The Walking Dead: The New Slow Burn

Twelve and a half minutes. That’s how long it took for us to see our first zombie in the season two premiere of The Walking Dead. Like last year’s pilot episode, the season two premiere is a slow burn, but when the walkers finally do show up, the situation doesn’t just escalate quickly, it practically erupts.

Sort of. The parade of zombies that stroll up the highway, surprising our band of survivors, results in the execution of only two walkers as the group members hide under cars. The scene, as tense as anything we’ve seen in the series, is indicative of the new tempo that we may see this season—slightly fewer incidents of frenetic carnage, but much more drama. As James Poniewozik described in his review of the Season 1 finale, the truncated first run had to pack a lot of action, plot development and gore into only six episodes. Now that we have a full 13 installments, the show could throttle back a bit on its breakneck speed, which would only serve to make the show more searing.  Read More