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“A remake of Walker, Texas Ranger just wouldn’t fly today,” you likely thought when you heard that The CW was rebooting the 1993-2001 CBS series as Walker, with Jared Padalecki taking the role that Chuck Norris made famous. After all, the original Walker was all black-and-white morals and lots of martial arts. How could this one work? Well, what if we told you that this version of Walker is actually… thoughtful? The show premiered on The CW in January of 2021, and Season 1 just landed on HBO Max. So, should you…
WALKER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Texas Ranger Cordell Walker (Jared Padalecki) drives in his truck towards his parents’ ranch. He’s met on the road outside the ranch by his wife Emily (Genevieve Padalecki).
The Gist: While at the ranch, playing a game with his parents Abeline (Molly Hagan) and Bonham (Mitch Pileggi) and his kids Stella (Violet Brinson) and August (Kale Culley), Walker gets a phone call. His wife Emily has been found unconscious on the side of a desolate road. Emily doesn’t make it, shattering Walker and his family.
Ten months later, Walker comes back home from an undercover assignment that he went on in the wake of Emily’s death. Bonham and Abeline have been watching August and Stella, and Walker’s brother Liam (Keegan Morgan) has moved from New York back to Austin to help out. Stella seems to be especially sore at Walker for being away for so long when they needed him the most; the original thought is that he would only be undercover for a couple of months. Also in the interim, his former partner Larry James (Coby Bell) has been promoted to captain, becoming his new boss.
Not able to process his grief, Walker gets drunk at a park that had special meaning to him and Emily. The trooper that gives him a ride home says she’s getting promoted the next day. When Walker arrives at a crime scene the next morning, he sees that the trooper, Micki Ramirez (Lindsey Morgan), is his new partner. She knows Walker is a legend, but she also knows that he bends the rules, something she doesn’t want to deal with as one of the few women and Mexican-Americans in the Rangers.
It especially comes into play when Walker gets too aggressive with someone he’s questioning with regards to a drug smuggling ring taking place in a place where ex-cons work to help get them back on the streets; one of them tells Walker that “you didn’t protect her!”, “her” being his wife.
When Walker and Ramirez bust that ring, Capt. James offers Walker a position on a task force that would investigate that ring’s cartel ties. He thinks about it, but after dealing with Stella’s bouts of trouble, as well as both of his kids expressing that they need him there, he decides to stay home, moving into a converted barn on his parents’ ranch.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Take the original Walker, Texas Ranger and combine it with something a bit more emotionally-rooted, like Everwood, and you have this new version of Walker.
Our Take: The pilot of the new Walker starts out as a jumble of information: What happened to Emily? Are those Walker’s parents or in-laws? Who are those other two people who show up to greet Walker when he comes back from his undercover assignment? Wait, he went undercover right after his wife died? It feels like too much, too fast to set up the story of Padalecki’s version of Cordell Walker, who starts to rebuild things with his family after essentially running away after Emily’s death.
But once things settled down, we appreciated the thoughtful approach of the new series; the showrunner, Anna Fricke, has a history of writing for shows with that kind of thoughtfulness (including — hold on to your Stetsons — Everwood). This isn’t just Walker solving the case of the week. Sure, that will be there, and there will be lots of chases and butt-kickings, though probably done with less martial arts choreography like Chuck Norris was able to do as Walker in the original series.
In this series, Walker isn’t just going after the big bad, or trying to make the big bust. He’s genuinely concerned with reconnecting with his kids, spending time with his parents and brother, and looking into what really happened to his wife. Padalecki, just coming off what seemed like 37 seasons of Supernatural, is the right guy to play this version of Walker. He somehow makes himself more gruff and tough than we remember when he played Dean on Gilmore Girls all those years ago, giving off just enough gravitas to make him look like a veteran Ranger who bends the rules to make his busts. But when Walker needs to have some sensitivity or (gulp) even some real human emotion, Padalecki is able to bring the character places Norris was unable or unwilling to go.
Pairing him with Lindsay Morgan as Ramirez was a good move; Ramirez represents a generation of Rangers that’s a bit different; given the Rangers’ history with immigrants going back to the 1800s, it’s tough for her to be a Ranger who is both Mexican-American and a woman. But it’ll be good to have someone who can keep Walker in check and maybe help him figure out how to do his job in 2021. Hagan and Pileggi also are excellent as Walker’s parents, who want what’s best for him, but also want him to be present for his kids.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: As Walker and his kids sit in front of a fireplace in the converted barn, Stella expresses doubts that he’ll stay. “I’m about being here,” he says. “For now,” she scoffs. “I’m learning. Now’s all we got,” he replies.
Sleeper Star: Violet Brinson stands out as Stella, who is most hurt by Walker’s absence after Emma’s death. She’s going to be the biggest challenge for Walker, because he’s already lost her trust. This push and pull should be an interesting continuing story throughout the first season.
Most Pilot-y Line: For some reason or another, Micki will not call Trey (Jeff Pierre), an army medic who is just back from an overseas deployment, her boyfriend. Does she think she’ll be too tied down or is there something else going on?
Our Call: STREAM IT. This version of Walker doesn’t just deal in black-and-white morals and roundhouse kicks. Padalecki’s version of Cordell Walker has a real family situation he needs to address, all the while trying to protect his home state from drug cartels and other bad guys. It’s a refreshing new take on a character that was very one-dimensional in the 1990s.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
