The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead still has a strong grip on our imagination as it continues to aim at all three levels--brain, heart and stomach--with deadly accuracy.

All that commotion sets the season on a compelling path, hitting the road with a purpose. This is when Dead is at its best: journeying through postapocalyptic, fun-house-mirror America.

Brutal and intense, the season opener is an powerful blend of darkness and a few threads of light, as Rick again takes on the role of doing whatever it takes to protect those he cares for.

The grueling season premiere should satisfy anyone pining for graphic action, nerve-wracking suspense and unsparing savagery from all sides, including the incessant flow of zombie "walkers" who have upended civilization, exposing humanity at its most monstrous. (The episode will also help viewers understand how Terminus got so twisted, but as often happens in these morality plays, the theme is overstated at least one too many times.)

The episode moves along at a good pace, with only a couple of moments when the timing feels a little too coincidental.

It’s bracing to see a series that has weathered offscreen changes, and all but redefined expectations for cable viewership (as reflected in its soaring ad rates), continue to take creative chances--proving it can still leap ahead not just by shuffling along, but at breakneck speed.

It’s swiftly paced, disgusting--lots of shots of walkers chomping on screaming faces--and puts down some much needed signposts for the rest of the season. Consider us still hooked.

Right off the bat, this new season strongly hints that the series will continue to ruminate on primal sensations of fear and survival, but that it will be more content to allow action, as opposed to a plethora of argumentative moral debates, to speak to such existential matters.

What ensues is a dizzying, turbocharged confrontation designed to keep your nerves in a vise (or your stomach in knots). Of course, it's all punctuated with the violent reverie of an all-out zombie splat-fest. So, basically, it's The Walking Dead on crank.