Long before Alexandria, the Hilltop and Negan, there was a simpler time on AMC’s The Walking Dead. Despite being set in Virginia for the past couple of seasons, the apocalypse began in Atlanta, Georgia back in 2010, so let’s take a minute to reflect on The Walking Dead‘s first season on this fine Throwback Thursday.
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Before Michonne, before Abraham and Eugene, even before Hershel Greene, there was Merle, T-Dog, Andrea, and Ed. Carol was humbled and abused housewife and Rick was, above all, a loving husband and father. Shane Walsh was one of the biggest driving factors of the show and Glenn Rhee hadn’t hardly evolved from the pre-apocalypse pizza boy to the survivor he is now.
Remember the first time Rick and Glenn covered themselves in zombie guts to escape the mall in Atlanta? Rick read the dead man’s ID aloud to commemorate him – something which would seem absurd to today’s characters. How about when T-Dog accidentally dropped the key to Merle’s handcuffs down the drain on the rooftop? Getting a bit nostalgic now, huh?
The Walking Dead‘s first season set the tone for this dark, desolate series as Rick rode his horse into Atlanta to discover just how far gone the world he used to know was. But it was from the jump that Robert Kirkman showed us how ruthless the series would be. Sheriff Rick Grimes was forced to gun down a zombified young girl as she approached him with a teddy bear in her hand. The show’s boundaries were clearly ready to stretch the limits for cable.
Let’s not forget it was Morgan Jones who introduced Rick to the walkers in an emotional opening episode as the character struggled to protect his son and internally battled himself about whether or not he should put down his zombified wife.
Death felt like a much bigger issue in the early days of The Walking Dead. Dale, Shane, Daryl and the others’ camp was infested with zombies and several lives were lost which wasn’t something characters or viewers knew how to just brush off at the time. Ed was taken down which probably earned an ovation from the audience but Andrea’s sister Amy was also bitten and reanimated as a walker. It was a time of grief and also learning for the characters and viewers, alike. At the time, no one knew that dying without being bitten meant reanimating until brains were damaged!
While everyone is so vocal and divided about The Walking Dead‘s season six cliffhanger, we forget that season one ended on a cliffhanger, as well. Dr. Jenner tried to lock our survivors into the CDC as it exploded. Sure, they escaped and we knew they were alive but where had no idea where they were going. Fans of the TV series didn’t know that Hershel’s farm was on the horizon and eventually the group would end up taking refuge in a prison.
The Walking Dead is currently in the midst of production for its seventh season which will begin airing in October but in the mean time, let’s throw it back to the first season with some nostalgic photos in the gallery below.
