Review

Following the zombie attack in the last episode things are falling apart for the survivors. Amy is dead and Andrea wont leave her side, some reanimation going down there. Jim has been bitten and is lapsing into fever, only one result possible there. Shane is blaming Rick for their loses due to Rick taking a team into Atlanta to try and save Merle Dixon. And Daryl is off side with pretty much everyone due to having a more realistic idea of how they should treat both zombies and potential zombies.

Rick wants to break up camp and head to the C.D.C, figuring if anyone is working on a solution it will be the C.D.C crew. Besides which it should be heavily defended, and the survivors need some relief. Naturally Shane has other ideas and wants to head to a military base. Eventually, after failing to swing Lori behind his opinion, Shane sides with Rick, and the survivors mount up to head for the C.D.C, which is apparently 100 or so miles away. The group is reduced further when Morales and his family decide to go their own way, and Jim opts out along the way due to the virus making travel extremely painful. There's something of a shock waiting at the C.D.C, Dr Edwin Jenner is the sole survivor after everything but the actual center itself was overrun by zombies.

Guess this episode centers around grief, things lost, and the apparently unfinished business between Rick, Shane, and Lori. While there is some gore involved, Wildfire dispenses with zombies, though they remain a constant background menace. Finally we get some movement at the quarry station as the Survivors hit the road through a ravaged American South.

Andrea grieves in her own way and remembers not visiting Amy on her week long birthdays. The audience know reanimation is around the corner but Director Ernest Dickerson keeps that on hold while he wrings the emotion out of the setup. Andrea never wants or accepts any help, even from Dale who views both herself and Amy as daughters. Eventually Amy does reanimate, and clearly wants her pound of flesh, but Andrea coming to terms with her loss is able to finish things off with a satisfying head shot. In similar fashion Glenn lets Daryl know in no uncertain terms he is finding it hard to deal with recent loses, and finally Carol Peletier takes out her anger on her recently deceased husband Ed. Three different takes on grief, building to a fairly poignant episode that re-affirmed my faith in the season. Regardless of thoughts of the show thus far, you would have to agree that the handling of personal issues is pretty solid.

Episode five gets things back on a rocking footing after episode four lapsed in quality for some inexplicable reason

While he is infected, and there's some choice cut scenes that add the shock tactics via zombie images, Jim still thinks about the family he left as a happy meal for the local marauding zombie hordes. Eventually he decides to give it away and accept his fate, zombification, in the vague hope that he might meet his loved ones again. Guess anything is possible. Dr Edwin Jenner is forced to confront all he has lost via a laboratory accident that removes his lifeline to happy times prior to the outbreak. Without the necessary distraction of research, Jenner is forced to the conclusion he is alone with no one listening to the broadcasts he makes. It's quite an effective scenario for mine, multi million dollar research facility that is simply a safe underground bastion when stripped to the bare essentials. Another reference to Romero's Dead universe perhaps.

The conflict between Rick and Shane, Rick is still not hip to Shane and Lori's involvement, continues to bubble away below the surface. Rick is kind of reminding me of the Ben character from Night of the Living Dead (1968), he makes what appears to be logical decisions that somehow end up in disaster for his fellow survivors. With Shane perhaps filling in as Harry Cooper, we're yet to see any if Shane's idea of hitting the military base pans out. Clearly things are heating on this plot arc quite well with Shane having Rick in his sights at one stage.

Standard zombie fare on the mythos front, but hey movement at the station so let's not get too disappointed. If you die from a zombie attack you reanimate, if you are bitten by a zombie you reanimate after dying from the zombie virus. Which kind of indicates the exchange of body fluids with the undead is not a good thing, careful with that axe Eugene, I wouldn't be getting too much into the hand to hand dispatching in gory fashion over here.

Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale Horvath) is kicking it as the old timer with a heart of gold wrapped up in grey bearded wisdom. For mine he presents the soul of the Survivor group, prepared to follow the leads of others, but in his own way bringing in ideas of doing the right thing. Fingers crossed the character can keep on keeping on, given that at least two semi important characters have dropped off the wagon train already this season.

Wildfire hit a season peak of 5.56 million viewers in North America, underlining the show's ability to appeal outside the horror hordes. Even in season one the figures are matching some of the longer lived franchises currently in play. Great achievement, indicating the emphasis on character driven story lines is reaching an audience.

I got my walking dead on again with this episode after last week's drop in quality. Yeah I know hitting the Region 1 DVD, but heck a show a week in episode guide terms dudettes. With one episode to go I'm expecting an explosive end to the season with the solid foundations laid in this episode. Full recommendation yo, best zombie outing ever on television.

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...