Oh, The Walking Dead, nothing you do is ever okay and, under the circumstance, I mean that in the best possible way.
In this Rick-less installment, Eugene and Abraham go off together and get into an argument over Eugene’s ability to deal with the outside undead world. Meanwhile, Daryl and Rosita go off together with Denise and get into an argument about her ability to deal with the outside undead world.
All this while Carol is dealing with her new and nearly inexplicable regret over all of the killing that she’s done that will probably turn into a filler show down the road.
Obviously, I’m not a fan of the Carol subplot. I thought she had dealt with this last week, I thought it was over, but it just popped back up like a zit and apparently, it’s still a thing. At this point, it’s stopped making sense. Yeah, last week I thought, “Well, Morgan got under her skin and she’s got PTSD so she’s having trouble dealing with her emotions.” This week, it escalates to an absurd level that quite literally came out of nowhere and it’s just not working. It needs to be done.
There’s a difference between having a character be traumatized and having a character be traumatized and do something so brain-dead stupid that it’s likely to get others killed.
Everything else about the episode worked great. Abraham had some amazingly quotable lines that I will probably never get a chance to use… Though “You’ll have better luck picking up a turd by the clean end” might come in handy some day. It was fun to see a continuation of the Abraham/Eugene dynamic as it hasn’t really been explored much in the last season and, although still very much a jerk, it’s nice to see Eugene evolve and change out of necessity.
Despite the fact that she was never a big part of the show, I liked Denise. I liked her human insecurities, I liked that she rose to a challenge, and I liked that she was being constantly underestimated and yet, continued to strive. She wasn’t that developed as a character, but I just liked her. I liked that she was a little dumpy and not that athletic. I liked that she was radically different from the other survivors and, yet, wasn’t an unlikable jerk like Eugene is.
So, her death, sudden and gruesome, was unexpected and it hurt. I don’t think I’ve seen a character on The Walking Dead that I liked die since poor Tyreese and I forgot what it was like to say “Oh no!” instead of “Well, it’s about time!”
As I said, very little this show does is okay. It’s unfair, it’s shocking and it’s one of the many reasons I watch this unmerciful harlot every week.
The Carol stuff fell flat, but the team-up stories were great. I have to admit, as easily as The Saviors keep getting routed I’m finding it difficult to take them seriously as the bad guys, but I’m sure they’re setting something heavy and blunt up soon.
Very soon.
Jason Gaston 