The fifth season of The Walking Dead picks up immediately where the previous season left off—Rick and our favorite band of zombie fighters have been locked in a train car in Terminus, the place that seemingly-promised sanctuary for all. However, this group refuses to become dinner for its cannibalistic captors, and have already started making makeshift weapons and plotting their escape.

In its fifth season, The Walking Dead continues to shock and surprise, giving us even more gruesome sights, plenty of zombie action, more devastating losses, several exciting new locations, and lots of new characters. Throughout the season we see the group splinter and get back together, which not only gives us stories about the group as a whole, but we also get more intimate storylines involving just a few members of the group. This works really well, and allows us to learn more about these characters, their backstories and motivations while also seeing how this influences how they fit into the larger group.

I was happy that this season we finally got the answer to the question of what happened to Beth—I really enjoyed this storyline as it introduced a fascinating new microcosm of the zombie aftermath, and gave us the great new character of Noah (Tyler James Williams, Everybody Hates Chris). However, I think my favorite part of the season was all of the episodes involving Alexandra, which all starts when the gang meets clean cut mystery man Aaron (Ross Marquand, Impress Me), another one of my favorite new characters.

This explored the interesting question of how much can/should you really let your guard down and relax in this new world. It was interesting to see Rick and the gang struggle to accept a “normal” life and wonder if things were too good to be true—as they had experienced before with Woodbury and Terminus. Carol (Melissa McBride) has some truly amazing scenes in Alexandria. And we also get to meet the

As for what I didn’t like this season. First and foremost is the new character of Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam, The Wire)—I could not stand this character and was constantly wishing for him to become zombie food. The other thing that didn’t work for me this season was the depressing, and incredibly dull first two midseason episodes. The midseason premiere goes for this artsy Terrence Malick/Tree of Life look—I was not a fan of the film, and this episode did nothing for me. While I like that the producers are still trying new things to mix the show up, this was not a good way to do it. And the episode that followed was basically 45 minutes of the group walking down the road, dejected and out of water—this was quite possibly the dullest episode of the series to date.

That said, overall I really enjoyed the season as a whole, and it was great to be able to catch it all again on this Blu-ray set. The series is actually shot on film, so the picture has a bit of grain to it—and in some scenes this grain is really heavy. However, this is also how the series originally aired, and the Blu-ray’s video presentation looks as good if not better than those original HD airings. The audio presentation is phenomenal—all dialogue is clear, and the 7.1 audio track really brings the viewer into the action. You can hear every creak, groan, bone snap, zombie head smash, and piece of flesh being torn off. It adds a whole new level of tension and creepiness to the show when watching on this Blu-ray!

The episodes are spread across the first four discs of the set, with four episodes per disc, along with any related audio commentaries. The fifth disc contains all of the other bonus material, and there is a lot of great stuff included! The bonus features consist of cast/producer postmortems and behind-the-scenes looks for each episode, 16 minutes of deleted/extended scenes, four featurettes on the major characters we lost this season, a look at the construction of Alexandria, a look at some melted zombies, and on-set featurettes with Michael Cudlitz and Josh McDermitt.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (710 min)

Blu-ray:
• All 16 Episodes of the Fifth Season:
  “No Sanctuary”, “Strangers”, “Four Walls and a Roof”, “Slabtown”, “Self Help”, “Consumed”, “Crossed”, “Coda”, “What Happened and What’s Going On”, “Them”, “The Distance”, “Remember”, “Forget”, “Spend”, “Try”, “Conquer”
• 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 7.1, French Dolby Surround 2.0
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

Digital Copy (Redemption Deadline 12/31/2017):

• UltraViolet Digital HD Copy redeemable via Vudu or Flixster

Extras:

• Audio Commentaries
  Many of these commentaries were done with the participants across the country from one another, but you wouldn’t have known it if they hadn’t told you ahead of time. There is a lot of chemistry between the participants.
  • No Sanctuary (43:37)
    Writer/executive producer Scott M. Gimple and executive producer Gale Anne Hurd provide running commentary for the season premiere. They provide a lot of interesting production tidbits and other stories, but Gimple is always afraid to talk about stuff beyond the season premiere for fear of spoilers, in case someone is actually listening before having seen the rest of the season. The nice thing is if these two are off on a tangent, they will immediately cut back if there’s something interesting on screen to comment on.
  • No Sanctuary (43:37)
    In this second commentary for the season premiere, executive producer/special effects make-up artist/director Greg Nicotero and actress Melissa McBride (“Carol”) talk about the makeshift weapons, provide a lot of interesting details about the effects, discuss some fan theories, and mention some stuff that was cut out of the episode.
  • Self Help (42:51)
    Actors Steven Yuen (“Glenn”), Lauren Cohan (“Maggie”), Michael Cudlitz (“Abraham”), Josh McDermitt (“Eugene”), Christian Serratos (“Rosita”) and Alana Masterson (“Tara”) provide a really fun commentary over the fifth episode of the season. This was probably my favorite of all of the commentaries because you get a sense of how fun the set must be life, they way they joking give each other a hard time, especially Cudlitz over Abraham’s hair.
  • What Happened and What’s Going On (42:59)
    Executive producer/special effects make-up artist/director Greg Nicotero and actor Chad L. Coleman (“Tyreese”) provide commentary for the season’s ninth episode, the mid-season premiere. The two men try to lighten the mood on a particularly dark episode. They discuss the completely different visual style of the episode, and how the effects were done.
  • Them (42:56)
    Director Julius Ramsay and actors Norman Reedus (“Daryl”) & Sonequa Martin-Green (“Sasha”) provide commentary for the season’s tenth episode. Even this commentary can’t realy make one of the dullest episodes of the series any more exciting, but they do provide some entertaining behind-the-scenes stories.
  • Remember (42:57)
    Executive producer/special effects make-up artist/director Greg Nicotero, executive producer Tom Luse and actress Danai Gurira (“Michonne”) provide commentary for the season’s twelfth episode. They talk about the Alexandria set, the new characters, the video taped confessionals, and more. They give a lot of fun behind-the-scenes information and talk about alternate takes and deleted scenes.
  • Conquer (1:04:34)
    Executive producer/special effects make-up artist/director Greg Nicotero and writer/executive producer Scott M. Gimple provide commentary for the season finale. The two men provide a really interesting and entertaining commentary, discussing the events of the episode, giving some production anecdotes, pointing out Easter eggs and homages to other horror films, and talking about the effects and some of the material that was added due to the extended length of this episode.
• Featurettes
  • Inside The Walking Dead (1:17:53)
    The cast and producers break down each of the season’s episodes in these 3-6 minute postmortems, which were originally produced for AMC.com. Unfortunately there is no Play All option and you must select one at a time. Those interviewed include executive producers Gale Anne Hurd, Tom Luse, Scott M. Gimple and Greg Nicotero , co-executive producer Denise Huth, and actors Andrew Lincoln (“Rick Grimes”), Steven Yeun (“Glenn”), Chad L. Coleman (“Tyreese”), Melissa McBride (“Carol”), Sonequa Martin-Green (“Sasha”), Michael Cudlitz (“Abraham Ford”), Emily Kinney (“Beth”), Tyler James Williams (“Noah”), Josh McDermitt (“Dr. Eugene Porter”), Alanna Masterson (“Tara”), Norman Reedus (“Daryl”), Lauren Cohan (“Maggie”), Seth Gilliam (“Father Gabriel”), Danai Gurira (“Michonne”), Tovah Feldshuh (“Deanna”), Alexandra Breckenridge (“Jessie”), Corey Brill (“Pete”) and Ross Marquand (“Aaron”).
  • The Making of The Walking Dead (1:00:09)
    In these 2-6 minute behind-the-scenes looks at each episode, the cast and crew give viewers a glimpse behind the cameras to see how the episode was made and how all the cool effects and stunts were done. These were originally produced for AMC.com, and unfortunately there is no Play All option. In addition to those interviewed in the Inside The Walking Dead featurettes, these include interviews with directors David Boyd, Jeffrey F. January, Ernest Dickerson and Jennifer Lynch, property master John Sanders, assistant property master Adam Miller, props assistant Ann Ruffin Minarik, Stargate Studios VFX supervisor Victor Scalise, art director Doug Fick, key make-up artist Jake Garber, special effects supervisor Darrell Pritchett, make-up artist Kevin Wasner, SFX make-up department Jeff Edwards, SFX technicians Terry Tjelmeland, Robert Trammell and Tom Fife, special effects make-up artist Gino Crognale, production designer Grace Walker, stunt coordinator Monty Simons, set medic Tasha Wdowin, construction coordinator Roger Scruggs, Rick stunt double Nick Dekay, Morgan stunt double Keith Davis, and actors Andrew J. West (“Gareth”), Daniel Bonjour (“Aidan”) and Michael Traynor (“Nicholas”).
  • The Making of Alexandria (9:45)
    A behind-the-scenes look at what it took to bring the town of Alexandria to life. Includes interviews with executive producer Tom Luse, Raleigh Studios president Scott Tigchelaar, production designer Graham “Grace” Walker, construction coordinator Roger Scruggs, art director Doug Fick and location manager Mike Riley.
  • Beth’s Journey (4:20)
    The cast and producers take a look at Beth’s arc on the series.
  • Bob’s Journey (4:54)
    The cast and producers take a look at Bob’s arc on the series.
  • Noah’s Journey (4:26)
    The cast and producers take a look at Noah’s arc on the series.
  • Tyreese’s Journey (6:53)
    The cast and producers take a look at Tyreese’s arc on the series.
  • A Day in the Life of Michael Cudlitz (7:58)
    Cameras follow Michael Cudlitz (“Abraham”) throughout the day while he’s on set shooting episode 514.
  • A Day in the Life of Josh McDermitt (7:56)
    Cameras follow Josh McDermitt (“Eugene”) throughout the day while he’s on set shooting episode 514.
  • Rotters In The Flesh (4:35)
    The cast and producers talk about the melted walkers, and give a behind-the-scenes look at how the scenes were done.
• Deleted Scenes (16:01)
  A collection of thirteen deleted/extended scenes from six of the season’s episodes (2-3 from each episode). While the scenes don’t introduce any major new developments, it’s nice to see them included here. Play All or select from scenes for “Four Walls and a Roof”, “Crossed”, “Coda”, “Remember”, “Forget” and “Spend”.

Final Thoughts:

While the fifth season of The Walking Dead gets a bit slow and depressing for a couple episodes mid-season, the rest of the season is great. The season kicks off with an exciting, action-packed premiere, has several interesting arcs in the middle and closes with a really strong, entertaining storyline. We also get introduced to several interesting new character and locations over the course of the season. Fans of the series will definitely want to pick up this Blu-ray—the picture looks great, the audio is absolutely amazing, and the discs contain lots of excellent supplemental material that will keep you entertained for many hours.