Today is The Walking Dead executive producer Greg Nicotero‘s 54th birthday.
The passionate VFX genius behind the AMC series’ zombies and some of its best episode is a genuine cheerleader for the horror genre in general. Prior to his work on The Walking Dead, Nicotero was involved with films and TV shows such as Savages, The Book of Eli, Kill Bill, Sin City, Grindhouse. As a director, Nicotero helmed a TV movie titled Galyntine and a short called The United Monster Talent Agency.
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It was 2012 when Nicotero truly burst into the directing game with his first episode of The Walking Dead, Judge, Jury, Executioner in Season 3.
Since debuting as a director on The Walking Dead, Nicotero has gone on to direct some of the best episodes the AMC series has had to offer. On the following slides, ComicBook.com wishes Nicotero a happy birthday by looking at some of his best episodes.
No Way Out
The Walking Dead‘s midseason 6 premiere featured one of the series’ most epic zombie killing montages which was ripped straight from the pages of Robert Kirkman’s comics.
All of Alexandria was overrun with a seemingly bottomless horde of walkers. Rick, Carl, Jessie, Ron, Sam, Michonne, Father Gabriel, and Judith attempted to walk among them, covered in the dead’s blood. However, Sam got scared as night fell and he saw a reanimated child walking aimlessly and called out for his mother. His getting devoured by zombies prompted Jessie’s terrified shrieks which earned a spot on a plate at the zombie buffet, too.
Quickly, Rick chopped off Jessie’s arm as she held on to Carl, which all lead to the last remaining Anderson family member to take a shot at Rick and shoot Carl in the eye as Michonneย stabbed him in the back.ย
Nicotero masterfully used the emotion of the scene and made walkers terrifying, again.
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What Happened And What’s Going On
Tyreeses’sย final episode on The Walking Dead was a touching sendoff for the character.
As Rick’s group head out to Noah’s old neighborhood and found it was destroyed by the Wolves, Tyreese was left vulnerable in Noah’s family’s house. One of Noah’s little brothers wondered into the room and bit Tyreese’sย arm, forming a heartbreaking moment which saw Noah put down a reanimated family member, but also Tyreese’sย final visions.ย
The Governor, Bob Stookey, Beth Greene, and Lizzie Samuelsย popped up to invite Tyreeseย to the other side and we even got a taste of Andrew Lincoln’s true English accent in a radio distress call which Tyreeseย heard in a hallucination.
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No Sanctuary
The Season 5 premiere of The Walking Dead is one of the show’s best.
With Rick, Daryl, Michonne, Abraham and the rest of the group ready to be killed by the cannibals of Terminus, Carol Pelettierย came to their rescue. Last seen by the group having been banished from the prison for killing Tyreese’sย girlfriend and another resident in an effort to prevent sickness, the widowed mother of late Sophia literally blew up the community as she rescued her friends.ย
Nicoteroย plugged brutal cannibal violence into the start of the episode and mashed it up with intense action as Rick and group shot their way out to an emotional reunion with Carol.
No Sanctuary is one of (if not the) best episodes of The Walking Dead.ย
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Not Tomorrow Yet
Rick’s overconfidence ended up costing him in the end but Nicoteroย leading the group’s first active strike on the Saviors offered some of the show’sย best action.
Action, however, is not enough to make an episode stand out on a show which is often loaded with it. The moments which saw Glenn commit his first kills on living people, Jesus showing up to save everybody, and Father Gabriel offering up a prayer before someone to meet their maker combined to make Not Tomorrow Yet excellent.ย
Plus, it included a mold of Johnny Depp’sย head.
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The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be
The most talked about and highly anticipated episode of The Walking Dead is divisive among some fans, with arguments of “too much violence” going against “it was brilliant” quite frequently.ย
In either case, the storytelling methods in the Season 7 premiere maintained the “Who died?” suspense by offering up a flashback style episode. Both Abraham Ford and Glenn Rhee were brutally slain by Negan, realizing Glenn’s iconic comic book death from issue #100 and course correcting to take Abraham out, offering up an additional surprise for viewers.
The stellar introduction of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s character paired with Andrew Lincoln’s heartbreaking performance all comes from Greg Nicotero’s call of “action” on Episode 7×01.
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