The Walking Dead Review: Seasons 1-6

Doing a review of The Walking Dead is hard because of the length; I’ve been working on this project since the end of the last school year. I’ll be reviewing seasons one through six in this first part. At the moment, I’m only on season ten of it, and I’m really enjoying it, so part two should be out soon. Without further ado, let’s begin this very long review. (There will be spoilers.)

Season One: The Start of it All

It’s easy to see why this show became an instant hit. From the first episode, the directors do a great job at building a tone and an atmosphere for this universe. It is really impressive that for most of the first episode, Rick (the main character for the whole series) is all by himself and silently taking in everything that happened while he was asleep.

Andrew Lincoln (the actor playing Rick) does a great job at showing all of the emotions that Rick would be feeling with only facial expressions. It seems like a risky move to write episodes in which Rick is by himself for a significant amount of time, but it warms us up to him and shows us what the world is going through at this point. There are no hordes of walkers, no cults, no evil humans, and all Rick knows is that something has happened to the world when he sees the signs of a ruined civilization. When we get to episode two and meet the rest of the cast, we instantly trust them because we, as an audience, don’t know that any humans will be sinister. Also, since we spent so long with Rick by himself, it makes us desperate to see other people. 

The characters in this season are fan favorites, and the actors are all great, with Merle Dixon being a standout. Michael Rooker is a great actor who, while not a likable character in the slightest, just goes crazy with his performance. Additionally, Jon Bernthal’s character, Shane, was a great first villain for the series. He believes he was cheated out of multiple things that he was owed, and he does anything to try to take back what he believes to be his. Even the less interesting characters like Andrea’s sister are used to show how violent this show can be. Even in the beginning, the show doesn’t hold back when showing disgusting imagery and terrifying moments, and the practical effects lead to these scenes looking so much more real. 

This season is a lot shorter than any other season, so it doesn’t have any filler and flows well. Most of the other seasons of this show have a few too many episodes, but this season doesn’t and is a great introduction season. It does leave off on a cliffhanger, but the director set up enough plotlines to warrant a second season. So is season two better, or worse? Let’s find out. 8/10

Season Two: The Amazing Continuation

Season two is unsurprisingly way better than the first one, for a multitude of reasons. The first season already set up the world and characters of this series, so they didn’t need to set up anything new and just kept going with the plots they already set up. Season one’s cliffhanger doesn’t get paid off for a good while into this season, but the new plotlines more than cover it. By the time it is addressed at the end of season one, the audience most likely forgot about it. The big twist at the end is that the doctor from season one told Rick that everyone was infected by the outbreak. That plotline pays off when Rick kills Shane, and Shane comes back from the dead and tries to kill Rick. It’s a cool twist that kind of comes out of nowhere, but it’s good for giving a late season surprise. 

This season is also very good at handling a lot of characters. The characters we were introduced to last season are expanded on, and a few new ones are shown as well. Some are just as interesting as the pre-established characters. This is one of the more balanced seasons in regard to character work and action. The action is pretty fantastic, all of it being stressful, and it hints at how the humans will later become more scary than the walkers. The actors really kill it in every scene, with a standout being Jon Bernthal. He really kills it, even more so than last season, with him being the object of tension and making everything build up until you get big moments like the end of episode seven, which is still one of the best episodes in the series. Season two is full of great scenes, so this is one of the best seasons in this show. 9/10

Season Three: A Significant Upgrade

This is one of my favorite seasons of this show that I’ve seen up to. It hits all of the right notes—the directors and producers saw what people liked about this show and perfected it. Once again, there’s a really great balance of action and character work. The characters aren’t quite as interesting as in season two; but when the show explores the emotions of the characters, it does that great. The highlight is Rick; I think he’s the most interesting in this season due to some trauma that affects him for years to come, and he’s really cool to watch. When Lori dies, Andrew Lincoln really makes you feel the emotion of that loss, with a whole episode of him breaking down. Another highlight of acting can be seen in the villain of the season, the Governor. What’s interesting about him is how mysterious he is. The show doesn’t tell us much of his backstory or even his name. All we know is that his daughter is dead, and he can’t let her go, even after she turns into a walker. He also really wants superiority over everyone around him, creating a paradise for his people in the process. He’s interesting because he’s a legitimate threat but also has the power of charisma, so he can get people to join him even if they really shouldn’t. The characters are great of course, but the real star of this season is the action and the tension. I didn’t want to stop watching this because there would be a plot twist or cliffhanger all the time. The set pieces are also really interesting; they fight in really cool places, creating a much better variety than season two, where they only went to a few places other than the farm. In this season, they go to a prison, the Governor's town, army bases, and it’s all fun to watch. This season also introduces some characters that I really like, with Tyreese and Michonne, so overall, this season is really great. 9/10

Season Four: The Bizarre Slowdown 

This season marks the first time when I wasn’t enjoying this show, for a multitude of reasons. It starts off pretty great, with the Governor returning and launching a counter attack on the prison, but it drops off after that. The problem is that once the prison is destroyed, nothing else is as interesting as that. The villain is killed off, so it’s hard to tell where the season is supposed to go from there. It’s plain to see that the writers were having trouble, so they included plotlines that really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. One of the worst plotlines involves a pair of sisters, one of whom gets sick and turns into a murderer. The plotline is decent; but it has nothing to do with the main plot, and the actress wasn’t doing very well in her role. Yes, she is a child actor, I understand that. I just think that if they wanted the plotline to have more meaning and more believability, they should’ve chosen someone else to portray her. The girl playing her sister is a much better actress than her, so they should’ve just swapped the roles or something. Otherwise, the main cast is split up for the whole season, so there are full episodes of only Beth and Daryl, for example. Every episode just cuts back to another group of people that got stuck together, and it’s really repetitive and uninteresting. The ending is very satisfying when they do all get back together, but the leadup to that was very boring and just not fun to watch. 4/10

Season Five: A Hot Mess

This is the worst season that I’ve seen so far, so this may take a while to rant about. It’s just as bad as season four in, but for different reasons. The only thing that I like more in season five is that it begins AND ends strong, whereas season four simply begins strong. This season has nothing interesting to its name aside from a few instances, and it is also frustrating the whole way through. I probably liked a total of three episodes. It’s just a shame that the FIRST episode is the one I like the most. It’s a really good action episode in which the main cast try to escape from Terminus, a camp of cannibals that kidnapped them. I wouldn’t even call this a great episode though, because the Terminus plotline was really rushed. This retroactively makes season four even worse, because getting to Terminus was the entire focus of that season; and it didn’t even matter by the end, as they broke out in a single episode. They also get incredibly lucky—Walking Dead characters are usually lucky, yes, but this episode goes too far. RIGHT as soon as the characters are about to be executed, they get saved by Carol, and it’s just too lucky to forgive in a show that is supposed to be realistic. If I sound mad, keep in mind that this is only the first and the best episode, in my opinion. The worst plotline of this season is the hospital plotline, which apparently wasn’t in the comics at all, and is in the show for no reason other than to pad the runtime. The cast tries to go there to break out Beth, who got held there against her will, and it takes a really long time for her to get out. As soon as she escapes, she makes the stupid move of shooting at her captor, getting herself shot and killed in the process. The only thing that we got out of this plotline is the character of Noah, who is one of the least interesting characters anyway, so this arc was pretty much worthless. Noah also dies a few episodes later, so nothing from this plotline resulted in anything. We also get another unsatisfying end to a plotline, which seems to be a theme for this season. Since season four, the characters of Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita try to get to Washington in order to create a cure for the entire world. Eugene is supposedly a great scientist, so a handful of characters go with him to Washington, facing many struggles along the way, and they never even get there. On the way there, Eugene just blurts out that he was lying because he was scared, and that he can’t cure humanity, and it was the worst reveal in the entire series. The ride there also took many episodes, only for them to just turn around and go back. So as a whole, this season just felt like the creators giving the entire audience the middle finger multiple times, and it is excruciating to watch. 3/10

Season Six: Back on Track

This season is really, really, good. Previously, I made remarks stating that my favorite season of this show is three, but six comes very close, in my opinion. The first half of the season isn’t as great as the second half, but it starts out with a lot of tension. The conflict is all about trying to fit into Alexandria. Alexandria is the new community that the characters discover at the end of season five and try to lead a huge herd of walkers away from it. This isn’t anything new, but it mostly serves as a way for the characters to prove themselves to the people of Alexandria, and is a good action set piece on its own. The mid-season finale, as some call it, was pretty great, as the herd gets closer and closer to the community every episode, finally leading up to the moment where the walkers invade. After a few deaths, Rick is motivated to go berserk on the walkers, taking them all out one by one. It seems that all hope is lost; but everyone comes together to help Rick fight them, and they get rid of the whole herd just from sheer willpower. While this part of the season is great, the second half is where it really shines for me. Since a tiny Easter egg midway through this season, the characters of Negan and the Saviors have been hinted at. They finally appear in this season, and this got me the most hyped up out of anything in the entire show. The way directors and actors build the tension and suspense is honestly a really great lesson in how to build hype. The main group comes across a society of people who reveal that the group called the Saviors (and their leader, Negan,) have been stealing from them and threatening them. Since the main group needs food, Alexandria agrees to trade food for killing the Saviors. Rick and the group come across the Saviors’ outpost, mistakenly thinking that every Savior was at the outpost, and kill everyone there without much trouble. But soon enough, they realize their mistake. More Saviors ambush them on the road, and the main characters are put in a desperate situation. Before the viewer even has time to think, Negan reveals himself. This is such an iconic scene. Negan walks out of an RV into the crowd of main characters on their knees, immediately making his mark on the show. He plays a twisted game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe to decide which person needs to die, punishing them for killing his men. The season leaves off on a cliffhanger, where people had to wait for months in order to see what would happen next. I had to only wait a day to watch more of the show, but it was still killing me as I tried to figure out what happened. Overall, I wouldn’t say that this season is the best, necessarily, but definitely one of my favorites. After this season, I couldn’t wait to see what else happened, but does the next season hold that same energy? Let’s find out. 8/10

I’m pretty glad that there are eleven seasons of this show, because ending with season 4 or 5 would be such a disappointment. Despite this show’s worst seasons, I think it is all worth watching, because the classic characters are really great, and the audience gets attached to new characters. I’m glad I can end this review on a high note, though. Stay tuned for my review of the second half of the show, where I will start off discussing  the season that changed the tone and style of the show forever.