Review

Sisters Andrea and Amy are on the lake near the survivors' camp fishing. It's a pleasant warm day and you could almost think the zombie apocalypse hasn't happened as the sisters discuss their father and the chances of their parents having survived. Meanwhile Rick and team have discovered that Merle cut off his own hand to escape from the roof of the department store. For no apparent reason Jim is digging what looks to be graves on a ridge overlooking the camp. Shane ties Jim up for his own good.

Without finding Merle, Rick's group are left with getting the bag of guns Rick dropped near the tank in the first episode. Glenn provides a fairly audacious plan and it works except Glenn gets taken by a group who also wanted the guns, Daryl does manage to capture one of the attackers however. Confronting Glenn's captives Rick discovers they are a Latino gang, however it's a ruse as the Latinos are protecting aged patients in a hidden hospital. Things turn out okay, though the van they used to drive into Atlantic has been taken, Rick assumes this is the work of Merle. Back at camp a horde of zombies arrive to cull the herd, thankfully Rick and team arrive back in the nick of time. Victims of the zombie assault however are Amy and the redneck Ed, with a few assorted extras tossed in for good measure.

Well it's taken four episodes but finally I'm a tad disappointed with season one, mainly due to the script being a bit on the heavy handed side. We get Andrea and Amy on the lake at the beginning of the episode, reminiscing about fishing with their father, and the different approaches he took to fishing with them. All very good, and I'm never going to attack a script writer for taking time out of the main event for a bit of quiet reflection on what's been lost, however as one of the sisters dies at the end of the episode it becomes pretty heavy handed. Robert Kirkman tries to lull the audience and then hit them with a major development, first of the main characters to die, but it's such an obvious ploy that I was left wondering who allowed Kirkman to pen this episode. Considering the three solid episodes preceding this one Kirkman should have stuck to penning the source comics, or writing Disney movies.

Don't get me started on the Latino gang sub plot either, while it might have seemed clever on the page it did nothing to enhance the overall story. We already know that Rick Grimes is a good guy, we didn't need another heavy handed Kirkman example to convince us. Clearly there are going to be other survivors out there, else dealing with the same characters might start to get slightly stale, but really, charactertures of Latinos is the way to go? I was actually cringing about this aspect during the episode, there's incipient racism and then there's simply stereotyping for a right wing redneck Audience. Bad episode Kirkman, do you hate Hispanic people or something?

Unfort for the Audience the script in episode four lets season one down. Somewhat trite and the attempts at audience manipulation are so self evident to border on House of Mouse territory

Okay so I've been harsh on writer Kirkman, dude does do a good comic, but there was one aspect of Vatos that had me humming to Kirkman's beat. Jim, who previously had been a background character, takes central stage digging a series of graves on a ridge line. After the zombie attack he states that he remembers his dream and why he was digging the graves. Previously we had been lead to believe the graves were for his family who were being devoured while he escaped. Kirkman hints at least at premonition if not out right supernatural influences, and hell yeah I was impressed like a baby at a topless bar. Nice and subtle move, fingers crossed this aspect is revisited at some stage in the future.

Another aspect to season one, this time not Kirkman's fault, that is causing me to roll my eyes is the changing number of survivors in the camp. Watch through the first four episodes and we have people that appear and then disappear from the camp constantly. Saying they are just extras doesn't cut it when considering the size of the survivor group.

Sorry nothing to report on the zombie mythos, episode didn't advance our knowledge of the walking dead in any fashion.

Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes) while not taking a huge slice of screen time to date is definitely making an impression with your's truly. Callies isn't being made up to look like a super model and gosh darn has dirt on her face from time to time, two thumbs up to an Actress prepared to get down in the dark genre trenches without a makeup artist and a hairdresser on hand. Callies is emoting in all the right places and gets my vote for best female lead performance in a dark genre tellie outing in 2010. Guess Lori is going to have to talk turkey with Rick over Shane at some stage, talk about your major chick moment coming up.

Vatos dropped to 4.75 million viewers in North America, but clearly indicated that The Walking Dead had already found it's core audience and kept that audience from week to week.

While I have to say I was disappointed in the plot I was still able to enjoy Vatos, mainly due to things moving ahead and the excellent zombie make-up effects. Anyone else notice the zombies are looking worse for wear as decay and lack of food start taking toll of them? If Vatos is the worse that the show has to offer then we are in good hands folks, and I'm rocking on to the next episode with confidence that things will pick up. Episode worth watching, though you might want to turn your mind off with this one.

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...