There’s a reason for that. Frank Darabont was the director who made season one great. After season one’s strongly positive reception, AMC decided that they wanted to double the episodes, hack the budget, and then halfway through season 2 they let Darabont go and replaced him with some piss poor other director who couldn’t hold a candle to Darabont. YMS does a great job explaining it and shitting mightily on AMC.