The Walking Dead – Isolation Review

Three episodes into The Walking Dead’s fourth season, and the series continues its fresh lick of pace under new showrunner Scott M. Gimple. Its quite strange to see the way the story has been taken in certain parts, and yet it all feels like a change for the better. One of the big complaints of last season was that with all the feuding between Rick’s camp at the prison and the Governor’s camp at Woodbury, zombies no longer felt like much of a threat. Sure they were there, in the background, but they felt like a minor part of the story. The other thing which has annoyed people in seasons past was that the story inside the camps always felt a little like some overdramatic soap opera, always infighting over who loves who and who should get what. With Gimple at the head, the show has looked to target the issues fans have had with the show and wipe them out. Consider Isolation a laser targeted fan delight, spattered with the odd issue here or there.

*Warning Spoilers*

I don’t think I can really go anywhere before I talk about the “whodunit?” storyline in the camp. Its a nice change of pace from what has happened in the camps of previous seasons, with Rick put in the role of Sheriff (funnily enough), trying to figure out all these mysteries among the small town of people in the Prison. Who killed Karen and that other guy and burned their bodies? Who has been feeding rats to the walkers? How will they ever cure the sick people? Well, at least they’re taking their time feeding us through the answers. Three episodes in and its already abundantly clear that Carol killed Karen, if not because of her tantrum in the yard then definitely when she admits to Rick that she did it. At least they didn’t show the tantrum and then spend weeks having Rick still investigating while everybody already knows who it was.

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The Whodunit story leads to its own spinoff series.

It sort of makes sense, given the direction Carol’s character has gone in the last few episodes. She’s the character who is willing to do anything to keep her people safe, whether that means training children how to use knives, or going out into zombie territory alone so she can fix the water system, or apparently killing two people and burning their corpses. It actually seems quite reasonable of a move for her, considering how much she’s been through as a character since the very beginning. From a wife to an abusive husband in Season 1, to losing her child in such a torturous way in Season 2, to having Axel’s brains sprayed over her and having to use his body as a shield in Season 3. She’s a character who has been through the absolute ringer, and out of everyone she’s the one who you can most understand turning to a rather black and white, survival at all costs type of character.

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Carol: From victim of domestic abuse to murderer in  less than 4 seasons.

Given the reaction of Tyreese after finding Karen’s body and reporting it to Rick, one can only imagine what might happen if Tyreese ever found out Carol was the one who did it. If he would throw punches at Rick just for trying to be calm and not start a witchhunt, if he’s so blind in his rage to get into bad situations (more on that later), just think of how dead Carol is going to be if Tyreese finds out it was her. I wouldn’t be surprised if he picked her up and threw her over the fences onto one of those massive wood stakes they built at the gates. But that’s assuming he does find out its her, as its now Rick’s responsibility to deal out justice how he sees fit. Will he string her up and kick her out of the group? Will he kill her? Will he tell Tyreese? Or will he wait for someone to die and then blame it on them, like Mr Orange in Reservoir Dogs? There’s only one way to find out! Keep watching the show.

So now that’s been talked about, its time to move onto the other fairly massive stuff that happened in this episode. Three more big names have now contracted this killer flu virus, meaning there’s actually members of the main cast who looks like they could see the chopping block. Of course, Dr. Hershel is now doing everything he can with his home remedies and old wives tales to help the sick people, but I don’t expect him to go much longer without getting sick himself after having blood coughed in his face. But still, miracles do seem to happen on The Walking Dead, every now and then. Still, Glenn, Sasha and little girl Lizzie are all up for death by flu, and while I don’t think I would mind it too much of Sasha or Lizzie were to die, for Glenn to be killed by a “glorified cold” (his words, not mine) would truly suck.

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Speaking of characters who have come a long way. It would really suck if Glenn died in such a rubbish way.

So in the wisdom of the group, the only way to heal the sick is by going to get medical supplies from a veterinary college 50 miles away. Along for the ride is Daryl, Michonne, Tyreese and army medic Bob. Of course, as Daryl said during the planning stages, these things always go the same way, at some point they have to run. But before I get to that part, a quick note on what happened in the car before everything kicks off. For some reason, god only knows why, Daryl turns the radio on and they hear a message around about 96.9 (The Bay?). And yet another big question looms over the storyline, who is the person on the radio?

We’re fairly used to the shot that happens next, someone driving the car being distracted by something and then bang! Walkers in the road. I guarantee nobody was expecting to see what came next though, as a few dozen zombies inched towards the car, and the camera panned out to show literally thousands of them herded together about 50 metres away. We’ve seen the zombies gather en masse before, like the herd that passed through the group at the start or Season 2, or the even bigger herd that destroyed Hershel’s farm at the end, but this represents a whole new scale of massive. I’m talking, that shot in World War Z where the zombies start climbing over each other like a wave to get up and over a wall-massive. So of course, they hot tail it out of there as quickly as possible, and of course the car gets stuck and they decide to run for the hills. Fair enough, its a tough fight but Daryl, Michonne and Bob can handle themselves well enough to make a path and get out. Tyreese on the other hand, still in his hellbent rage, decides the best course of action is to stay in the car till he’s surrounded by a circle of zombies about 10 deep on all sides, then gets out and starts hammering them all and manages to escape.

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Permission to freak out? Granted!!

I understand that Tyreese’s getting out of a certain death situation is not a first time thing. He was in a similar situation at one point in the comics and he survived. However, just when you think the new direction of the show is to make the zombies a big threat again, Super-Ty goes and shows them all up. Sure, he’s exhausted and covered in guts by the end, but he’s still alive, and for now at least he looks unscathed.

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Yea, because you’re definitely getting out of that one alive, especially when 30 more come in from the sides.

This massive roadblock in the way of the supply raiding party seems to mean that for a while this season, we’re going to see the group divided. I don’t expect our 4 survivors to be back at the Prison in the next 4 or 5 episodes, given how far out they are, how they’re now adjacent to a mob the likes they have never seen before, and are now without a mode of transport. It’ll certainly make for an interesting story going forward, especially in that they were supposed to be getting supplies for the sick and obviously won’t be able to anymore. I’m just hoping it doesn’t turn into a ticking clock drama where every day they wait for the supply team to come back things get more and more dramatic with the sick getting more and more sick and another person dying every episode till they get back just in time to save the last person.

Final Thoughts

The new feel of the series, the whole “whodunit?” vibe with new questions every episode is certainly keeping me hooked. And in a zombie oriented series, its nice to see them upping the scale and the danger around the zombies, rather than them being there as a sort of side-plot. Carol’s transformation is making for interesting TV too, and I’m already anticipating what exactly will happen to her now that Rick knows she killed 2 people. But there were still issues for me, chief among them being Tyreese’s magical escape from a certain death situation. I can suspend my belief to a certain extent watching TV, but that moment took it too far.