Days Gone Bye (TV Series)

"Days Gone Bye" is the first and debut episode of Season 1 of AMC's The Walking Dead. It originally aired with a 90 minute premiere on AMC at 9/8c on October 31, 2010.

Plot Synopsis
Running low on gas on a deserted Georgia highway, Sheriff's Deputy, Rick Grimes drives his police cruiser past overturned and damaged cars toward a gas station. Rick's vehicle is blocked by abandoned vehicles and tents; the remnants of what appears to be a makeshift campsite. Various corpses and garbage are seen throughout; a handmade sign hanging at the station reads "NO GAS".

As Rick searches, he hears something and ducks down, glimpsing the slippered feet of a little girl on the other side of a car as she picks up a teddy bear on the ground. He stands up, walks closer, and calls to her until slowly she turns around to face him. Her lips and right cheek have been torn away, exposing raw teeth and muscle. Rick's face falls as she starts toward him, growling. She approaches faster and he steps backwards, draws his .357 Colt Python revolver, and shoots her in the head.

The next scene flashes back to before the apocalypse, with Rick and his partner and best friend, Shane Walsh, eating hamburgers and fries in their cruiser while they joke about the differences between men and women. When the conversation turns to Rick's wife, Lori, he turns somber. He shares that they've been fighting lately, and says that Lori accused him that morning of not caring about his family in front of their son, Carl. "The difference between men and women?" Rick muses. "I would never say something that cruel to her, especially not in front of Carl."

Suddenly the cruiser's radio cracks to life, an APB from neighboring Linden County reports a high-speed pursuit in progress involving two armed suspects. Rick and Shane dump their food and rush to the scene, where they lay down a spike strip and meet up with their co-workers, Lambert Kendal and Leon Basset. As they all wait for the car, the youngest officer, Basset, muses about their chances of getting on a police chase reality show. Rick tells him to focus, and worry about having a round in his gun chamber and the safety off. Basset sheepishly checks his Glock 17 while Shane suggests that it would be "kinda cool gettin' on one of them shows."

The car approaches, pursued by two more cruisers containing the Linden County Sheriff's Department officers. The vintage car with the suspects inside speeds over the spike strip, shredding the tires. The driver loses control and the vehicle flips off the road, rolling several times before coming to a rough stop upside down in a field. "Holy shit," mutters Shane, his Mossberg 590 shotgun cocked as the officers descend on the vehicle.

Rick carefully approaches the overturned car. A man emerges from the vehicle and immediately starts shooting at the officers. Rick yells at him to drop his 9mm SIG-Sauer P228 pistol, but the man shoots directly at Rick and hits him in the chest. Shane kills the gunman as Rick falls to the ground. A second man emerges from the vehicle brandishing a shotgun, but one of the Linden County officers shoots him in the chest and kills him. "I'm alright!" Rick shouts, winded, the gunman having shot his Kevlar vest. Shane approaches Rick as he pulls himself off the ground.

"Shane, you do not tell Lori that happened! Ever!" Rick commands Shane after the firefight. His back turned, he fails to notice a third gunman crawling free from the overturned vehicle. The man fires a .45 M1911A1 pistol and hits Rick in the side, where his vest does not protect him. He falls to the ground bleeding, and Shane kills the third man before rushing to Rick's aid. He commands Rick to stay with him, barking at Leon to call an ambulance.

Shane delivers flowers to Rick in the hospital, but Rick isn't fully conscious. Sometime later, Rick awakens and responds to Shane's presence, but quickly discovers that Shane is no longer there. The flowers have wilted and died, the beep of the machines has stopped, and the clock has stopped; the room is empty. Weak, dehydrated and alone, Rick pulls himself out of bed, flops onto the floor and calls out for help — but no one comes.

He stumbles into the bathroom, guzzling water directly from the tap before he heads for the door. He opens the door into a gurney that blocks the entrance to his room, but he pushes it aside and continues. The hallway is dark and disheveled, with lights flickering and wires hanging from the ceiling. He goes to the nurse's station and tries the phone: it's dead. He finds a set of matches and strikes one, looking for anything else worth taking from behind the desk.

A flickering light draws his attention, and through a doorway, Rick sees the ravaged body of a nurse missing most of her skin. His eyes can't believe what he's seeing and he backs away, confused and afraid. Further down the hall, the walls are covered in blood and riddled with bullet holes. A double door leading into the cafeteria has been chained shut, a message scrawled across in black paint: "DON'T OPEN/DEAD INSIDE." A woman's hands, her fingernails dirty and broken, reach through the cracks and fiddle with the padlock and chains. Terrified, Rick stumbles backwards.

He tries the elevator but it's dead, so he exits through a heavy door into a dark stairwell that reeks of rotting flesh. He chokes on the smell as he lumbers down the stairs, lighting matches until he finds the exit.

A door opens to the back of the hospital and the loading bay. When Rick's eyes adjust to the sunlight he sees hundreds of decayed, rancid, fly-covered bodies wrapped in sheets and arranged in rows and piles. He leaves the hospital and stumbles up a hill. There's a military helicopter, sandbags, and other signs of a military cordon, but everything has been abandoned.

He wanders down the road in his hospital gown, spotting an overturned bicycle in a park. As he reaches for it, a mutilated woman — badly decayed, her legs and lips missing — turns and reaches for him, pathetically moaning in hunger. Apart from the woman's hands reaching from inside the cafeteria, this is Rick's first view of a walker. Startled, Rick falls over but regains himself a moment later, mounts the bike, and hastily speeds away.

Rick arrives at his home to find the front door ajar and the house deserted. Sobbing on the floor, he calls out for Lori and Carl, questioning if any of this is real or if he's dreaming. He heads back outside the house and sits on the steps, then spots a man stumbling down the road and slowly lifts his hand to wave and get his attention. But a young boy creeps up from behind and hits Rick across the face with a shovel. "Carl, I found you", Rick mutters.

"Daddy I got this sumbitch! I'm gonna smack him dead!" the boy screams. The boy's father, Morgan Jones, approaches the stumbling man and shoots him in the head, then walks toward Rick and points the .38 Taurus Model 85 revolver in his face. "What's that bandage for?" Morgan asks him, cocking the gun and telling him, "You tell me, or I will kill you." Rick passes out.

He wakes up with his arms and legs tied to a bed. Morgan's son, Duane, stands guard with a baseball bat. "Did you get bit?" Morgan asks Rick stiffly, having changed his bandages though Rick's gun-shot wound has mostly healed. "Just shot, as far as I know," Rick says. Morgan checks his forehead and says if he had "the fever" it would have killed him by now, so he sets him free of the bedposts with a switchblade and offers him a seat at their dinner table. They have canned beans. Rick recognizes the home they're in as his neighbors', Fred and Cindy Drake's, forcing Morgan to admit, "It was empty when we got here." He tells Rick not to look out the window because 'they will see the light', and begins to explain the story of the Outbreak and the following months to a confused and disoriented Rick for the first time.

"I never should have fired that gun today," Morgan says. "The sound draws 'em. Now they're all over the street." Rick accuses Morgan of shooting a man in cold blood. "It was a walker," Morgan corrects. He adds that they get more active after dark sometimes.

Before they begin eating dinner, Duane insists that his father give a blessing. "Lord, please watch over us in these crazy days," Morgan says, and proceeds to explain to Rick that the man he shot would have tried to eat them. "One thing I do know, don't you get bit," Morgan says. Bites kill, he explains, and then you become one of them. "The fever burns you out. But then after a while... you come back."

"Seen it happen," Duane adds solemnly. The trio talk about Rick's son, Carl, and Rick satisfies a lingering curiosity shared by Duane and Morgan as to what line of work would put someone in a position to be shot at. "Sheriff's deputy," Rick remarks. Morgan smiles and says, "Duane thought you were a bank robber."

A car alarm goes off outside and they turn off the lights. Rick and Morgan peer out to the street through heavy covered windows and boarded up doors. The street is filled with walkers, drawn by the noise of the alarm. When a woman wearing a nightgown appears, Duane runs away crying. Morgan comforts his son while Rick stares at the woman through the peephole at the front door. The woman walks up the front steps, looks around, and tries the door handle.

"She died in the other room on that bed," Morgan says, "I should have put her down. I just didn't have it in me. She's the mother of my child."

The next morning, Rick, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans borrowed from either Morgan or Fred Drake, walks outside in a painter's mask, carrying a baseball bat. Morgan is teaching him how to kill walkers. "We're sure they're dead? I have to ask," says Rick, approaching a walker near the stoop. "They're dead." Morgan assures him. "Except for something in the brain. That's why it's gotta be the head," he says.

Morgan and Duane exit the house behind Rick, approaching a walker who slowly rises from a sitting position, leaning against the fence at the edge of the front yard. Rick swings the bat repeatedly, beating the walker down until it stops moving, but quickly becomes fatigued, grasping at his still-ailing gunshot wound.

After practice, Rick tells Morgan he thinks his wife and son are still alive when the trio returns to his house. He found empty drawers in the bedrooms, he explains, and the family pictures and photo albums were gone. "Photo albums," Morgan laughs, getting emotional over the memory. "My wife, same thing. There I am packing survival gear; she's grabbing photo albums."

"They're in Atlanta, I bet," Duane offers. Morgan explains that the government was telling people to head to a refugee center there with military protection and food, before the broadcasts stopped. The Center for Disease Control — where they're rumored to be working on a cure — is also in Atlanta.

Rick, Morgan, and Duane head to the King County Sheriff's Department, where they luxuriate in hot showers thanks to a separate propane heating system, Morgan tells Rick that his family was headed to Atlanta amid absolute panic. "The streets weren't fit to be on," he recalls. He explains that he and his son never got to Atlanta because they got "stuck" after his wife got bit, and after she died they just stayed hunkered down at the Drake's home. Afterward, Rick packs a duffel bag with guns and gets a change of clothes — his sheriff's uniform — from his locker. He hands Morgan a rifle and some ammunition.

Loading the weapons into the trunk of his cruiser, Rick prepares to set off for Atlanta. Morgan says he'll follow in a few days, once Duane has learned to shoot, so Rick hands Morgan a walkie-talkie. But it has a low battery, and he tells Morgan to turn it on every day at dawn to make contact.

Morgan leaves Rick with a warning: "They may not seem like much one at a time," he says, "But in a group, all riled up and hungry? Man, you watch your ass."

The farewell is interrupted when Rick spots Leon Basset, who has turned into a walker. Basset claws at the chain link fence separating them, and while Rick admits he didn't think much of the young officer, he won't leave him like this. He shoots him in the forehead with his revolver, putting him down, before he and Morgan drive away from the sheriff's department in opposite directions.

Back home, Duane is covering the windows before dark, and Morgan heads up to the attic carrying Rick's rifle. He looks at old photo albums and pictures of his wife. Tearfully, he positions the rifle facing the street and begins shooting walkers. He commands Duane to stay downstairs when his son gets startled by the gun shots. "Come on, baby," he says, hoping the noise will draw his wife into view. But when she appears, he breaks down, still unable to shoot her.

Rick returns to the park where he found the legless walker, and when he finds her again she reaches for him futilely, unable to attack and satiate her endless hunger. "I'm sorry this happened to you," Rick says, shooting her in the head with his revolver and putting her out of her misery before he heads back to his car.

En route to Atlanta on Highway 85, Rick sends out a broadcast on his cruiser's CB radio. In a camp outside the city with an old man perched atop an RV with a pair of binoculars, a group of survivors receives the transmission. A young blonde girl in pink rushes to the CB, but can't get a reply through. Shane, Lori, and Carl are among them, but they don't recognize Rick's voice over the garbled transmission. By the time Shane takes over the CB controls and introduces himself, Rick has left the emergency broadcast channel.

Lori voices that she's been saying for a week that they should put signs up on the highway warning people away from the city, and volunteers to go on her own, but Shane argues that venturing out is too risky. Lori walks off, fuming, and Shane goes after her. "You can be pissed at me all you want; it's not gonna change anything," he tells her.

Inside Lori's tent, Shane tells her that she can't run off half-cocked; that she needs to keep it together for Carl, who has lost so much already. Lori agrees, and they kiss passionately before Carl interrupts them. Lori promises him she's not going anywhere and tells her son to go finish his chores. He runs off smiling.

Rick's cruiser runs out of fuel, so he abandons his car on the highway and heads out on foot with a gas can, making sure to grab the Grimes family photo he keeps above his rear-view mirror and stashing it in his jacket pocket. He approaches a farmhouse looking for gas, where he makes the grisly discovery that a man has shot his wife and committed suicide. 'GOD FORGIVE US' is written in blood on the wall.

Rick tries to locate the keys of the pick-up truck parked in their driveway, but finds a horse on their property instead. He saddles up and rides the rest of the way to Atlanta, but it's nothing like Morgan described it. Hundreds of burned out cars trying to leave the city have stalled out on the other side of the freeway, while the road into the city is completely deserted.

Nonetheless, he continues to ride in to the devastated metropolis, with no other leads on his wife and son. He searches the streets on horseback, finding an overrun military blockade and more burned out vehicles. Two ravens peck at a dead animal. He awakens a few walkers along the way, so he and his horse speed up to a trot as he looks back to see them emerging from buses and alleys.

Rick hears a helicopter pass overhead, catching the reflection in a windowed skyscraper. He tries to follow it, but leads himself and the horse straight into a horde of hundreds of walkers. The undead swarm them, toppling him as the walkers devour the horse. While the walkers are distracted, Rick scrambles underneath an abandoned tank, but more walkers come after him and grab at him from both ends.

Rick shoots several of them, but more just keep coming. In desperation, he places the gun to his temple. "Lori, Carl, I'm sorry," he says — but looking up, he sees an open hatch underneath the tank and crawls inside just in time.

He catches his breath and takes the gun of a zombified soldier that appears dead inside the tank. But the movement awakens him, and the soldier turns to bite Rick. Terrified, Rick shoots, and a deafening echo reverberates inside the repressed air of the tank. Disoriented, he notices that the top hatch of the tank is open. He claws his way to the top and lifts his head out to stop the ringing in his ears. He spots his bag of guns, but walkers see him. They begin climbing the tank to get at him, but Rick seals himself inside, with no idea what he'll do next. Walkers bang on the hatch, unable to get in, while others still devour the horse.

Rick holds the soldier's 9mm Beretta 92FS pistol to his forehead, sweating. The tank's radio crackles. "Hey you, dumbass," a voice says. "You in the tank. Cozy in there?"

Other Cast
{{Scroll
 * content =

Co-Stars

 * Jim Coleman as Lambert Kendal
 * Linds Edwards as Leon Basset
 * Keisha Tillis as Jenny Jones
 * Adrian Kali Turner as Duane Jones

Uncredited

 * Melissa Cowan as Hannah
 * Addy Miller as Summer
 * Blade as Siggard's Horse
 * Tommie Mack Turvey as Criminal 1
 * Chick Bernhardt as Criminal 2
 * Brent Bernhard as Criminal 3
 * L. Stephanie Ray as Camp Survivor
 * Frances Cobb as Camp Survivor
 * Orlando Vargas as Camp Survivor
 * Samuel Witwer as Tank Walker
 * Joe Giles as Atlanta Suited Walker
 * Mike Kasiske as Black Suited Walker
 * Max Calder as Baseball Bat Walker
 * Brian Stretch as Tank Walker
 * Charles Casey as Walker
 * Cody Rowlett as Walker
 * Kristen Sanchez as Walker
 * Sonya Thompson as Walker
 * Larry Mainland as Walker
 * Steve Warren as Walker
 * Gary Whitta as Pajama Walker
 * Joe Hernandez as Walker Under Tank
 * Shannon Brinson as Female Gas Station Walker
 * Michelle Flanagan-Helmeczy as Walker
 * Jack Byrd as Walker.
 * Unknown as Linden County Officer 1
 * Unknown as Linden County Officer 2
 * Unknown as Linden County Officer 3
 * Charlie Adlard, Travis Charpentier, Erin Leigh Bushko, Carl Cunningham, Jevocas Green, Alexyz Danine Kemp, Ryan Kightlinger, Derrick McLeod, Christoph Vogt, Scott M. Yaffee, Tony Gowell, Scott McPherson, Marty Brotzge, Tyler Capehart, Chance Bartels as Walkers
 * }}

Deaths

 * Criminal 1
 * Criminal 2
 * Criminal 3
 * Leon Basset (Zombified)
 * Hannah (Zombified)
 * Summer (Zombified)
 * Mrs. Siggard
 * Mr. Siggard
 * Siggard's Horse

Ratings
The episode attained 5.35 million viewers, making it the most-viewed series premiere in AMC history. It garnered a 2.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic, translating to 3.6 million viewers according to Nielsen ratings. It subsequently attained the highest rating in the 18–49 demographic among cable television programs that year. Following two encore presentations, total viewership reached 8.1 million. "Days Gone Bye" became the highest-rated cable telecast ever, hitting significantly higher numbers than predecessors Swamp People and Ice Road Truckers on the History channel.

It obtained 2.1 million viewers from the 18–34 demographic and 3.1 million from the 25–54 demographic. It became the highest-rated non-sport cable program of the week, as well as the third highest-rated overall program of the week dated October 30; "Days Gone Bye" was outperformed by a game between the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics as part of the 2010–11 NBA season and a match between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys as part of the 2010 NFL season. It is the third most-watched installment of The Walking Deads first season, scoring less than "Wildfire" (5.56 million), and "TS-19" (5.97 million). "Days Gone Bye" garnered the highest total viewership for a season premiere out of any cable program up until the airing of its successor, "What Lies Ahead", which attracted 7.3 million viewers.

"Days Gone Bye" achieved similar success in European markets. It debuted in 120 countries in 33 languages. In the United Kingdom, the episode acquired 579,000 viewers, with an estimated 315,000 from the 18–49 demographic. It became the most-watched FX telecast of the week dated November 5. The terrestrial premiere (including Ireland and Scotland) aired on Channel 5 on April 10, 2011, garnering 1.5 million viewers. In Italy, "Days Gone Bye" became the highest-rated telecast of the night on pay television, delivering 360,000 spectators. In Spain, the pilot episode attained a 10.2% share in the television market amongst pay television programs, ultimately obtaining 105,000 viewers. It became the highest-rated series premiere on Fox that year.

The episode performed strongly in Asian markets. In South Korea, "Days Gone Bye" secured 57,000 spectators, subsequently becoming the highest-rated program on Fox that year. In Southeast Asia, total viewership hit 380,000, beating out all Western television programs. "Days Gone Bye" saw its strongest figures in Singapore and the Philippines, where its ratings exceeded the time slot average by 425% and 1,700%, respectively.

"Days Gone Bye" achieved substantial ratings in the 18–49 demographic in several Latin American countries. In Argentina, the pilot episode attained a 3.5 rating in the 18–49 demographic, thereby outperforming the time slot average by 341% and becoming the highest-rated program in its time slot on pay television. It acquired a 2.1 rating in Colombia and Peru, where it exceeded time slot averages by 176% and 970%, respectively. It became the highest-rated program in its time slot on pay television in both countries. "Days Gone Bye" garnered a 1.2 rating in the 18–49 demographic in Venezuela, becoming the highest-rated television program of the day on pay television.

Reaction
Charlie Collier, the president of AMC, stated that it was "a good day to be dead. We are so proud of this series, its depth of storytelling and the remarkable talent attached. As the network dedicated to bringing viewers the best stories on television, we are so pleased to have the opportunity with The Walking Dead to raise the bar within this popular genre and continue our commitment to being the home of premium television on basic cable." Senior Vice President Joel Stillerman ascribed that much of its success came from the storytelling presented in the episode; "The Walking Dead is that rare piece of programming that works on so many levels. It is legitimately great storytelling that is not only highly entertaining, but incredibly thought provoking as well. People who are familiar with the comic books know what's coming, but suffice it to say, this is only the beginning of a long, intense, and powerful ride. Long live The Walking Dead."

Critical response
"Days Gone Bye" was well received by upon release. Sebastian Liver of Der Tagesspiegel insisted that the episode was setting new standards, and elaborated that it illuminates even during its timid moments. Mike Ryan of Vanity Fair reflected parallel sentiments, calling it the "best new television show of the year." Ryan felt that the series would broaden the audience of the horror genre, as well as attract new fans. "Finally, a horror show on television for people who hate horror. It's not that The Walking Dead isn’t scary or doesn’t contain gratuitous amounts of gore [...] but, where other horror projects opt for camp, The Walking Dead grounds itself in reality." Writing for The Atlantic, Scott Meslow affirmed that The Walking Dead was "as dark, intelligent, and uncompromising as any of AMC's other dramas."

St. Louis Post-Dispatchs Gail Pennington appraised "Days Gone Bye" as "genuinely terrifying", adding that despite being too gruesome for her tastes, it was "too engrossing not to watch." Pennington commended the character development in the episode, stating that Darabont "finds time for the human tragedy of the situation." In an A- grade review, Boston Herald journalist Mark Perigard said that the pilot episode was a "suspenseful thriller", while Robert Bianco of USA Today avouched that it was "one killer of a zombie show." The Wall Street Journal writer Nancy deWolf Smith felt that "Days Gone Bye" contained a cinematic quality to it; "The pilot episode [is] so good that it has hooked even a zombie hater like me." Steve West of Cinema Blend praised the episode, calling it "the best pilot since Lost's introduction" and "a brilliant examination of what makes us human." Leonard Pierce of The A.V. Club gave the episode an 'A-' grade, and described it as a "stunning debut".

Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe said that the installment was "fully dynamic and engaging". "The Walking Dead is a promising human story built over a sea of grunting corpses. It’s a scare-fest at points [...] and it's definitely extremely bloody, as zombie guts splatter all over the place like chunky borscht. The 90-minute premiere is a gory Halloween horror event, for sure." Liz Kelly and Jen Chaney of The Washington Post reacted positively to the series premiere, deeming it as a "chilling show", and exclaiming that it had a "very real sense that the world can go completely mad, and stay that way for good." Kris King of Starpulse said that it was "a welcome reprieve from the camp-laden world of zombie culture." Josh Jackson of Paste gave the episode an 8.8 out of 10. Jackson praised the final moments of the episode, describing it as "epic". IGN's Eric Goldman issued "Days Gone Bye" a nine out of ten, signifying an "amazing" rating. Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly evaluated the pilot episode as intense, and felt that it delivered above expectations. He added that it was an "instant classic". Fellow journalist Dan Snierson agreed with Jensen's opinion, complimenting the show for its unpredictability.

James Poniewozik of Time reacted positively to the episode, exclaiming that it "paints a thoroughly convincing postapocalyptic world, both visually and emotionally." Varietys Brian Lowry avouched that "Days Gone Bye" was "surprisingly fresh", despite having initial thoughts of a stale premise. He wrote: "The Walking Dead draws the audience in almost instantly with its cinematic 90-minute pilot, then incorporates tasty soap-like elements meant to animate the ensuing episodes. Although we've seen no shortage of zombies and post-apocalyptic stories, producer-writer-director Frank Darabont has deftly tackled the seemingly perilous task of adapting a comic book about zombies into a viable episodic series." In a three out of four star review, Linda Stasi of New York Post summarized, "The zombies are truly scary and disgusting. The survivors are terrific characters, and the gore is enough for any lunatic to love."

Critics were polarized over Andrew Lincoln's performance. Despite citing that his accent was "dodgy", Pierce lauded Lincoln's acting. "his body language and expression here is totally different now than when we saw him before," he opined. "He's a fast learner." Gilbert referred to his accent as "spotty", while Goldman professed that Lincoln fit into character very well; "For much of the pilot, he's on his own and exudes a lot of believable, shocked emotion, as Rick tries to process what he is seeing. Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter felt that Lincoln's performance was one of the episode's drawbacks. He wrote: "One drawback in [The Walking Dead] is that Lincoln plays his emotion a little too close to his deputy’s badge. We're told — by him — that all he wants to do is find his wife and kid. His belief that they still are alive is the emotional drive of the story, but there's not enough deep pain that seeps up to coat the dialogue Lincoln delivers."

Awards
The episode received three Creative Arts Emmy Award nominations for the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards, for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects|Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series, and won for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup for a Series, Miniseries, Movie, or Special.

Trivia

 * First appearance of Rick Grimes.
 * First appearance of Shane Walsh.
 * First appearance of Lori Grimes.
 * First appearance of Dale Horvath.
 * First appearance of Glenn Rhee. (Voice Only)
 * First appearance of Carl Grimes.
 * First appearance of Morgan Jones.
 * First appearance of Amy.
 * First appearance of Lambert Kendal.
 * First appearance of Leon Basset.
 * First (and last) appearance of Duane Jones.
 * First (and last) appearance of Jenny Jones. (Zombified)
 * First (and last) appearance of Summer. (Zombified)
 * First (and last) appearance of Mr. Siggard.
 * First (and last) appearance of Mrs. Siggard.
 * Last appearance of Hannah. (Zombified)
 * When Rick goes through the gas station in the beginning of the episode, he passes by a couple of corpses sitting in abandoned cars. The bodies remain dead although in a deleted scene, it appears that they both are stationary zombies.See video at 1:45
 * It also appears that zombies were supposed to start chasing Rick at the gas station, as seen at the end of this behind the scenes video.
 * The Walking Dead was the most watched TV Series premiere in AMC's history.
 * Female gas station zombie alive (Days Gone Bye).png episode's title is based on Volume 1: Days Gone Bye, the collection of The Walking Dead comics that contains the first six issues of the Comic Series.
 * The name of the episode, "Days Gone Bye", may refer to the fact that many days had passed since Rick has been in a coma, coupled with the notion that the days of old, before the outbreak, are gone forever.
 * Laurie Holden (Andrea) does not appear in the episode, but is still credited as a main cast member.
 * Steven Yeun (Glenn) does not physically appear in the episode, but his voice is audibly heard over the radio in the tank Rick is trapped in the end of the episode.
 * The story of Hannah (the Bicycle Girl Zombie) is revealed in the Webisodes.
 * The tank that Rick climbs into is an obsolete British Chieftain, which was never used by the U.S. Military, visually modified to represent an M-1 Abrams. Usually Centurions, another obsolete British tank, are used in movies to 'play' the Abrams but it is possible that the producers chose the Chieftain because it has a hatch on the underside of the hull, which the Abrams does not.
 * The song that plays at the end credits, as the camera pulls back from the tank to reveal the street covered in walkers, is, "Space Junk", by Wang Chung.
 * "The real villains in The Walking Dead are the living, and the real horror isn't the death that comes from the teeth and nails of zombies but the moral compromises made to avoid that fate. It's a survival story in the truest and bleakest sense, a story of the triumph of surviving an impossible situation, and the devastation of what that survival does to you."
 * This is the first episode to share the same title of a Comic Series volume. The others being "Made to Suffer", "This Sorrowful Life", and "Too Far Gone".
 * The TV episode follows the comic volume of "Days Gone Bye" very closely, mimicking several panels in various scenes. The volume-named TV episodes that followed, however, diverted from the comics and instead followed the television canon and story arc.
 * There is no Linden County in Georgia; like King County, it is also fictitious. According to the first commentary track, King County is a nod to Stephen King's name.
 * One of the zombies is played by Taso N. Stavrakis, who plays in George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead."
 * Rick's awakening in the hospital room with no recollection of prior events is very similar to the opening of 28 Days Later, a British horror film released in November of 2002 in the United Kingdom, nearly two years prior to the comics' Issue 1's publication and eight years before the TV adaptation.
 * As Rick wakes up from his coma, he looks at the clock which reads 2:17, which is the same time seen on the clock when explosions are heard from the same room in TS-19. According to the first commentary track, 217 is a nod to Stephen King's novel "The Shining".

Goofs/Errors

 * During the gunfight near the start of the episode, Rick is shot just below his left shoulder, in the back. After he awakens in the hospital, and thereafter, he is shown with a bandage over his lower left abdomen, and there isn't a scratch on his back.
 * When Rick leaves the haunted house on the horse, the guns in the bag are visibly fake.
 * Rick is supposedly going south on I-85 going into Atlanta, but that is not the skyline of Atlanta you would see if you were heading south. The skyline is from Freedom Parkway, facing West.
 * The police leave someone to pull stop sticks off the road so the cars following can pass safely. There is no conceivable reason for stop sticks to cause a car to flip over. They are designed to slowly deflate the tires to prevent loss of control. The point is to slow the fleeing car, not make it crash.
 * The bus that Rick passes while in Atlanta is not the type of bus that is used in Atlanta by MARTA.
 * During the shootout following the car chase you can see elbow pads on the first gunman as he falls after being shot.
 * The M1 Abrams tank is actually one of the few tanks without a "belly hatch." The "M1 Abrams" in the show is actually a different tank mocked up with fake body panels to pose as an modern Abrams.
 * When Rick awakes in the hospital you can see that his IV bag is empty. Blood backs up into IV lines when a bag is empty because it forms a vacuum. Rick's lines are blood free.
 * When Rick first sees the horde in Atlanta and the horse goes on its hind legs in fright, to the back left of the screen, a walker can be seen sipping from a water bottle.
 * Rick states to Glenn on the radio that he has 15 rounds, but when he goes an pops off those rounds, he runs out of ammo at 14 shots, meaning he still had one more to shoot.

Differences between the episode and comics
Ugo.com makes 18 comparisons between the comic and the episode. Below are significant differences between the first episode and the comics:
 * There is no introduction with Rick shooting a child zombie or Rick and Shane talking in the squad car in the comic. The comic begins with the highway shoot out.
 * Shane is shot in the hand by the criminal in the comic.
 * In the comic, Rick has no vision of Shane visiting him in the hospital.
 * In the comic, Rick changes into street clothing in his hospital room before venturing out of the hospital.
 * In the comic, Rick opens the hospital door to the room which is boarded up and confronts a zombie for the first time. The zombie lunges at Rick, and both fly out an exterior door. The zombie is partially decapitated on the stairs going down to the street.
 * In the comic, Morgan does not worry about Rick's wound. In this episode, Morgan is concerned it is a bite, so he threatens Rick.
 * There is no visit from Morgan's wife in the comic.
 * Rick, Morgan, and Duane visit the sheriff's office at night in the comic, instead of during the day in the first episode.
 * Rick does not know, and does not kill, the walker through the sheriff's office fence in the comic.
 * In the episode, the bicycle zombie is only half of a body, whereas in the comic, the body is full, but decayed.

Similarities between the episode and comics
Below are significant similarities between the first episode and the comics:
 * In both the comic and the episode, Rick finds a bike with a badly-decomposed zombie woman next to the bike.
 * In both the comic and the first episode Rick returns to mercy-kill the decayed zombie he saw after escaping the hospital.
 * In both the comic and the episode, Duane hits Rick over the head with a shovel.
 * In both the comic and the episode, Rick runs out of fuel and travels to Atlanta on horseback.
 * In both the comic and the episode, Rick runs into a zombie herd in Atlanta who devour the horse.