Rent The Walking Dead: Series 5 (2014)

The Walking Dead: Series 5 review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

The fifth season of The Walking Dead starts off with a bang (literally). Rick and his band of survivors find themselves held at Terminus to be slaughtered for meat by its inhabitants and they’re wasting no time ushering the gang to slaughter. But it doesn’t last long as Carol brings about a big explosion and the action starts up once again. Guns blaze as Rick and company fight their way out of a compound packed with crazed cannibals and hordes of zombies. It’s a rather strong start to the zombie apocalypse drama’s fifth season.

But once the action-packed episode ends, we’re back to Rick and company walking lands once again. Thankfully, they don’t spend quite so much time meandering for survival as with the fourth season. A few cannibal survivors from Terminus follow them to a church where they stalk and hunt the group for meat. The gang later find themselves combating an armed hospital that has taken one of their own hostage. And everything seems to turn up roses for our protagonist as they happen upon the most tamed and secured of an enclosed society. But, of course, we know that such a society won’t last long without some violence and Rick has become seasoned enough to know what’s coming.

There are a few downtime episodes, but the majority of the plotlines proceed quickly to get to as much confrontation and gore as possible. There is a much heavier body count this season and most of them come as shocking surprises. Some deaths are slow as one individual starts hallucinating all the people that died along the way. Others are fast and gruesome with flesh being torn apart in every disgusting way possible. There’s a high frequency of these throughout - making the season as a whole consistently intense more than any other.

The character of Rick has grown from a heroic leader to a fragile soul to a hardened anti-hero. He is fed up with trying to be the great unifier and has opted to become the harsh protector. The days of not killing their human enemies are long gone. If a threat presents itself, Rick doesn’t even bat an eye to take them out. The season ends with Rick making one crucial kill that signals a path he’s taken that he may never recover from as the savage guardian.

Other characters are given a little more depths, but few make any drastic changes. Carol remains the most interesting as she slowly descends darker into the depths of her evil tendencies. Darryl continues to form more of a brotherly bond with the conflicted Beth. The most interesting of the new characters is Father Gabriel, a man finding it hard to maintain his faith. The biggest surprise of the season is the return of one character from as far back as season one that has changed a great deal since. And given how many new characters are worked into the course of this season, you can be sure to expect lots of bloody deaths to thin out the ranks. There are no guarantees either as new and old characters find themselves biting the dust.

The Walking Dead Season 5 is one of the most solid seasons to date - rarely slowing down and always appearing intense. There are plenty of villains, plenty of zombies and plenty of character deaths to satiate the fans for another season - leaving them salivating for the next. Once more, the series defends its throne as the most popular cable program on cable television.