I am not often impressed by single camera shots, but the one above — from this week’s episode of The Walking Dead (via Reddit, and click on the image to see the quietly animated GIF) — absolutely blows me away. I’ve already discussed the episode itself, but this single shot encapsulates so much of what was so impressive about “Clear,” perhaps the best episode since the pilot. Tricia Brock directed it, her first for the series (she’s a regular television series director).
It’s such a quiet yet revealing image. We see Carl resting against the door of an old restaurant containing mayhem and death within. It’s a brilliant juxtaposition of the serene and the end-of-the-world, and reflects Carl’s casual indifference to the constant threat posed by the walkers. It’s just another day that ends in Y to Carl, who betrays absolutely no fear that the shambling, undead menaces behind the door might crash through the glass and infect him. Death and walkers and ruin have become so commonplace in this world that a 13-year-old kid can listlessly lean against a door, separated from a fate worse than death by 3 inches of hardwood, and wait for his friend, Michonne, to return from the inside with a framed photograph.
It is stunning.
