Summary
The pilot episode of the CW’s Walker reboot seems like a welcome update of a longstanding macho mainstay.
This recap of Walker season 1, episode 1, contains spoilers.
The CW rebooting a so-bad-it’s-beloved property like Walker: Texas Ranger should be cause for concern. But it’s not, luckily, since this modernization, which stars Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki as the titular off-the-rails widower Cordell Walker, is quite clearly not aimed at anyone who watched and liked the original show. It’s a much younger-skewing, more contemporized affair with its own unique set of selling points and hindrances, and it’s obviously doing different things for a different audience.
Luckily, Walker seems a bit more complex than the bog-standard grizzled, doesn’t-play-by-the-rules single father. He’s clearly struggling with his grief, having basically abandoned parenting in the wake of his beloved wife’s death to instead go deep undercover and leave the kiddos to fend for themselves. Walker episode 1 is smart to use Padalecki’s real-life wife Genevieve as his on-screen one, helping to build real chemistry and contextualize his sense of profound loss in just a few brief scenes.
There is also little effort made to make Walker likable. He has the usual tough-guy tropes in spades, but they’re frequently considered to be reckless, stupid, and childish, and he’s made to apologize for them. The primarily angle for this is his partner, Micki Ramirez (Lindsey Morgan), a no-nonsense Latina in a healthy relationship who isn’t a love interest or a ninny, but a highly capable, driven, and intelligent woman who is immediately tired of Walker’s nonsense, as sympathetic to his plight as she might be. It’s an atypical lead pairing for a CW show and suggests a more interesting approach to the reboot itself.
That, really, is the story of Walker season 1, episode 1. It’s still full of tropes, but it seems in a hurry to subvert them where necessary, bringing the character and the concept into the present-day. It’s hardly a game-changer, but it’s a pleasantly updated version of a longstanding macho mainstay, and that’s definitely no bad thing.
