As fans anticipate the remaining 8 episodes of The Walking Dead’s final season this Fall, AMC’s spin-off series Tales of The Walking Dead has released its first episode. The new series, set in the apocalyptic world of the flagship show, follows a new group of survivors each episode through the lens of a variety of genres, aesthetics, and storytelling devices.
The show’s premiere (directed by Tremors director Ron Underwood!), simply titled “Evie/Joe,” follows two survivors who cross paths on their quest to reconnect with loved ones. Evie, played by Olivia Munn, is a self-sufficient and optimistic survivor seeking to find her ex-husband. Joe, played by Terry Crews, is a former football player who is reeling from the grief of losing his canine best friend. He goes on the hunt to find a former doomsday prepper pen-pal he communicated with before the fall of society. Both survivors are on a quest for human connection, and conveniently cross paths with one another.
What originally excited me about this new anthology series was the ability to let filmmakers take the franchise in unexpected, refreshing directions. Future teasers excitingly hint at a darkly comedic episode, psychological horror with a talking walker, and even an Alpha (Samantha Morton) origin story. Unfortunately, “Evie/Joe” does not kick off this walker-infested experiment in either a refreshing or unique way. The tale plays out like a lesser-than bottle episode of the original series, featuring a typical trudge-through-the-woods survival experience that we’ve seen time and time again. And honestly, without “The Walking Dead” label on this episode, it could be passed off as any other zombie survival short film.
“Evie/Joe” does make an attempt to twist up its formula with a surprise slasher revelation by its end, but the execution comes off as borderline goofy and completely contrasts with the established tone of the episode to that point. One character is saved from the slash of a cleaver, simply because he was wearing a small stone on his necklace where the blade conveniently hit. It’s the kind of scene that reminds me how far “The Walking Dead” brand has departed from its grounded, gritty, and terrifying beginnings.
Of course, the one constant throughout every piece of “Walking Dead” media is the phenomenal, and disgusting, special makeup effects designs for the walkers. On that positive note, one standout sequence in this episode features a particularly nasty creature that happens to have a huge gaping hole where his heart should be.
If there’s one other saving grace of the episode, it’s certainly the two leading performances. Crews puts on an energetic, and comedic performance in the role of Joe. Watching his monotonous daily routine and relationship with his pet dog in the beginning of the episode was quite fun. The prospect of a retired football player watching reruns of old football games to pretend like the world is still moving along as if nothing ever happened is a fascinating character element. Munn’s strange, yet entertaining performance as Evie adds another eclectic, yet strong-willed survivor to “The Walking Dead’s” universe. Her chemistry and overall dynamic with the hardened Joe character makes for some genuinely entertaining scenes. Watching both characters uncover the true personalities beneath one another is the best part of the episode, anchored by those strong performances.
“Tales of the Walking Dead” looks fairly beautiful from a cinematic perspective. Everything from the moonlit, foggy countrysides to the claustrophobia of Joe’s man-cave captures the color palette of the apocalypse in interesting ways. Sequences on Joe’s two-seater motor-car offer a glimmer of bright, visual hope amongst the nastiness of the show’s world. Things take a more cheesy turn when Joe uncovers a much more extravagant bunker with production design that, much like the tail-end of the narrative, rubs up against the established tone of the episode.
Despite this episode’s shortcomings, I’m still very eager to check out the rest of the “Tales of the Walking Dead” lineup. The prospect of genre-bending “Walking Dead” scenarios is way too appealing to not at least tune in for. Hopefully, “Evie/Joe” was chosen as the pilot episode simply because of its strong star-power, and not because it’s an indicator of the peak of the show’s effectiveness.
The post “Tales of the Walking Dead” Review – New Series Shambles Forward with Underwhelming Pilot Episode appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.