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Another Walking Dead Recap

I did my weekly Walking Dead recap again for Pop Bunker this week, and it's posted here.

My quick thoughts on this week's episode (and where the show is going) are after the break (since there's spoilers):

I really think they dropped the ball on this week's episode. You had a chance for a dramatic build when Lori pulled Glenn off to the side and asked him to get something. But instead of it being subtle, Glenn grabs the pregnancy test and stares at it before Maggie decides to jump him. So we know what Lori asked for, and we know what the result is going to be.

Had he not had the long dramatic look, no one would have known what Glenn was going for (since he swerved and looked at other "feminine hygiene" products as well), and we could have built the drama all the way until the end of the episode, when Lori takes the mysterious package out to the field and pees on the stick. She originally went out with the bag and a knife. Who knows what was going to happen - Lori could have had condoms and been going to seduce Shane and kill him for all we know. But since we knew what Glenn had, we knew why Lori was going out into the field, red herring knife be damned.

While season 1 seemed to use the comic series as a base and go in its own direction from that, season 2 seems to be going back to the comic storylines. I'm not sure how I feel about this - I think the comic is great, but I also liked the drama of not really knowing what's going on. Two of the most "shocking" plot points this season (Carl getting shot and Lori's pregnancy) were in the comic, so if you read them not only did you know they were coming, but you also knew what their resolution would be.

One of the complaints I've seen has been the pace of the show - specifically how slow it seems to be going. I understand what people are saying, but I'm not sure if I'd move it any faster. The show isn't meant to be an action-adventure type of thing. It's more of a psychological thriller, and to make it into a hack & slash show would take away from it. That said, I think the "search for Sophia" thing needs to wrap up soon. Between the search, Carl's recovery, and settling in at Hershel's farm, we really haven't been moving much. Sure, it's building to something, but there needs to be something there. This week's episode had one zombie. One. In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, even though the focus wasn't on the slaying or the action most of the time, you still had some action in almost every episode (unless there was a specific reason). There's a fine line between building suspense and boring people.

I'm in no way giving up on the show, but this recent trend is something to watch.