The Walking Dead Review: “Home”

The battle for the prison begins.

Title: “Home”

Cast and Crew

Directed by Seith Mann
Written by Nicole Beattie

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes
Danai Gurira as Michonne
Laurie Holden as Andrea
David Morrissey as the Governor
Steven Yeun as Glenn Rhee
Lauren Cohan as Maggie Greene
Norman Reedus as Darryl Dixon
Michael Rooker as Merle Dixon
Scott Wilson as Herschel Greene
Melissa Suzanne McBride as Carol Peletier
Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes
Emily Kinney as Beth Greene
Lew Temple as Axel
Dallas Roberts as Milton
Jose Pablo Cantillo as Martinez
Sarah Wayne Callies as Lori Grimes

Additional cast and crew information may be found here.

Premise

Divisions grow within all groups—and the Governor launches a strike against the prison.

High Point

The story begins well, with writing and direction by people who understand that TV is a visual medium. Some may find episode’s conclusion a little brief— we’ve awaited this battle for more than a year— but it is only a battle, and well handled, even if the arrival of reinforcements seemed a little too convenient.

Low Point

I know we’ll see much more of the Dixon brothers, but this wee’s script feels like a lost opportunity. We get too little and too forced a sense of how their time apart has affected them, before they return, cavalry-like, in the nick of time.

The Scores

Originality: 4/6

Effects: 6/6

Story: 5/6 The story builds to the expected battle, in which the Governor unleashes an unexpected but perfectly logical weapon. The script cheats the Dixon brothers, and the Woodbury scenes still feel a bit uneven.

Acting: 5/6

Emotional Response: 5/6

Production: 6/6

Overall: 5/6

  • I hope we’ll get an explanation for where Chase Tyreese and his group were during the final scenes of this episode.
  • Michonne finally offers some helpful information.
  • Can a corpse really work that well as a shield against high-powered weapons? It looks cool, but it strikes me (and I admit I lack experience with weapons of that caliber) that it comes from the same theory of weapons physics that allows Carl to kill with precision across great distances with his pistol….
  • …Except in this ep, where everyone in the battle proves a pretty poor shot.

In total, “Home” receives 36/42

Additional Comments

5 replies on “The Walking Dead Review: “Home””

  1. Bullets, especially from AR style rifles or their equivalents, penetrate bodies, cars, doors, standard ballistic armor, and concrete block quite well. Car doors and bodies don’t even stand up to pistol calibers (9mm, .45, .357) all that well. If the bullet doesn’t hit a bone or some internal part of a car tougher than sheet metal, it will go right through. We took a used (yes it was older, but in theory still good) vest to the farm once and shot it with a variety of things. A 9 will penetrate about 1/3 of the time. Rifles above .22 just go right trough.
    But TV and movies will never get this right, it would make the good guys look bad and the bad guys wouldn’t seem so incompetent.
    I won’t even get into the good guy=good aim, bad guy=barn? what barn? argument.
    Grimjack

    • At least everyone seemed equally bad at shooting at moving targets and targets under cover in this episode and it wasn’t just one sided.

      Losing a perch in the high ground (tower) is a nearly fatal mistake by the group. They should have that constantly manned in future episodes.

      • I think there’s a pretty big difference when shooting relaxed (even if a zombie is running at you), and shooting while someone else is shooting back. I’m willing to grant internal consistency there. The only thing that stood out was the Governor not taking cover, but he is a bit of a nutjob so that’s fine.

        As for the non-penetrating power of bullets, I’ll grant them that from a story telling perspective, it’s a lot easier to communicate the tactical situation of a battle when a bullet needs a line of sight to hit.

        • It’s tricky business. Some fantasies (The Avengers, say or Buffy) take place in a stylized version of reality that allows the story to happen at all. Others go for a more realistic feel– this is what realistically would follow, IF we allow for the existence of such-and-such a fantastic element.

          The Walking Dead trades on being fairly realistic, save for its core impossible premise. It’s harder to get away with non-walking-dead-related handwaves and artistic license. However, you make valid points, and these things didn’t ruin the episode. I just think it would be a better show if Action Movie Physics didn’t kick in every time somone picks up a gun.

          • But other than an improbable array of objects being bullet proof the closing battle was one of the most realistic action sequences in the show.

            In the ordinary zombie scenes you have both olympic marksmen and zombie craniums with the strength of styrofoam (reminds me of Buffy and the extremely weak sternums of vampires).

            On that note I chuckled a bit when Darryl pulled his arrow out of a zombie head that was obviously rubber.

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