The walking dead Season 3 Episode 1: Seed review

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Warning: season 2 spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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After the explosive and action packed finale of season 2 of the walking dead, season 3 had a lot to live up to. Not just in terms of action and scale, but with the writing too. Season 2 frequently had characters repeated their arcs over and over. Shane argued with everyone, carol spoke in her worried voice and Angela and dale had the same argument 5 times an hour. With this repetition, season 2 became bogged down for a good half of its episodes, the search for Sophia being a good example of a plot arc taking far too long to conclude. The season 3 premiere Seed is strong however, and a step in the right direction.

Opening with an almost wordless raid on a house, we are once again reunited with our protagonist Rick and his band of survivors. Subtle indications point out that a large portion of time has elapsed since episode 2, the winter has passed and its spring once more. Little time is wasted, and soon the group finds the prison which they aim to call home. Seed really nails the feel of the first season, a heavy dose of action with just enough downtime and character development to pace out the brutal zombie massacring. And boy is it brutal, eyes are gouged, heads decapitated and faces ripped clean off. Guns are used less here with the majority of fighting being with knives and bats. It does an excellent job of showing us the desperation of the group, making the battle for the prison even more important.

While it’s a little too early to say for sure, characters seem more organic this season. Carl shows more discipline and maturity, Maggie worries less and Carol has a backbone. Daryl is still Daryl (though that’s not a bad thing) and T Dogg still has about 4 lines of dialogue, which is a considerable increase. The most interesting development is between Rick and Lori. After he killed Shane in season 2’s penultimate episode, rick is a much darker character, telling people what to do instead of asking. He and Lori no longer see eye to eye, her impending birth straining their marriage as far as it can go. It’s unfortunate that bad writing from previous seasons has a detrimental effect here, Lori is teeth grindingly annoying, and we would have taken Ricks side, regardless of if he was in the right or not. Regardless, E1 is the walking dead done right, and a fine example on how to premiere a new season.

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