Daryl, you pussy

What happened to this guy?

Alright, that title is unfair.  Daryl is still cool...for now, but he's getting too into his feelings of his abused childhood and shit.
Look, I'm being critical here.  I don't not like The Walking Dead, I really don't; it's just a little slow.  I'm a plot guy.  I really am.  I promise.  I didn't read all those Harry Potter books because I shy away from story, plot or character development, but dammit, why can't you be more like Z Nation?

Have you seen Z Nation?  Holy shit that show is good.  But then what do you expect from the Asylum, the studio that brought you not one but TWO SHARKNADOES!  The studio that said, "Hey, if a sharktopus kicks ass how much more ass will a sharktopus kick when it fights a pteracuda?"
12 times the ass, that's how much.

I love you Asylum.  I mean that.

Seriously.
But back on topic, The Walking Dead is a pretty good comic book.  Being the continuing story of Rick Grimes and a small group of survivors that are in his orbit.  We see the dark and gritty world of a zombie apocalypse and what people will do to survive in glorious black and white.  And then there is the television series which is, well, not the comic book.  If I haven't said it before, and I probably have, the problem with The Walking Dead is that nobody laughs.  Not intentionally, that is.  Everybody is always tense, on point, and so...bloody...melodrafuckingmatic all the bloody time.  The reality (yes, I said reality) of it is that humans in high stress situations make jokes.  It is our first line of psychic defense.  We mock things.  We crack wise.  We fart at inappropriate times and then laugh about it.  Over on Z Nation we have zombie apocalypse entrepreneurs.  Yes, people making a buck off the zombie apocalypse because THAT IS WHAT PEOPLE DO.  Oh and fart jokes.  Just this past Friday.  Surrounded by corpses, the smell of rot and unwashed human bodies and people still cover their noses for a fart...and we laugh about it.
You know those stories of pioneers and westward expansion?  Yeah, see people left behind civilization and the creature comforts to be found there to strike out across often hostile terrain full of animals that wanted to eat them and natives that were none too happy to see those Conestoga wagons sailing across the prairie (see that's what we call a metaphor; I was using poetic speech because covered wagons, of which the Conestoga is one type, were called "prairie schooners" back in the day) bringing an end to their way of life.  Those pioneer types needed things that the plains and prairies were none too quick to give up, like fresh water and shelter, and when they settled they built lean-to sheds to live in while they gathered the raw materials to build small cabins and, essentially, rebuild their city way of life as best they could in a hostile environment.  You think a zombie is bad news, at least it doesn't crawl into your bedroll while you are drinking coffee by the fire and then bite you on the ass pumping hemotoxin into your bloodstream leading to death by anti-coagulation.  There ain't no rising up as a rattlesnake-human hybrid after that, let me tell you.  Although that would be as cool as Yeti shit, now that I mention it.

My point being that Z Nation keeps it fast, fresh, fun and manages to still tell stories of human drama without dragging out every single action for 14 minutes and then dumping a commercial break on you.  Seriously this past Sunday it took Daryl 7 minutes to light a cigarette.  It's like reading Anne Rice.  It is visually verbose to no good end.  Is there a term for visual purple prose?  Because that is what The Walking Dead is.  If somebody can come up with a term for the visual equivalent of purple prose, I'd be much obliged.  Right now I'm just going to call it Walking Dead School of Cinematography.  And what happens after that?  Right after that?  Chris Hardwick engages in real purple prose for an hour on Talking Dead.  Why?  Aftershows are the televisual equivalent of cock-teasing.  First they recount shit YOU JUST WATCHED then they speculate about shit you won't get to see for another 7 sodding days.
Let me just give you a comparative run down of last Friday's Z Nation versus last Sunday's Walking Dead, just so you know I'm not making this shit up.
Z Nation-Our heroes, minus Mack and Addy who pulled a Samwise and Frodo two weeks ago and split the party, run out of gas in South Dakota, see a graffiti defaced Mount Rushmore and discover that they are on the grounds of a nuclear power plant that is 48 hours from full meltdown which will destroy a 300 mile radius, including themselves.  They fight GLOWING RADIOACTIVE ZOMBIES to help the one man that can shut down the reactor.  The man in question heroically sacrifices himself all Terminator 2 style to save our heroes, the hope for humanity, and find his personal redemption.  Doc makes a Star Trek joke, "Dammit, I'm a doctor not a nuclear physicist!"  The heroes, the sole human survivors of the experience drive away in an electric service cart from the plant, continuing their heroic struggle to get to California with the cure for the zombie plague.  Awesome.
The Walking Dead- We open with a flashback to Carol's leaving Rick a season ago, banished from the tribe, and her survival shit, then quickly flash to Daryl and Carol chasing the sedan that we know leads to a hospital of twisted survivors and Beth, then they hole up for the night and talk about their feelings and stuff.  Then they slowly walk around, fall in a van off a bridge, walk around some more, find a building, get their weapons stolen by young Chris Rock.  Then they meander a bit and Daryl pretends like he is going to let young Chris Rock die, takes 15 minutes to light a cigarette, then Carol gets hit by a car.  It took a whole episode to do what should have taken, maximum, 20 minutes.  At this point the show feels like an episode of Lost.  We flash forward, we flash backward, we flash sideways.  We have people having half-conversations.  I get it.  I do.  They are saying more by what they are not saying.  Bullshit.  Subtext requires SOME BLOODY TEXT.  That's why it is called "sub" text.

Next week on the Walking Dead...a Rick Grimes motivational speech.  I bet you are peeing yourself in anticipation.

Next week on Z Nation...ZOMBIE GRIZZLY BEAR.  I shit you not.

Oh, and Addy would totally fuck Carol's shit up.  Addy is like my wife.  She don't play, but she does enjoy the task at hand.

This woman will cut a bitch, I promise you.