The Walking Dead: Clear [Non-Spoiler Review]

Tonight's episode of AMC's The Walking Dead is an odd beast. It doesn't really make sense if you divorce it from the series' continuity, but at the same time it seems to be its own, standalone little movie--almost a sequel to the feature film-length series pilot that original showrunner Frank Darabont unleashed on the world just over two years ago. Scratch the almost. Tonight is, for all intents and purposes, a sequel to the pilot. It's also, in many ways, its own little film. The tone of the episode is dramatically different from what we're used to, and it falls back on a number of tricks that fans might be used to seeing in zombie movies but which have never really (or at least not recently) been represented in The Walking Dead. That aspect of the episode--the interconnectedness of it with the series pilot, almost makes you wonder whether this might be a key episode as Mazarra oversees the transition to Scott Gimple. That might explain the difference in tone that this episode has from the rest of the season. The episode was written by longtime staff writer and incoming showrunner Scott M. Gimple, and directed by series newcomer Tricia Brock, best known for her work on things like White Collar and Saving Grace. They used storytelling techniques like an "identifiable" zombie who isn't part of the central cast; and signs of life and civilization that have been largely missing for a year or so now on the show, as storytelling tools. It feels odd, out of place, in the world of The Walking Dead. That said, they nicely bookend the story around the pilot, and it would be a great jumping-on point for new viewers if there were anybody alive who wasn't already watching The Walking Dead. Going back to imagery, characters and settings last seen in the series pilot, the themes of the series are explored in a clever way that leaves the viewer considering some of the things about Rick and his group that may not exactly put them at ease. The world, the episode illustrates for us, is very different now and even our hero hasn't been immune to changing with the times. In fact, juxtaposing this episode against the pilot is particularly effective because you get to think back on Morgan Jones, the man who saved Rick Grimes at the start of the plague--who took him into his home, even though he didn't know who Rick was--and compare his actions to the way Rick interacts with strangers now. Rick, who is credited as inspiring Daryl Dixon to change his ways and become a more altruistic person, turns a blind or even a hostile eye to others in need of help if that's what suits his ends and his mood.. And as the viewer, we justify it and rationalize it, because that's the world the characters inhabit. And while Rick might not always respond to outsiders in the way you'd expect, sometimes we get glimpses of the man he used to be, and the man that inhabited so much of the series before Shane turned on him and Rick's leadership approach changed. Interestingly, the moment when we see him make a questionable decision here is one of the ones that feels oddly out of sync with the tone and feel of the series, and more like something you'd see in a movie. So while Rick's actions are impacted by the world he inhabits, the event that precipitates those actions is an odd and unfamiliar one for that world. It's jarring, honestly, and there are a few such moments in the episode where longtime viewers might feel that something isn't quite right. Whether that's an artistic decision, a miscalculation or simply an indicator of changes in tone as Mazzara begins to cede more control to the incoming showrunners is something we likely won't really know until Talking Dead airs, if at all. The other side of that, though, is that there's quite a bit of sentimentality and humanity on display in the episode--and much of it is coming from the last places you'd expect. Okay, well maybe not the last. But from unlikely sources, anyway, and it leaves those characters seeming more vulnerable and, by extension, more human than we've been in a while. We also get two characters who haven't shared a lot of screen time together playing off each other for much of the episode, in a way that's surprising and interesting. And we finally get a character who stands up and makes a bold, declarative statement that nearly every fan has been waiting on for at least a year now.