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Thursday, February 19, 2015

The Walking Dead: Season 5 Episode 10 WDF Review

Episode 10:  Them

This is an episode of character development, with fairly slow movement throughout up until the end.  The group is headed on their road trip to DC but run out of gas and find themselves hoofing it with no food and little water.  Starving and running low on hope, they are confronted by a pack of dogs-gone-wild, which they make a tasty meal of.

Maggie, Sasha, and Daryl are not handling the deaths of Beth and Tyreese very well.  They are all portrayed in the episode as being hardened by it, either by not allowing the emotion to sink in or channeling it poorly.  Sasha takes her anger out on a group of Walkers, thwarting Rick's Walker-Management Plan and endangering the rest of the group.  Maggie has a minor meltdown over a Walkerfied kidnapping victim in a trunk, but is nearly catatonic otherwise.  Daryl eats a worm... and then heads out on his own to have a breakdown in private.

Regrouping a bit further down the road, the group comes across a stash of water bottles in the middle of the road with a note saying "From a Friend".  Of course being assured that Morgan's reintroduction is imminent, our immediate hope was that he was closely following the group and somehow able to provide this bounty for his friend and his crew, but the group refuse to accept the gift as it could be a trap.

A massive thunderstorm rolls in and while the group is at first mostly elated by the fresh source of water, they realize how dangerous it is becoming and take shelter in a nearby barn for the night.  Rick gives another impassioned speech which includes the words "We are The Walking Dead", that the group must face the world as a war in which they already think of themselves as dead in order to come out alive on the other side.  Panic ensues when in the wee hours of the dark morning, a small Walker hoard attempts to break through the barn doors, but it is soon to pass as we next see the group beginning to awaken the next morning in peace.  Daryl presents Maggie with a music box (the kind with the spinning ballerina inside) that he has found and fixed.  Taking her gift with her, she stirs Sasha and the two head outside to survey the damage from the storm and take in the sunrise while sharing a "moment".

Enter Aaron, the clean cut, showered and presentable "stranger danger".  He seems welcoming just as Gareth (the Termite) did, which is always foreboding in these times.  Even worse, he knows Rick's name and that he is the leader of the group.  A swift end to the episode there leads us to sneak peeks from next week reflecting a continuation of this intense distrust, and eludes toward scuffles that are sure to transpire.

Some may continue to accuse the writers of poor pacing, but this is a necessary episode.  It is a drama, after all, not an action movie, and it does progress the characters past certain development points that are necessary in order to continue forward movement.  It also introduces a new character and potential threat, so there's not a whole lot more that could be crammed into less than an hour of airtime.  The great thing about Season 5 is that there are six episodes left and while there are educated guesses floating around, nobody really knows where we'll end up and who we'll be with when we get there.


Monday, February 9, 2015

The Walking Dead: Season 5 Episode 9 WDF Review

Episode 9:  What Happened and What's Going On

Alright!  We are back at it with the back half of Season 5 and boy do we hit the ground running!  

We are greeted right away with some seriously ominous imagery.  Those who said this episode is like an acid trip are right on- well, that is we can only guess what an acid trip is like and that'd be our guess.

What is not apparent right away is that we are bouncing back and forth through time, from Tyreese's point of view.  We see what we think is Beth's burial... but nay nay, this is the art of misdirection.  The group decides to take Noah home as he and Beth planned to do, and we find out they've made a 500 mile trek since we last saw them (according to Nicotero, 17 days have elapsed since Beth's death).  Can it be, Daryl Dixon has finally made it out of Georgia?  One can't help but wonder if he was watching the landscape outside the van window change in secret excitement.  You could imagine the little boy squeal inside his head when he saw the first State line sign.

Rick, Tyreese, Michonne, Glenn, and Noah trepidatiously approach Noah's walled-off neighborhood.  There is no sign of anyone near the gate.  Peering over, it is clear the worst has happened and only walkers are there to greet them.  Burned out homes and walker body parts are all that's left.  As they jump over the fence, Noah breaks down and Tyreese stays to comfort him while the others scavenge.  Haven't we learned our lesson not to separate?

Noah makes a break for it, headed for his own house to see what has happened to his family, with Ty in hot pursuit.  Ty goes in first to clear.  Noah's family has been killed and his brother is now a walker... who decides Ty's arm looks like a nice snack.  And from here, we're taken on an intentional battle between optimism that Tyreese will make it and despair that he will not.

Tyreese's delirium brought on by blood loss brings about discussion on his past wrongs with the likes of Martin (the Termite he lied about killing), The Governor who wants him to pay the bill on the keep he failed to earn after promising it, Mika and Lizzie, Bob, and finally Beth.  It is the quintessential final reckoning/welcoming, and despite how polarizing these characters could be, made us smile with delight at this brief reunion.

The group tries to save him by removing his bitten arm, but ultimately- yes, they fail and we find out the burial from the beginning was actually Ty's.  So what now?  The group has traveled 500 miles only to find their destination has fallen and lost a member in the process.  Thanks to a brief discussion in the street of Noah's neighborhood, we know that Michonne has talked Rick into continuing on to D.C.... so we have a new direction, or yet a resuming of the previous one.  After all, we've been teased about Morgan and he has the map to Washington, right?  So it would naturally follow that the group would have to end up there so that he can be worked back into the story.

All in all it was a very well written, well executed mid-season premiere.  The trip to Noah's fallen neighborhood did not consume more screen time than it should have, which was a major complaint with the first half (not enough forward progress).  No one saw Tyreese's death coming for sure, particularly not immediately after Beth's death, so it definitely was not predictable.  The only thing we didn't like about the episode was it's name!

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