Joe, a lonely man who has been living in a bunker since before the beginning of the apocalypse, leaves the safety of his home to embark on a 700 mile road trip to meet with a former online friend. On the road, he encounters Evie, who joins him on a similar mission. After Evie initially kidnaps him, the two bond before being broken apart by the theft of Joe's motorcycle. Evie is unable to find her ex-husband Steven, but she finds proof that he really did love her in the end instead of hating her. Joe locates his friend Sandra's bunker, but Sandra has been driven insane and become a serial killer targeting men. Evie rescues Joe who is forced to kill Sandra in self-defense. After locking her reanimated corpse in the bunker, Evie convinces Joe that there is more to life and they resume their journey.
Considering that the Walking Dead franchise has been profitable for a long time, it took a while for an anthology spin-off to come, even considering the endless possibilities that a zombie universe has to offer. But better late than never, there is also no better way to extract more water from this source than stories that open up room for future spin-offs - besides the ones already confirmed - in this strategy that is very smart from the channel to keep its dead universe alive.
Evie-Joe opens the series with a simple narrative, practically a side quest whose life gains momentum after Joe's dog (played by Terry Crews), Gilligan, loses his, throwing us into a road trip in search of the internet anonymous passion. It doesn't take long for Evie, a capoeira practitioner and vegetarian, to join the adventure also driven by love.
It is, as mentioned, the basic that could easily fit as a mid-season episode in one of the several seasons of TWD or FTWD, which thanks to Crews and Munn makes everything lighter and masks a bit of that connection that is too quick, summed up in stops and more stops to delve into the past and duet during the journey. With a revisit to settings from the parent series - TERMINUS, most likely after Rick Grimes - a pet goat, pot brownie, pictures of an angry man, and a crazy web girlfriend, we have a debut that is even fun, worthy of the seal of approval from the afternoon session.
We have a typical road trip story, with two slightly different characters meeting and embarking on a journey together, where they will learn good and sad things about each other until they become great friends. There is even a light and sometimes comedic tone in the episode, drawing even more from the dynamics of works of this kind.
Therefore, we have a script full of clichés, with moments of mistrust and trust here and there, other situations where characters surprise each other (usually with a traumatic past and/or full of regrets), friction during the journey, reconciliation, and, of course, learning. It's all very clichéd and ordinary, with a script full of rushed and expository dialogues in conversations by the campfire, as there is less than an hour to develop the characters and their relationship, but the actors still have chemistry and charisma.
It also ends up being a typical TWD story from another angle: extremely mundane and human dramas in the apocalyptic context. As many know, this universe has always been about characters before anything else, although the first seasons of the original series blend this with great world-building, horror exercise, and an epic tone. Here, the approach is more personal, bringing a dramaturgy focused on loneliness and friendship, although with many emotional limitations and lack of depth.
Joe and Evie's dynamics still have their charm, though. If it were something even more comedic and more creative during the journey (we have unfunny sequences in forests and abandoned houses; motorcycles being predictably stolen; and convenient encounters), we could have had a generic "Zombieland" experience. It is also questionable Ron Underwood's direction, failing to bring any tension or humor to the episode (the scene of the dog's death is very poorly directed, for example), although the ending with drugged cakes and a caricature psychopath is even funny. Evie-Joe is a generic start with nothing special, but it's not necessarily bad.
Considering that the Walking Dead franchise has been profitable for a long time, it took a while for an anthology spin-off to come, even considering the endless possibilities that a zombie universe has to offer. But better late than never, there is also no better way to extract more water from this source than stories that open up room for future spin-offs - besides the ones already confirmed - in this strategy that is very smart from the channel to keep its dead universe alive.
Evie-Joe opens the series with a simple narrative, practically a side quest whose life gains momentum after Joe's dog (played by Terry Crews), Gilligan, loses his, throwing us into a road trip in search of the internet anonymous passion. It doesn't take long for Evie, a capoeira practitioner and vegetarian, to join the adventure also driven by love.
It is, as mentioned, the basic that could easily fit as a mid-season episode in one of the several seasons of TWD or FTWD, which thanks to Crews and Munn makes everything lighter and masks a bit of that connection that is too quick, summed up in stops and more stops to delve into the past and duet during the journey. With a revisit to settings from the parent series - TERMINUS, most likely after Rick Grimes - a pet goat, pot brownie, pictures of an angry man, and a crazy web girlfriend, we have a debut that is even fun, worthy of the seal of approval from the afternoon session.
We have a typical road trip story, with two slightly different characters meeting and embarking on a journey together, where they will learn good and sad things about each other until they become great friends. There is even a light and sometimes comedic tone in the episode, drawing even more from the dynamics of works of this kind.
Therefore, we have a script full of clichés, with moments of mistrust and trust here and there, other situations where characters surprise each other (usually with a traumatic past and/or full of regrets), friction during the journey, reconciliation, and, of course, learning. It's all very clichéd and ordinary, with a script full of rushed and expository dialogues in conversations by the campfire, as there is less than an hour to develop the characters and their relationship, but the actors still have chemistry and charisma.
It also ends up being a typical TWD story from another angle: extremely mundane and human dramas in the apocalyptic context. As many know, this universe has always been about characters before anything else, although the first seasons of the original series blend this with great world-building, horror exercise, and an epic tone. Here, the approach is more personal, bringing a dramaturgy focused on loneliness and friendship, although with many emotional limitations and lack of depth.
Joe and Evie's dynamics still have their charm, though. If it were something even more comedic and more creative during the journey (we have unfunny sequences in forests and abandoned houses; motorcycles being predictably stolen; and convenient encounters), we could have had a generic "Zombieland" experience. It is also questionable Ron Underwood's direction, failing to bring any tension or humor to the episode (the scene of the dog's death is very poorly directed, for example), although the ending with drugged cakes and a caricature psychopath is even funny. Evie-Joe is a generic start with nothing special, but it's not necessarily bad.