I'll be honest, I am a little worried about it. Since AMC insanely fired Frank Darabont, who developed the comic into a series, I don't see anywhere this show can go but down. You could see Darabont's style and cinematic mastery all over The Walking Dead, especially in the first season. I don't know how long he worked on the second season before he was fired but the shows seems to be taking a very comic booky turn in the last episode of season 2.
I assume Robert Kirkman, the creator of the comic, is calling the shots now. I think his style might work better in a comic than on film, without someone like Darabont filtering it and making it seem more real. They already introduced Michonne at the end of season 2. I know fans of the comic were happy but most people watching the show have never read the comic. She seemed so out of place to me. The Walking Dead had always been real people simply placed in a zombie apocalypse; but she seems like someone straight out of a comic. She has a katana sword and drags 2 armless, jawless zombies along with her everywhere she goes. The zombie apocalypse hasn't been going on that long, how did a character like this come into existence?
Another issue is they killed off several of the main characters in a row. They spent so much time building up this conflict between Dale and Shane, then boom, they are both dead. Dale's death was really weird too, it just came out of nowhere and seemed like it was thrown in at the last minute. I actually think it was. Jeffrey DeMunn who played Dale is good friends with Darabont and has been in many of his films. I suspect he asked to leave the show when they fired Darabont. Getting rid of grounded, realistic characters like Dale to throw in people straight from a comic book takes away the reality of the show and its human component that makes it interesting.
Lastly, it seems like they are answering some of the fans prayers by throwing in lots more action. I think this is a huge mistake. If the characters are just fighting zombies all the time it becomes just another mindless zombie flick instead of a study on human nature and character interaction. The zombie attacks mean more when you never know when they are coming and you may not see one for several episodes. Norman Bates was vastly more scary in the first Psycho movie because you almost never saw him in drag and most of the violence was off screen and left to the imagination to fill in the gaps (which is always better than showing it). The sequels were all terrible because they just became slasher flicks. Same with the Jaws movies (first one was great, the rest not so much). Less is more.
I hope I am completely wrong and season 3 ends up being amazing but we shall have to wait and see.
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