‘The Walking Dead’ returns this week, with "The Suicide King"

The Governor (Morrissey) is still a really cool character, and hopefully the writers keep him on track, unlike this week.
AMC

 

After many weeks without seeing a single zombie death, The Walking Dead has finally returned. It’s already been reported that this midseason premiere broke a record previously set by the show for the most viewers, now at 12.3 million. Did the episode live up to this record-breaking hype, or were 12.3 million people left disappointed to end their weekend?

Things picked up immediately after the cliffhanger from a couple months ago. The Governor (David Morrissey) was ready to pit Merle and Daryl (Michael Rooker and Norman Reedus) against each other in his little gladiator/zombie arena. The two were fighting as the episode began, but that was quickly broken up by a rescue attempt featuring Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) in a fairly exciting, though predictable, action scene. After that, there was a quick bit of tension between Glenn (Stephen Yeun), Rick, and Merle that gave Yeun a chance to continue to grow his character. Glenn is quickly becoming one of the best secondary characters on the show, and his short but powerful time in this episode helped to cement that fact.

I was a little surprised to see Rick stick to his guns and allow Daryl to leave with Merle. It’s also a little frustrating, because we all know that Daryl is one of the most popular characters on the show, and there’s no way he won’t be a major part of the show moving forward. If anything, this will prove to be a minor detour that could possibly be a waste of time for everyone, but we’ll see what’s in store for the brothers.

Back at the prison, the rest of the survivors were still dealing with the new group of people, including Tyrese (The Wire’s Chad L. Coleman). Him and his girlfriend certainly seem like reasonable folk, but at the same time they are burdened by the other two men who are more of the combative ilk. When Rick finally returned, it seemed like he was going to be convinced to allow them into the prison, until he saw some bizarre ghostly apparition of who we can assume was supposed to be Lori. I’ll commend Lincoln for putting his best foot forward in portraying Rick losing his mind, but I’m not a huge fan of the path his character is going on. It’s more fun to watch him deal with real issues rather than imagined ones, and I hate to think of what will happen to this show if they sideline his character to deal with some mental breakdown.

Lastly, we have the goings-on at Woodbury. Andrea (Laurie Holden) is as annoying as ever, as she tries to regain control of an increasingly dire situation in the town. The Governor is more set on revenge than control at this point, but I don’t completely buy the way he is acting. Is he surprised that all of his evil deeds finally caught up with him? He was both a bad dude, and someone who understood what the world was like outside of Woodbury, so his almost childish reaction to what happened in the last few episodes isn’t as great to watch as it potentially could be. Hopefully he swings back towards “believable antagonist” territory soon, or else a huge chunk of the second half of this season could be lost.

“The Suicide King” was neither a home-run nor a complete failure. It sat somewhere in the middle, much like the ninth episode of a season should. What hurt this episode more than anything else was the midseason break, something which isn’t taken into account when writing a season of the show. Naturally, a mid-season episode won’t set the world on fire, and shame on AMC for forcing the show to return on such a decidedly calm episode. Unfortunately, with the amazing ratings this episode pulled, we can expect to see more lengthy midseason breaks in the future. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new era of network television, and maybe I just have to get used to it.