The Walking Dead 1.06 "TS-19" Review

It was interesting to see season one of The Walking Dead end on a subdued note.

Oh, what’s that? It didn’t, you say? It ended with one of the biggest damn explosions ever seen on television? Oh yeah. There’s that.

One of my favorite things about “TS-19” was its reliance on time. In the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, our characters have come not to rely on time. There was an off-handed remark earlier this year about how Dale’s watch was now useless just to prove that very point. And then, suddenly, time is of the essence. As the CDC in Atlanta runs out of power, a countdown clock ticks away the moments until it “decontaminates.” We saw decontamination last week with Jenner’s TS-19 sample, but this was of a much bigger variety. (Why do I keep coming back to that explosion? Maybe it’s the caveman in me that wants to gawk in awe at the big fire.)

It was an interesting choice to show so few zombies in this episode, though. In fact, this episode was markedly different from all the others of the season. The earthy color palette of the first five episodes was replaced with metallic blue and grey. And sure, we got a few bloodspurting zombie kills at the end of the episode (Daryl’s zombie decapitation was my favorite). But really the episode was about Edmond Jenner.

Noah Emmerich did a fine job of acting with this episode, and I was almost sad that he had to go into that fiery furnace. It would have been great to see more of him next year, though it was great to see him get two and a half episodes of prime storyline. In fact, everyone did a great job of acting. Jon Bernthal and Sarah Wayne Callies were great in the almost-rape scene of Shane and Lori, and Norman Reedus was great as Daryl Dixon. I don’t know why, but I really like the live-wire redneck.

I’ll leave the rest for the recap, but I must say, this episode was a good way to end things for the first season, and I can’t wait to see where our survivors drive off to next. Oh, and did you see that explosion? A