It goes without saying that AMC's Walking Dead franchise is a part of one of the greatest eras of TV of all time. Heck, it's one of the reasons why the 2010s are so adored when we talk about the sheer standard of television of that particular era. Whether you wanted hard-hitting drama like Breaking Bad or the best supernatural thrills in The Vampire Diaries, you could get it all in that decade. And The Walking Dead was right there at the top of that mountain as one of the decade's greatest offerings.
The franchise just celebrated its 15th anniversary and it was able to do so with some shows actually still on the air. Two of its spinoffs, Daryl Dixon and Dead City, are still airing new episodes annually, with the former actually in the midst of its third season when AMC celebrated the big milestone for the original series. And as this fanbase is among the most passionate you'll find, they appreciate the marking of all the milestones.
We're now at another major one.
November 28 is the 15th anniversary of TWD's "Wildfire" episode
As hard as it is to believe, you didn't read that headline wrong: "Wildfire" celebrates its 15th anniversary this month too. Yes, the stunning episode of The Walking Dead's first season aired on AMC on November 28, 2010, and it was an extremely important offering for the show.
This was back in the early days of the zombie apocalypse that turned people into the walkers that would dominate the show throughout its run, so at the time Rick Grimes and our survivors knew very little about it. That was a major theme throughout the first season, but as each of its six episodes went by, the group began to let the doubts, fear, and paranoia set in - ultimately bringing them to a crossroads: Stay in the safety of their camp and eventually die of starvation (if they hadn't turned on each other by then) or fight to survive by going out into the world. Rick chose the latter for them, trying to get answers by going to the one place that should be full of them: The CDC.
Yes, this is the episode that introduces Edwin Jenner (played by Noah Emmerich). The last surviving pathologist at the CDC in Atlanta who ultimately reveals to Rick that all survivors will reanimate as walkers no matter how they die, he initially refuses to let the group into the facility. However, Rick's impassioned pleas eventually convince him otherwise - especially as they are surrounded by a herd of walkers - and he opens the door. The final shot of the episode showcases light - suggesting that they might finally have some hope.
Of course, the sixth episode of the season - the season 1 finale - crushes that hope as Jenner fails to find a cure after accidentally destroying the tissue samples he was using. Although he attempts to wipe out everyone in the facility with him when he enacts the self-destruct mode, he allows them to go free - starting Rick's journey as the leader of the survivors, allowing him the chance to build the settlements and protect the people that he did.
Looking back "Wildfire" proved to be one of the most pivotal episodes of the whole series, and we didn't even know it when we were watching it. It set Rick and the survivors on the path to discovering that there is no cure for the virus, there is no way to stop it from happening to you upon death, and that even the people with all of the resources needed to help them can feel even more hopeless than they do. While most of those realizations happened in the season finale, it was the fifth installment that set them on that course, acting as a bridge in the show's evolution from the early days of the characters trying to cure the world of its disease to their attempts to simply survive in it.
And considering that main characters like Amy, Jim, and Jacqui (in episode 6) didn't survive, that showed us all how important just trying to really was. You won't find a greater example of that than Rick's powerful pleas into the CDC facility's surveillance cameras. That truly said it all, and "Wildfire" is worth a rewatch for that scene alone!