horror

Episode: Slabtown
Original Airdate: 11-2-14

The Walking Dead has not spent an entire episode following only one of the main group since Rick’s awakening in the pilot. It pushed things in Season 4’s “Still,” abandoning all other characters for 42 minutes of Daryl and Beth alone in the woods, post prison invasion. Due to their opposing personalities the episode barely scraped by, but the unlikely duo as the main focus was still too much for a single episode and it remains one of the lowest rated on IMDb. Yet still the show runners thought an entire Beth-centric episode would make the people happy. It didn’t. Honestly, I haven’t thought much of Beth since her mysterious abduction near the end of Season 4, but seven episodes later the mystery was resolved in “Slabtown” and as I suspected, it was a bit underwhelming . I don’t fault the episode for being a character-driven one, because I’m not one to turn on the show when it abandons the carnage and action for quiet reflection. However, my interest waivers when Beth is the sole focus. She’s just not a character that can successfully carry her own episode. That’s not a knock to Emily Kinney who portrays her, but the writers, despite last season’s attempts, have written Beth as very vanilla and I’m really surprised she hasn’t been killed off yet. What did work for me in “Slabtown” was learning how another group of survivors is handling their world during the zombie apocalypse. These moments I find fascinating, and this particular group’s way of medically saving people only to hold them hostage in an abandoned Atlanta hospital until they work off their “debt” is terrifying, more so than Terminus’s cannibals, since the debts seem subjective to the vicious leader’s current mood. Sadly, the episode still leaves Beth’s fate open-ended, but Carol’s appearance toward the end gives hope that when we do drag the story back around to the younger Greene sister, things will pick up in a deadly way.

Episode: The Darkness Beneath
Original Airdate: 10-31-14

After getting interested in this show through the pilot which introduced us to a female lead that has gone away, this episode almost feels like a secondary pilot as it introduces the actual female lead through the rest of the season with Zed. Honestly, even though I only got the chance to see each character through one episode. An episode where they were both introductions where they each have a mystical power that can help Constantine with his investigations, and he can help them control and/or understand their powers. I have to say that I like Zed much better than Liv. Even though Liv gained some confidence by the end of her episode, Zed starts off the episode with much more confidence and charisma than Liv ever did. Even though Zed doesn’t fully understand her powers or have full control over them, she isn’t a complete novice when it comes to what Constantine is doing and already feels like she is helping him rather than slowing him down. As for the episode itself, it’s hard to tell if it was actually trying to go for a real scare or not, as the actual horror portion of the show did feel a little weak. But I also didn’t think that hindered the show too much because the overall tone feels like it’s more of an action show than a horror show. Or technically, it feels a bit more like a supernatural procedural where Constantine is solving the mystery of the supernatural element in a way that Gotham feels like it should be doing. While the solution to the mystery was a little bit unfulfilling, especially as Constantine’s deduction was all pulled from clues near the beginning of the episode though he didn’t play his cards until the very end. But he did have a great moment as he turned the woman’s own dark magic against her in an ending reminiscent of a Tales From the Crypt episode. I’m honestly a little tired of the talk of the coming darkness already, but I suppose it’s one of those necessary story elements to help explain the premise of the entire show. It’s still fun, and I am glad that they went with Zed over Liv.