The Walking Dead - Guts, S01E02

Compassion. When the world has gone to Hell, and the dead are coming back to life to try and eat us, survival becomes the primary focus. We must continue to live, not as individuals, but as a species. The good of the whole becomes so much more important than the good of one man, but to be human, truly human, means that we still value each and every one of those individuals. Even those who are now are enemy were once our friends, and we cannot forget that, or there is no point in us surviving.

Rick (Andrew Lincoln) is a good, compassionate, and loving man. Yes, he ended up chopping up the corpse of a zombie so that he could cover himself and his new friend, Glenn (Steven Yeun), in the rotting guts and cover the smell of living meat, but before he could compel himself to dismember the body of what was once a man, he had to give tribute. Reading the information on the wallet, knowing who the man was before he died, and that he was loved and that his memory should be treasured, these are things which allow us to believe that we, as a species, actually deserve to survive an apocalypse it is likely we brought on ourselves.

But the need to survive sometimes has to overrule compassion. Merle (Michael Rooker) is clearly quite insane. His hatred of black people has clearly not been stopped by the presence of zombies, his desire to keep the whole safe does not even feature. And yet, when T-Dog (IronE Singleton) dropped the key to the handcuffs Rick had put on Merle to protect the group, and Merle was left behind, with only a locked door between him and zombies, T-Dog certainly felt a whole lot of guilt for leaving the man behind. Should he have? Would staying behind himself have saved Merle? Would both their deaths have been worth anything? And if Merle had survived, what could his contributions be, if not to bring more danger to the other survivors.

In the encampment, Shane (Jon Bernthal) seems to be a real ass, and yet he is truly focused on the goal of keeping his group alive. No unnecessary risks, no trying to help those who cannot be helped. He may seem heartless, and perhaps he is, but those who are with him are far more likely to survive because of his vigilance and his refusal to compromise safety for anything and anyone. We'll see how he behaves when Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) is the one who is in unknown danger, but, much as I am compelled to dislike him, I cannot blame him for his attitude.

And it looks like Rick will soon be reunited with his wife and son, as well as his former partner. How the drama of that will play out when there are zombies who might interrupt any moment, I cannot say, but I can't wait to find out.

Dexter - Circle Us, S05E07

And suddenly Dexter (Michael C Hall)'s world crashes right back into that of the rest of the officers at the precinct. Again, I love the fact that the Santa Muerte case remains a separate affair, the development of which was pretty intense this episode, so the fact that it is Dexter`s extracurricular that has become a joint effort makes me pretty happy. I'm also quite liking the development of Dexter`s friendship with Lumen (Julia Stiles).

The Santa Muerte case has been a PR nightmare from the beginning, and the latest development has not improved things at all. Did Maria (Lauren Velez) make a bad call in sending Officer Manzon (April Hernandez) to the Fuentes brothers' table? It is hard to say - the results certainly were devastating, with the informant and another bystander ending up dead, although Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) got to accomplish what she should have in her last encounter with the murderers. One of the brothers is dead, the woman he was threatening safe. Would things have gone better had that brother not asked Manzon to join him, tried to feel her up, and discovered her gun? Was the potential of its discovery a negligible risk that did not pan out, or did Maria not consider it a potential danger? I would say Manzon's reaction time from the moment she was discovered was too slow. We'll see how that develops, and, remember, there is one brother still out there.

On the other side of things, we finally got to meet Jordan "Take It Now" Chase (Johnny Lee Miller). His security guard is one of the men who hurt Lumen, and he is obviously equally connected to the crime. When a man panics, he makes mistakes. Moving the bodies of the women was never a good idea, but being hit by a drunk driver and having the bodies strewn across the highway is one of the worse possible outcomes. Lucky for them Dexter is coming to claim them, and therefore he will help them avoid being arrested by the police. Good thing Dexter doesn't care about PR; his kills continually hurt his precincts' track record.

Now, there are a lot of comparisons between Lumen's relationship with Dexter and Miguel's in season 3. Both of these people have been allowed into his life, have been told of his secrets. The big difference is that Miguel's desire for Dexter's skill came from a dark place he created inside himself, whereas the darkness in Lumen was imposed by the men she seeks to kill. Unlike both the men, she is obviously damaged and does not pretend to hide what she has become. She also has a brightness which is neither an act, nor believed to be an act (in Dexter's case, since he would never actually be able to believe that he had a positive side). I can only hope that by the end of the season, Lumen will be healed, will not resent Dexter for who he will continue to be, and will not hurt him when she inevitably has to move on.

So the race is on, will Dexter be able to kill everyone he intends to without his own colleagues catching them first, or without them catching him?

The Walking Dead - Days Gone Bye, Pilot, S01E01

Of all the scary monsters that exist in supernatural stories, the modern zombie is, in fact, the most possible. Although the notion of a disease which brings dead tissue back to life, and renders it ravenous for human flesh, is quite far fetched, when compared to vampires, werewolves, and magic-users, the possibility becomes far more probable. And so we have a hero, walking up after being unconscious for more than a month, who finds the world completely changed and zombies a part of every day existence.

Although I knew that the lead character was not going to die in the pilot episode, this did not stop me from constantly being on edge as I watched him discover a new and terrifying world, or, worse, whenever he encountered a walker (as the dead who come back are called). This show is extremely creepy, and the details are both disgusting and disturbing.

Within the first few minutes, after watching a scene which clearly would take place in the future, we learned quite a few things. 1. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), our hero, is a cop. Or at least, he was before the zombie apocalypse hit. 2. Finding campsites which are abandoned and have a fair number of corpses about them is something he has become quite used to seeing. 3. The walkers retain some sense of instinct from their previous lives (the little dead girl picked up a stuffed bear). 4. The dead want to attack the living with a terrifying intensity. 5. A shot to the head will, indeed, bring them down.

And then the actually story starts. The quick conversation between Rick and his partner, Shane, did an excellent job of establishing what their mundane, every day lives were. We never saw Rich with his family, never even saw the two men off the job, but we had a sense of who they were as friends to each other and as lovers to their women. We also quickly understood their attack style: Rick was not afraid to take point, and when he went down, getting shot in his bullet proof vest, his main concern was that his wife never know the danger he was in.

Because of Shane's concern for his friend and because of Rick's concern for his wife, both had their guards down which allowed one of the criminals to get a shot past the vest.

As someone who has never read the Walking Dead graphic novel series upon which the show is based, the thing I am most curious about is how long it will take Rick to find his family again. Shane, apparently, managed to get Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and her and Rick's son away from the more infected areas, but he also seems to have gotten into Lori's pants. I suppose you can hardly blame her, given the stress she is currently under, nor the difficulties she and Rick were having in their marriage. I, however, dislike seeing her with another man when I know that Rick is doing everything in his power to get to her.

I don't want Shane and Lori to get so close that her choice is too complicated.

As for the grossness factor, man, are the blood and guts gross or what? It's absolutely stunning in its vividness, but I could do with a little less. I don't actually want less, as I think that would detract from the point, but I don't always need to be quite so grossed out. Also, it is not something I am planning on watching alone because I definitely feel the need to cling on to someone who ought to be protecting me from the horrors I am seeing on the screen.

I am hooked, there is no doubt about that. And I have no concerns about getting to see as much as I want as AMC has already greenlit the second season of the show. The Walking Dead is going to have a long life (hehehe, I made a pun).