Really, AMC? Rick Grimes killing zombies? You think that’s the best way to tease the second season of The Walking Dead?
Before I delve into this trailer, I should note that I am a rabid fan of The Walking Dead. I own every hardcover collection of Robert Kirkman’s comic series, the Blu-Ray release of the TV show’s first season, and consider the overarching tale to be the greatest “pure zombie” story ever told.
(Romero doesn’t count. His best films aren’t really zombie movies, so much as allegories about the horrors of mob mentality, consumerism and John Leguizamo.)
Thus, when I imagine what sort of tantalizing vignette AMC could toss at fans to tease the second season of the show, all kinds of brilliant moments spring to mind. Unfortunately, AMC opted to appeal primarily to people whose only knowledge of the series centers on its inclusion of shambling corpsefolk.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of Rick Grimes splattering a couple zombies with a rock — they were asking for it, dressed like that — but that’s not exactly the focus of the series, is it?
Those of you who have read the comics will agree with me on this point: The Walking Dead, first and foremost, is a literary experiment designed to see just how much horror and misery a writer can visit upon his characters. Presumably, though its plot has deviated somewhat, the TV series will continue to hew close to Kirkman’s bleak, nihilist view of post-apocalyptic reality.
At least, that’s my hope. This trailer, wherein Rick triumphs over numerically superior zombie odds with nothing but a pointy stone, presents a far more optimistic take. That doesn’t exactly jive with my hopes that AMC will somehow find the chutzpah to show a certain horrifically brutal shotgun kill that pushes Rick straight off the edge of sanity, into the world of talking telephones and permanent five o’clock shadow.
What? Don’t look at me like that. Kirkman wrote it, I was just impressed by the savage brutality of the whole thing. And if you’re going to adapt The Walking Dead, why wouldn’t you keep the story’s most shocking dramatic twist?
Season 2 of The Walking Dead premieres in October, so you still have a few months to hope against hope that AMC doesn’t neuter this thing.
