Early Review: The Walking Dead Season 4’s First Two Episodes

2013/10/12 21:35:13 +00:00 | Jonathan James

The Walking Dead Season 4 starts this Sunday with the first of sixteen episodes. Taking place months after the event of the Season 3 finale, the prison grounds have become a thriving community of survivors. Of course, nothing tends to go well in the world of The Walking Dead and the group faces a number of threats the first two episodes. With an excellent balance of intense character moments, action, and horror, The Walking Dead Season 4 is off to a very promising start

*Note: Due to the fact that these episodes have not yet aired, I’m keeping details light to avoid spoilers. With that being said, if you want to know absolutely nothing going into the Season 4 premiere, you may not want to read this review.

Directed by Greg Nicotero, the first episode focuses on Rick’s group and Woodbury refugees attempt at building a normal life on the prison grounds. As expected, Nicotero does a great job with zombie scenes, but he also manages to handle personal moments and the introduction of new characters in a way that makes everything feel very natural. Of course, this also thanks to Scott M. Gimple’s script, which is reminiscent of the first season’s pacing. Previously, he had written a number of standout episodes, including “Clear” and “Pretty Much Dead Already,” and his ability to juggle all of these situations and give every character some importance in the episode is really impressive.

We were told that the walkers were coming back in a big way this season and they weren’t lying. After taking a bit of a backseat in the second half of Season 3, the walkers are back in full force and the creative team has come up with new ways to make them scary. There’s no shortage of gore in the first two episodes and it wouldn’t be The Walking Dead if there weren’t some human casualties as well.

There’s not too much that I want to give away regarding the main characters of The Walking Dead in the first two episodes, but everyone is given ample screen time. More importantly, characters that were not featured as prominently, such as Tyreese and Carol, have a big part to play. The Woodbury survivors are working together with Rick’s group to make the prison grounds a safe place to live and you’ll get a good feel for many of them in a short period of time. However, as expected, not everyone is on the same page when it comes to the best way to survive in this post-apocalyptic world.

Similar to the third season, the first episode ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and you’ll wish you could watch the next episode right away, as they play like a two-parter. Thankfully, I did have a chance to catch the second episode as well. Taking place right after the events of the first episode, we learn of a new threat that the prison community faces. The survivors will have different reactions to this threat and it’s likely to be a main focus of the first half of Season 4. I don’t want to spoil anything for our readers, so I’ll save additional episode 2 impressions for after the first episode airs.

There’s a noticeable difference to how the material in this season is handled compared to last season, but it doesn’t feel like a different show or a full reboot. Instead, it plays a bit closer to what we saw during the first season. There was an excitement in seeing new characters brought into the fold and how they affected the larger group. While the graphic novel had a significant number of characters at the prison before the introduction of The Governor, that didn’t happen at the start of Season 3 and I’m glad to see that they are taking some time to focus on that this time around.

If you've enjoyed the first three seasons of The Walking Dead, you'll feel right at home with Season 4 and there's plenty to get excited about. For others, these first two episodes offer a bit of a fresh start on the characters and material, and I'd suggest giving them a try. Mixing so many characters together while advancing the story and making sure to include enough action, horror, and character development is no easy challenge, but The Walking Dead Season 4 managed to pull it off very well in the first two episodes, and I'm excited to see what they have planned.

Score: 4/5

*Note: The score is compared to other episodes in the series and is a combined episode score, as I viewed them together.

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We have more coverage of The Walking Dead Season 4 on the way, including a contest and an interview with Gale Anne Hurd. Until then, catch up on our coverage by visiting the following links: