Episode Title: “30 Days Without an Accident”
Writer: Scott M. Gimple
Director: Greg Nicotero
Previously on “The Walking Dead”:
Episode 3.16 “Welcome to the Tombs”
In case you were wondering why AMC has already set up a “Walking Dead” spinoff/companion series for 2015, the fourth season premiere had 16.1 million viewers… which is insanely high and a record for basic cable dramas. Not only has this episode outperformed almost every other drama on broadcast networks or cable this year, “The Walking Dead” even beat an NFL game on NBC in the coveted 18-49 demo!
So, it’s fairly safe to call “The Walking Dead” one of the biggest shows on television. That’s a huge standard to live up to, especially following the exit of showrunner Glen Mazzara, the man who perfected the formula for “The Walking Dead.” Robert Kirkman created the comic book series and Frank Darabont brought it to TV, but “The Walking Dead” was at its best under Mazzara.
The new showrunner, Scott M. Gimple wrote some of the third season’s standout episodes, including “Hounded” and “This Sorrowful Life.” Gimple also wrote last night’s season premiere, “30 Days Without An Accident.”
For the most part, the episode had a few quiet subplots and one fantastically realized zombie assault that won’t quickly be forgotten. “30 Days Without An Accident” felt like an oddly subdued episode of the series, but there was more than enough to keep the audience interested even during the slow moments.
There are full spoilers ahead for “30 Days Without an Accident,” so if you haven’t seen the fourth season premiere of “The Walking Dead” then you should probably skip this review or else Daryl is going to lick his hand before shaking yours.
Picking up an unspecified amount of time after last season’s finale, “30 Days Without an Accident” finds Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) closer to a place of sanity and living like a farmer behind the prison walls. Apparently there’s now a council that makes decisions for the prison survivors and Rick has deliberately removed himself from a position of power.
That Hershel Greene (Scott Wilson) has to practically order Rick to carry a gun for protection speaks volumes about Rick’s aversion to being the man that he used to be. Rick once told the survivors that he wouldn’t be their Governor. But now he’s not even their Rick… their alpha male who keeps every alive at all costs. Instead, that honor falls to Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus), who seems surprised by the way that the new survivors from Woodbury seem to idolize him.
People who haven’t read the comics and fans of the original story are now in the same situation: we don’t know what’s coming next. “The Walking Dead” has entered uncharted territory by merging the survivors of Woodbury and the prison into a single group. That’s in addition to several dead characters on the TV show, who lived a lot longer in the original story.
I suspect that the change was made in part to keep the action at the prison and to give the show’s creative team plenty of people to kill off whenever they feel like it. Death is no stranger on this show, as three series regulars were killed off last season alone.
Tyreese (Chad Coleman) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) both appear to have much larger roles this season, but even a minor character like Karen (Melissa Ponzio) seems more important thanks to her scenes at the prison gates and her romance with Tyreese. Even the rarely used Beth Greene (Emily Kinney) gets her own love interest in the form of Zach (Kyle Gallner), who is closer to her age than Carl (Chandler Riggs) is.
The episode also introduced Bob (Lawrence Gilliard, Jr.), another character from the comic who appears to have a much bigger part in the TV continuity. Because of that character’s origins, I have my suspicions about his loyalty. But to be honest, nothing Bob does in this episode made him appear to be suspicious. Instead, we get a brief picture of Bob’s history with alcohol as he silently struggles to deal with its pull on him. And even when Bob finds the strength to put the bottle back on the shelf, it literally comes crashing down on him along with the entire shelf of booze.
Zombie guru Greg Nicotero deserves credit for staging one of the most inventive walker attacks in a long time. We’re so used to zombies breaking through doors and windows that it was refreshingly horrifying to watch them fall through the rotted roof of the superstore, followed by an army helicopter that threatened to crush everyone inside. That was a really exciting sequence. But while Bob was fortunate enough to be rescued, Zach had the misfortune of getting bitten and crushed. So… not a good day for him.
Darryl seems to take Zach’s death personally and he goes to Beth to break the news. Her response is so unemotional that Darryl is caught off guard. Beth simply changes the sign from “30 Days Without an Accident” to “0 Days” and says that she was glad to know Zach while he was alive. This must be Beth’s defense mechanism to living in this world.
Meanwhile, her sister Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Glenn (Steven Yeun) had a subplot involving a pregnancy scare. But unlike Beth, Maggie wants to embrace being alive rather than simply existing to draw breath. She tells Glenn that they can have children because she doesn’t want to live in fear. Glenn hasn’t quite reached the same point.
Even Tyreese gets a subplot as he begs out of gate duty because he doesn’t like killing the walkers up close… but he doesn’t like going out on runs either. His sister, Sasha has already found her place among the leaders of the prison. But Tyreese doesn’t know where he belongs.
For her part, Carol (Melissa McBride) seems to have figured out what she wants (besides Darryl). Carol assumes the role of teacher for the children of Woodbury, as she offers them both storytime and knife lessons. Although from Carl’s reaction and Carol’s plea to keep it from Rick, I’m guessing that knives weren’t on the approved list of subjects.
Outside of the prison, Rick encounters Clara (Kerry Condon), a sickly woman who looks and moves so much like a walker that Rick is visibly shocked when she calls out to him. Just one look at Clara’s face and her physical condition shows how poorly she’s been doing in the zombie apocalypse as she begs Rick to allow her and her husband, Eddie to join their group.
Rick is appropriately suspicious of Clara, but he gives her the chance to prove him wrong by letting her lead him to her husband. From Rick’s perspective, it’s not charity. The larger the group, the more protection they can provide each other from the zombies and people like the Governor (David Morrissey), who is nowhere to be seen in this episode.
Predictably, Clara’s sob story turns out to be desperate attempt to make Rick into food for her zombified husband’s severed head (which we don’t get to see). Clara’s insanity is meant to reflect Rick;’s descent into madness during the third season. And Rick is taken aback by Clara’s insistence that there is no coming back from the things that they’ve done to survive. Rick can’t keep Clara from killing herself, but he honors her request to let her rise as a walker to be with her husband.
Michonne (Danai Gurira) was basically Batman in this episode. She rides back into the prison and kicks all kinds of ass during the superstore zombie attack. With Lori and Andrea out of the picture, Michonne and Maggie are the new female leads of this series. From a few lines of dialogue, we learn that Michonne hasn’t been living in the prison because she’s still trying to track down the Governor and finish him off. She’s probably got the right idea too.
I was at New York Comic-Con over the weekend and I saw “The Walking Dead” panel where the crowd and even Norman Reedus cheered on the idea of a Rick and Michonne romance. As unlikely as that sounded last season, there’s definitely something to that idea just from the way that Rick and Michonne interact with each other. Even Carl seems to defer to Michonne as they share a passion for comic books. A slow build is the right approach to this. If a romance is gonna happen, then it should be done right and at its own pace.
But it’s hard to have time for love when death is always at hand. In the closing moments, Carl’s new friend Patrick (Vincent Martella) dies from an apparent disease and he instantly rises again as a walker. Yeah… that’s not gonna be good for anyone. If the disease is in the live stock that the survivors have amassed, then it’s not like they can easily replace the infected animals. And if it’s an airborne disease then everyone is screwed.
A more disturbing thought is that Darryl may be one of the carriers of the disease without even realizing it. Earlier in the episode, Darryl licks the food off of his hand before shaking hands with Patrick. From that point on, Patrick’s illness advances until his untimely death in the shower. It could be that Darryl and some of the other survivors have built up an immunity to the virus in their bodies, but other people may not be as lucky.
“30 Days Without an Accident” wasn’t a flashy episode, but it was solid entertainment and I’m eager to see the next episode. In that regard, mission accomplished. Now, let’s see where Gimple and company take us this season.
