AMC announced two years ago that a new spinoff of The Walking Dead franchise would be in development. That spinoff later became Tales of The Walking Dead.
Tales of The Walking Dead will have six episodes for their first season. Each episode will tell a different story with different characters as it will be an anthology series. Outside of Alpha, who was on the main show, the other characters are completely new. I had the chance to watch episodes one, two, and four over the last few weeks. Here is my review of those episodes.
Episode one titled “Evie/Joe” is a story about Joe (Terry Crews), who used to be a college football player in Ohio State, leaving his house to meet with a woman named Sandra that he has been emailing back and forth since before the apocalypse hit. On the way, he meets Evie (Olivia Munn) and they both bonded and told each other who they were both looking for. What I like about this episode, is that Terry Crews was comedic when it mattered and serious without making any jokes or puns. There is a sad moment early on in the episode that involves his dog, but I will leave it there. Within a few days, Joe meets Sandra. You know what they say about talking with people over the internet? Do not trust them at the first meet. Both Joe and Evie found this out the hard way which lead to a deadly situation. Overall, a good episode and a good road trip!
Episode two titled “Blair/Gina” starts in the year 2010 where Blair, who runs an insurance company and Gina works for her. Blair is oblivious about the early start of the end of the world. Also to note, this episode takes place in Atlanta. You will find out right away that Blair is a horrible boss and more so, a horrible person. What I like the most about this episode, is that you see the line of cars on the highway that you saw on the first episode of the main show begin to form. That was the best detail about the episode.
What I did not like about this episode, is how it was structured. If you watch Netflix’s Russian Doll, then this is the episode for you. Unlike that Netflix show, the writing is messy on this episode of Tales along with the amateurish hour of horrendous dialogue that plagued the episode. To put it short, there is a continued time lapse every time Gina and Blair “died.” But the positive that came from that, is you see the two main characters come to the realization that the end of the world that they knew it, is here. I wish I could like this one, but I could not.
Episode four titled “Amy/Dr. Everett” takes place years after the apocalypse as Dr.Everett (Anthony Edwards) has been studying nature and walkers for the last decade. It makes me wonder why the CRM did not find Everett. But then again, he has been isolating himself the entire time. I love the narration that he did at the opening as you would think that you are watching a National Geographic show except that he is describing the walkers. Everett thought that Amy (Poppy Liu) was part of a group that was taking down walkers. The situation escalated when one particular walker that Everett marked is off his radar. At the end, one of the characters die and the other lives on.
Tales of The Walking Dead is acquired taste. My gripe is that I cannot get invested with any of the new characters when we know that we will not see them again. It is not a negative opinion, but I think that there needs to be more of a connection between either the main show, Fear, or World Beyond to justify these short story outside of Alpha and the Atlanta highway. The episodes that I saw are digestible and I think there could be room for improvement if Tales gets picked up for a second season. My gripes aside, I do recommend watching as I believe everyone in The Walking Dead family will have their own thoughts on which episode they liked and disliked.
