A New Place to Hide

Episode Commentary: Wildfire

More death. More drama. Just another solid episode of “The Walking Dead” that shows this program is doing everything in its power to separate itself from its source material. All in all, it seems to be working, as the pacing problems that plagued the last episode were nowhere to be seen and more characters have left the camp, making the show a bit easier to follow.

Nevertheless, you have to wonder how much traction this new angle is going to pick up. Especially when there was nothing wrong with the plot development of the comic.

Okay, enough fanboying for now. Simply put, the show was good because you can see the drama building between Rick, Shane and Laurie. The one scene where Shane is ready to lose it and Dale catches him was easily the strongest of the episode and shows the themes of brutality, insecurity and selfishness many characters exhibit in Kirkman’s work. If they manage to create a few more scenes like this the rest of the season, it’ll be a memorable one.

However, how the creative team decides to handle this situation can literally make or break the show for many of the comic book fans. Considering that Merle lost his hand a few weeks ago, which gets Rick off the hook in the future, this show continues to change and morph itself into something completely different.

Again, it’s too early to tell if this is a good or bad thing.

Okay, now the fanboying stops.

Despite these apparent differences, its still stellar. This is a world brimming with emotion, much of it being bottled up with no where to go.

After these past few episodes, the season finale should be the place where everything hits the wall. That is if everything goes to formula.

With a few extra characters still hanging around as well, the creative team has some room to play and add some more gore. These characters aren’t very captivating to fans of the comic and of the show, but their deaths could add another dose of reality just when things get a little too safe.

Sorry T-dog.

The addition of Noah Emmerich will help the show as well. A veteran actor with undeniable skill, his appearance is tricky to understand now, but it seems he’s been working on something underground for quite some time. The casting team has done a great job picking the right people for this show, now it’s time to let them do their thing.

With many of the bells and whistles being stripped off this week and last, it’s going to be interesting to see where this show is headed.

mm
About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*