The Walking Dead...

I have missed a couple posts.

Mostly this is due to an almost speechless stance!  I just don't know what to say.

But lets start with the last episode, and the music.  Bear McCreary. During the opening scenes of the first season, I took a moment to listen to the music... it was oddly familiar yet hard to identify. Then I nailed it. It was Bear McCreary. I only needed the opening credit sequence to confirm it.

In case you don't know who he is, think Battlestar Galactica, the reboot.  (One of the best shows ever)

That show did not just earn that title on the merits of the drama and acting...

Bear McCreary was the episodic composer for every show except the mini series where he was just a subordinate.  But I am going to go out on a limb and throw this out here... you would be hard pressed to find a better all around television series sound track... any where.

Any one who cares to contest that statement please refer to:



and please provide a more beautiful composition to come from a TV series. Play the song and listen while you read... I guarantee you will play it again!

So why do I bring up Bear?

Well he nailed it in this last episode. The scenes of Rick and co. hiding behind the car skulking up on the town would not have been half as good without Bear's steady tension flow in the background, tieing in the simultanious scenes at the prison and inside the town with Andrea and the Gov.  Bear is a master at this.

And being a fan of his style, I feel that I get an even deeper appreciation for the show.  Next time you are watching it... stop for a second and focus on the music. Then think, are you having an emotional reaction to the acting or action, or are you reacting to the subtle soundtrack in the background... almost telling a story on it's own...

Here is more:



I dare you not to listen to that again.

If you get a chance to go back... take a listen to what is going on during the scenes that Rick is confronting Shane, Sophia is coming out of the barn, or Rick is screwing with the phone.  Or Carl is about to off his mother. Or when Daryl is putting the Cherokee rose on the grave, or finding Carol, or looking for Sophia.  You will find themes and binding movements. I have not had a chance to research it, but I bet if you listen back to season one, you will find the music playing in the background of the scene where Carl shot his mom, it will probably be a darker and more edgy version of whatever theme was playing when we first met the kid. Take a look!  I will add it to my bucket list.

In BSG you caught constant recurring themes behind the characters. Adama and Lee, Adama and Roslyn, Kara, Chief!  Every one had their themes and Bear spliced them together based on who was on screen and mixed them with the main themes of the show creating a work of beauty.

Hah, I just did a youtube search for Bear McCreary Walking dead and found this... no shit.  Im a freaking genius:



Bear sums up the point I was just making. Themes coming together making a darker and more gripping product.

Would the scene in the first season where Rick puts down the walker in the park with no legs been as powerful without this?



Ok. Maybe I had a little much to drink and I was feeling all emotional. :)

A little more... Bear sorta robs this from 28 Days Later, but it is still great:



So any way, the episodes.  I just havn't had a lot to say!  There is little to infer and little to evaluate. The show has sadly taken a turn away from the mental drama where words have many meanings and friends are poised against friends, (Lori, Shane and Rick) and set up a world where we now have a clear cut black and white.  It has sort of become an action movie... standard awesome but not outstanding SciFi.. .stuff.

We have The Governor. We think he is bad, but the show spells it out for us by showing us so.  I wish they would have let him ride a bit longer and made us think more.  You actually start to think that he is not so bad, but then right away they let you in on his fucked up nature as if there is they are trying to tell a story in 90 minutes.

Then we have Andrea and The Gov. What exactly has this dude done to seduce her?  You mean that a few attempts at getting her drunk and spewing evasive humor was all it took? At least with Shane he put her in a life or death situation and got her all worked up.  The Gov just sat there staring at the ground in a garden and let the plants woo her. Maybe he planted some mystical spanish fly flowers.

Glen and Merl... I LOVED the scene with Glen in the basement vs the walker. I think it showed a lot about the kind of person Glen has become. It was touched on when he tried to talk to Rick in the prison while Rick was going mad, glen tried to be emotional and got pushed away. Well, here Glen went into a dark spot of his own.  Perhaps this will tie him closer to Rick than he was before?

But before that came the scene when Glen had Merl in his sights, and Merl was not yet armed.  There came a point, especially when Merl was fumbling for his gun tucked in his pants, that Glen should have put him down. If you watch the scene, Merl digging that 45 out of his trousers took at least 3 seconds.  Glen could have shot him 9 times.  All I can say is I pity the next fool that tries to draw on Glen!

How about the scene in the guys cabin?  What the hell was with the dead dog? Perhaps the guy was eating it.. .but the guy was a hunter.. .or seemed to be. He would have known that it was better to gut, skin and hang the meat rather than let it sit there.  I loved when Michone skewered him though.. .and the guys could only sit and look in sorta shock followed by acceptance.  Great scene.  You do what you gota do!  The convict didn't flinch though!

The almost rape scene on Maggie.... You could feel the tension and pain... it was almost too graphic to talk about.  By pain I mean that Maggie who not long ago was still sheltered living on Daddies Farm was now accepting that she was about to be violated in this cold new world she lived in.

There is not a whole lot more to say. The lines have been drawn. We now have clear cut heroes and bad guys. We have clear cut arching sequence and traditional drama.  We have a wonderfully created show in the same way that Titanic was a wonderfully created movie. We have every thing that makes Avatar, Braveheart and Aliens great movies. But at what cost... I almost find myself longing for the farm... or the quarry...

Jawaballs