a gun in his face. Nobody in the building is happy, as the gunfire drew the geeks toward their hideout. Others there include T-Dog (Irone Singleton), Jacqui (Jeryl Prescott), Morales (Juan Pareja). Then up top is the crazy hillbilly Merle Dixon (Michael Rooker), who decides to start firing off his own shots. After a bit of racist confrontation, Merle has everyone at gunpoint. He even clocks Rick. After the Sheriff wakes up, though, Merle gets knocked on his ass and handcuffed to a pipe.The remaining crew try to determine what to do next, all the zombies pressing against the glass downstairs. Sewers are one option, which they head down to investigate. Glenn heads in while Rick stays behind, on account of being a good shot. He and Andrea make amends, so that’s something, right?
On the roof, Merle tries to get T-Dog to help him out of the cuffs. More racist trash out of Merle’s mouth ensures that won’t be happening. Meanwhile, the zombies are pushing harder and harder almost crashing into the building’s lobby. When they tell Rick the walkers understand humans by smell, he has an idea – smear themselves in zombie guts. They fetch a couple corpses. Inside the bodies are torn open, guts hauled out. Everybody smears a load of blood and entrails all over the jackets of Rick and Glenn, conveniently taken from the store in the building. But what I found most interesting is how Rick bothered to take the identification of the corpses out, reading the names, et cetera. This will change as the seasons go on. Great to see how he tries to keep the spirit of humanity alive in the early days by honouring the victims.

“Oh, this is bad. This is really bad.”
“Think about something else— puppies and kittens.”
“Dead puppies and kittens“

 

 

Covered in zombie guts, Rick and Glenn move through the streets. Up on the roof everyone else watches reluctantly. Back out at camp, everybody worries for Andrea and the others. Obviously they’re a whole group, which puts us in the position of watching Shane trying to replace Rick, being a husband-ish figure to Lori and father-ish figure to Carl. All the while knowing Rick is likely headed back to the camp site with Glenn, T-Dog and everyone else. Over the radio Dale hears T-Dog, but not for long as the weather proves noisy for the transmission. Consistently it seems Shane is running things back there, making decisions for everyone else. Lots of control. Perhaps he doesn’t want to let go of the old order, cop and all. Either way, not everyone is happy with his leadership decisions.
Making their way further, Glenn and Rick run into an unexpected, unfortunate obstacle: Mother Nature. Rain begins to pour down on them, washing away their zombie scent. This causes the undead to start smelling the flesh on their bones, hungry, thirsty for blood and meat and brain. Terrifying sequence with the two of them fighting their way through the rest of the street. Love the way this was filmed, looks so incredible. Visceral, too. All the close shots, then the wide ones showing us how many zombies are lining the street; it gives us the scope of the devastation, even in small ways like that.When Rick and Glenn get themselves wheels and speed back for the others, T-Dog is faced with either leaving Merle handcuffed, or helping him free. On the way over he trips, and they both watch the key slip down a drain. Gone. Facing no other choices, T-Dog leaves Merle. Will this come back to bite him, or the others? We’ll see. Those of us who’ve seen up to the current episodes know what happens. Regardless, not only does T-Dog leave he chains the door to the rooftop, hoping to give Merle at least some hope.
The undead crowds the building, busting through the doors. Everyone manages to make it out, as Rick pulls in with a truck to take them. It’s a frantic escape and heavy on intensity. You’ll find your adrenaline pumping. Because aside from Rick, at this point nobody is truly safe. Particularly, having to watch Merle, despite who he is, chained to the rooftop and left by himself is a bit gut wrenching. All the same, if Rick wasn’t there to help them all who knows what Merle might have ended up doing.
The rest of them get out safely, as well as Glenn flying in the car he found. A bittersweet end to this series’ second episode.“Tell It to the Frogs” is next.