The Walking Dead: 30 Days Without An Accident Review

Posted on October 14, 2013 Updated on October 14, 2013

After a fair few months of waiting The Walking Dead has returned to our screens. This episode was a great opening and was not too strong in introducing new characters and also gave the favorite characters enough screen time. This is only the first episode of many and it is unclear what the story is yet. We have plenty to go on from the trailers and frankly we know that things will get worse for these characters. And as much as it is annoying to see these characters suffer the story would not be as interesting without loss or tragedy.

The episode opens with Rick doing some farming and we get to see how the prison has developed over time. They have really built a new community within the prison similar to Woodbury. They have crops, animals, water and even story time. At the end of the last season the survivors were brought over from Woodbury and they are now all part of a thriving community.

We then see Carl join Rick on the farm and Rick tells him not to name the pigs. One of the pigs appears to be sick. This is revealed to be relevant later on in the story. We are introduced to the regular characters as well. We see Herschel walking about without crutches and it is later revealed that he now has a prosthetic leg. I however guessed this from the trailer that was released at comic con. We get to see Glenn and Maggie loving it up once again and even Beth has a boyfriend now, but its not Carl. We also get to see Tyreese loved up. So basically we get to see everyone in the prison happy for once and there is no peril. The characters have lost a lot and its nice to see things going well but we knew things would not go well for long.

The set piece of this episode is an incident that occurs at the mall. The survivors go on a supply run to the mall. Daryl, Michonne, Sasha, Tyreese, new character Bob and Beth’s boyfriend Zach are all involved. Beth does not say goodbye to Zach knowing that he will be okay. They go to the mall looking for supplies and things seem to be going well until Bob makes a row of shelves fall on him and gets his leg stuck. The noise of the shelve falling over attracts walkers and walkers start to fall through the roof. The survivors dispatch the many foes but as Bob is being freed Zach is bitten in the leg by a walker and is dragged to the ground and bitten in the neck.

Carol is seen reading stories to the children and eventually starts to teach them how to defend themselves using knives. Carl sneaks in on this and Carol asks him not to tell his father. This implies that Rick is against having any form of weapon in the prison. Patrick another new character who is seen with Carl at the beginning of the episode leaves story time claiming he is feeling really ill and he may throw up.

Meanwhile Rick goes out on a patrol on his own and comes across a hungry woman who asks for his help to get a rotting dear corpse back to her husband. At first we are to believe that this woman is a walker but she explained how she has not eaten in days. Rick agrees to let her come back to the prison if he can meet her husband. Rick arrives at this woman’s camp to find no man and she tries to kill him. Rick then pulls the gun on her and she explains her husband needs fresh meat. The woman then kills herself and claims she wants to be with her husband. We then see movement under a cover and it is implied that her husband is a walker and she has been keeping him alive.

The survivors return with supplies and Daryl informs Beth of Zach’s death. Her reaction is very interesting. First of all this may simple be a ploy to eventually set up Beth and Carl but she does seem to care about Zach. She says she was glad to know him and is glad that she didn’t say goodbye because it would have been difficult for her. Like Carl with naming the pigs and the little kids naming the walkers, she knows people can die at any second and does not want to get attached to anyone as the pain is too much to deal with. She then changes the 30 days without an accident sign in her room to zero.

Throughout the episode walkers are gathering around the prison and it is not known but a guess from the trailer that someone is leading them there. I thought the Governor was going to make an appearance in this episode. We do see that Michonne is still hell bent on finding the Governor. She goes out searching for him on her own.

Patrick who was seen earlier now looks really sickly and goes into the shower to cool off most likely due to a high temperature. He then faints to the floor. We then see that the pig from the beginning of the episode is even sicker than before and she is most likely dead. Patrick is seen seen on the floor and then his eyes open. He has reanimated and then the show ends. This does leave the question why did he die?

So I thought that someone is poisoning the food and that caused Patrick to fall ill. Or because of the pig being sick the virus may very well have spread to animals and maybe eating the meat may make you ill cause you to die and reanimate. I think this is likely as Patrick thanks Daryl for bringing in a deer at the beginning of the episode and when we see another dead deer its carcass is rotting away. The title of next weeks episode is ‘Infected’. This will likely answer the question to what caused Patrick to die. If the virus has spread to animals this posses a new threat for the survivors.

Overall this is a really good opening to the new season and has really got me excited for next weeks episode. I have lots of questions that need answering and lots of theories to what is going on. We see in next weeks promo that things are starting to go down hill and I think it is highly likely that someone else will die in next weeks episode if not multiple people.  The season premiere attracted 16.1 million viewers and AMC hopes that it will exceed 20 million viewers next week.

What did you think of the episode? Please comment below and thanks for reading.

Here is the promo for next weeks episode ‘Infected’