I spent much of Easter weekend pondering how one resurrects the dead. The Walking Dead that is. I’m pretty slow at catching up on some pop cultural waves, and while I’m well aware of the widespread resurgence of the zombie trope, I’m not often consuming it to any huge degree. I’m a pretty old school George Romero fan though and it’s consoling for me in a peculiar sort of way to see the zombies featured in The Walking Dead series pretty much configured from the same, well-established template: shuffling, stooped, partially decayed, pale, moaning and groaning, their limbs—or what’s left of them—reaching out plaintively. The ensemble cast of non-zombies is pretty hit and miss, acting sometimes excellent (Norman Reedus, Jeffrey DeMunn) most often not. The British star Andrew Lincoln I keep flashing back to as the character Egg in the 1990s BBC series This Life, which is a bit jarring at times (my problem). Lincoln does really well affecting a faux-Southern accent and spouting absolutely inane dialogue while keeping a stoical, earnest demeanor. Cameos by terrific character actors abound however: Pruitt Taylor Vince (Heavy), Michael Rooker (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), and Scott Wilson (In Cold Blood). Undoubtedly there’s more binge-watching to come…
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