Walking Dead, The: Torn Apart

Remember the half-torso walker [1] Rick encountered during The Walking Dead‘s pilot episode? Well, that walker is called Hannah and she’s getting a backstory of her own in The Walking Dead: Torn Apart, a 6-episode web series directed by Greg Nicotero, who also serves as the key special effects makeup supervisor for the AMC series.

Torn Apart follows Hannah (Lilli Birdsell), who is just waking up from a car crash into a world overrun by zombies craving blood and brains. Just when things seem lost for Hannah, her husband Andrew (Rick Otto) saves her and she reunites with her children (Madison Leisle and Griffin Cleveland), who are sheltered at their home.

Of course, knowing the nature of the show and Hannah’s fate, we know that no place is really safe from the walkers.

Torn Apart mostly serves as an appetizer for the second season of the main series, but it also provides insight into what happened at the beginning of the apocalypse and shows how Hannah became a walker. The web series also lives up to its name by amping up the brutality factor through some suitably gory and nasty zombies. I never thought mouth-to-mouth resucitation could end up looking brutally awesome.

However, the characters are a mixed bag. Rick Otto’s Andrew comes across as the weakest character. The actors playing Hannah’s children aren’t good by any means. On the other hand, Hannah is likeable and grounded enough to make the webseries work for the short time it takes to watch — I felt bad for her when her fate was sealed. Rex Linn, best known for playing Frank Tripp on CSI: Miami, does a good job with the role of the neighbor, Palmer, in his single appearance.

The Walking Dead: Torn Apart could have served a better purpose for the television series in terms of getting to know more about the main characters from the television series. Why? Because it’s kind of hard to care about the characters (except Hannah) on the web series. A lack of human interaction knocks the web series down a notch. Also, web series run much longer than 20 minutes nowadays and I would have enjoyed seeing a deeper backstory.

For what it’s worth, Torn Apart remains faithful to the show’s nature and serves as a good setup for one of the most powerful scenes of the first season, involving zombie-Hannah showing some humanity before Rick puts her out of her misery.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Watch The Walking Dead: Torn Apart on AMCtv.com or at huffingtonpost.com

Rodrigo

YAM Magazine contributor, has a B. Sc. degree in Science/Pharmacy and is a very lazy person.

12 Responses

  1. amy says:

    I’ve always found that web series that are made to complement the series are always lacking, at least that was from my Battlestar Galactica experience. I actually loved the show, once I warmed up to the first season, which I would have done faster without the two-part miniseries that started it all.

    I’m not a zombie kinda person, or horror in general… and I thought the first episode of the show was ok kinda good, but I’m not into The Walking Dead overall. xD And from the comments of the first epi of this season, it looks like it’d be a more frustrating experience than before for me.

    • Rodrigo says:

      @amy, TWD web series was more of a distraction thing.

      Season 2 premiere upgrades the non-zombie moments and worked well on the human characters, in dialogue terms. But I’ll wait and see to how it develops because all the Season 1 writers got shitcanned and the developer got axed a few months ago.

      I still say to give TWD a chance. If I gave Glee a chance, then you can do it with WD, lol.

      • amy says:

        @Rodrigo, but I’m really not watching any tv. xD

        I want to review Handling the Undead before Halloween, though. That’s the book on zombies from John Ajvide Lindqvist, who wrote Let the Right One In.

  2. this is interesting. i’ve never heard of this, and i don’t remember this girl. i gotta check this out. Thanks!

    • Rodrigo says:

      @Candice Frederick, Which zombie stood out to you the most from TWD’s pilot or from the entire series? Personally, it was a coin toss between half-torso zombie and the black guy’s wife-turned-walker for me.

      What are your thoughts about the webisodes?

      • @Rodrigo, I’ve actually never seen the web series, and honestly i can’t remember any one particular zombie really. although i think that the zombies in the new season of the show have a whole lot more personality. i particularly liked the zombies in the church and the zombie from the bus who almost killed the blonde.

        • Rodrigo says:

          @Candice Frederick, There’s a couple of links in this review that shows the web series. It lasts 20 minutes tops.

          The zombies in the church stood out to me because it’s kinda unusual to see them there, but I guess that it says anything can happen in the Walking Dead universe. Also, brutality seems raised up in the second season premiere. Let’s see how things fare tonight for WD.

  3. going to have to check these out as I love the series. Have you read any of Kirkman’s Walking Dead graphic novels?

    • Rodrigo says:

      @Adam from 3guys1movie.com, Yeah, I’ve been checking out the graphic novels after the first season was over on AMC and I liked them.

      I do like how the tv show changed some of the stuff to keep things flowing well. GN-Shane is pretty different from TV-Shane, though.

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