Completely Unhinged Review of “The Walking Dead” 414 – “The Grove”
Have you recovered yet? We sure as heck haven’t. This week “The Walking Dead” pulled no emotional punches. They went there and didn’t bat an eyelash. Unfortunately “there” may have been a little too far for some of the younger actors involved. A lot was asked of them and it didn’t quiet . . . work. Some of the intensely emotional scenes failed to fully grab the audience and jerk them into the moment. Melissa McBride delivered a stellar performance in this episode. One of her best in the series. She succeeded where others couldn’t handle it and pulled the audience deeper into the heart-wrenching events of the episode. One woman cannot make a show, though. Certainly not a show built on a solid ensemble cast during the early seasons. The longer the show sticks to intimate cast sizes per episode, the more drawn out and god-awfully slow it feels. Not good for TWD fans who came to the party expecting copious amounts of brain-bashing action.
What are we going to do this week, Brain? Same thing we do every week, Pinky. Post TWD spoilers.
It is no secret that Lizzie is completely unglued. Her grasp on her own mortality and the real danger the walkers pose to her safety was never solid. In this episode, it becomes painfully clear that she’s always been slightly off. Little Mika has obviously spent ample time learning how to distract her sister from whatever isn’t right in her head. We have no name for what’s wrong with Lizzie. She’s convinced the walkers are simply an evolved version of ourselves. They speak to her. Demand she take care of them and provide food. Somewhere along the way, being undead became an appealing prospect. Was this a way to cope with the losses her family faced since the walkers started shuffling around? Hard to tell now that we know she wasn’t all there to begin with.
Dealing with mental illness after the healthcare system has fallen to the wayside along with the government, sewer maintenance, water stations, etc., can’t be easy. Many suffering from mental health problems rely on medicine to recalibrate the chemicals in their brains. Others need the calming effects of a regulated schedule, which often includes regular visits with a mental health professional of some sort. None of the methods used to treat problems like Lizzie’s are available to her. Mika does her best, calming her sister while providing insight to the adults who’ve taken care of them since their father’s death. Did daddy dearest know how far gone his eldest daughter was before the flu claimed him? We didn’t see much, if anything, about the girls until his passing. Would Lizzie have snapped so completely if their father had been the one to take them from the prison instead of Tyreese and Carol?
Carol has tried so hard to become cold, calculating, and pragmatic since losing Sophia. She killed Karen and David, only showing remorse when it came time to confess to Rick and then, in this episode, Tyreese. The remorse came because Carol knew she’d betrayed their trust. She fully believed killing Karen and David would prevent the spread of a disease the prison population had no hope of fighting off on their own without medicine and a team of doctors. They were necessary deaths. Something she did for the better of everyone. Carol knows there’s people surviving in their new world who are only making it because of others. Sophia, as Carol put it, “Didn’t have a mean bone in her body.” Killing to survive was well beyond her comfort levels. Mika is the same way, despite Carol’s attempts to toughen her up.
Too bad her lessons didn’t stick.
Lizzie’s madness cost her sister her life. Is anyone to blame? No. Nevertheless, Carol’s guilt nearly cripples her, makes her hesitate to do the necessary thing. Is death ever necessary? In our world, no. Murder is senseless. Unnatural to the teachings of the numerous world religions which are the cornerstone of our morals. But in a world where every day is a fight to take just one more breath, one must weigh the good of the many against the individual. Carol and Tyreese were faced with that decision—try to save Lizzie, despite the depth of her mental illness or ensure Judith’s safety, as well as their own. In the end, Carol’s ruthless practicality stepped in and allowed her to make the hard decision. Lizzie had to die. No matter how they arranged it, someone would end up alone with her and Lizzie’s inclination to turn everyone into a walker would get the best of her, and them. What if Lizzie ran off and some do-gooder brought her into their camp? Nothing good could’ve come from her continuing to live unmedicated and unchecked by her sister’s kind soul.
In order for the show to catch their audience again, they need to pick up the pace. There’s only two episodes left in season four and the entire second half of the season has been spent backtracking. Why? They brought too many characters in too quickly during the prison days. None of the new survivors who walked away from the prison attack got much screen time, giving viewers a group of strangers to follow who they had no connection to. While yes, it’s good to get to know a character, it’s too little too late this long after the characters have been introduced. All the character development slowed down the pace of the show. It’s become “The Lord of the Rings,” with every single character’s progress no more than walking a few miles. Are they growing emotionally? Yes. Has anything really happened since the prison fight? Can’t say it has. We’ve got a budding fan-service relationship, two dead kids, and a lot of people walking on train tracks after six episodes. Not to mention two new groups of survivors who will likely get the same lack-of-development treatment as the others. The entire first season was only six episodes and look what they accomplished there.
Will everyone meet at Terminus by the end of season four? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
This was a hectic week in the ZSC Command Center, with a good number of our commanders off in Sacramento, CA for Wizard World Comic Con. Perhaps it was the insanity of our week transferring, but somehow this week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” felt just as discombobulated. Disconnected. Schizophrenic. The scenes jumped around a lot. Possibly to force the show’s pace to pick up again after last week’s slow-down to focus on Daryl and Beth? Whatever the reason, the latest episode fell somewhat flat. The energy was forced, when in reality not much actually happened to progress the plot until the end of the hour. With that in mind, let’s see what some of the characters were up to this week.
You know the drill. There’s spoilers below this text. Read ahead at your own risk.
The episode kicked off with an unexpected flashback showing Bob’s life in the week or so before Glenn and Daryl found him and brought him to the prison. He’d been completely alone, drinking cough syrup because there’s no liquor stores when wandering in the wilderness, and hardly doing anything that’d be considered truly living. There hasn’t been a flashback on the show—a true flashback, unlike Michonne’s weird dreams and hallucinations—in quite some time. Some viewers may have been confused, wondering where Sasha and Maggie were if Bob was alone and looking like he hadn’t shaved or seen bath water in over a month. While the flashback drove home the suck-fest that is surviving alone in the zombie apocalypse, it wasn’t necessary. Bob’s argument with Sasha later, the ragged emotion in his voice when he tells her about how awful the isolation was as he wandered aimlessly without anyone to watch his back so he could get even a couple hours of sleep, told the truth of the loneliness far better than a confusing flashback. Which only added to the disjointed feeling of the episode.
Strangely, instead of touching base with the show’s lead character, Rick, we caught up with Beth and Daryl again. Who we saw for an hour last week. Show runners are really driving that pair home in the minds of fans. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. We get it. There’s something brewing between these two. Short of renting an airplane and writing it in the sky, there’s not much more the writers can do to inform us this unspoken something between Daryl and Beth will be romantic. Though honestly it wasn’t until Daryl, the man who had been a nomad long before stumbling across his first walker, suggested settling down that the idea of a relationship between the two fully clicked. This is an instance where subtly was thrown out the window… which isn’t fair to fans. Watching something brew between two characters organically, like what happened with Glenn and Maggie, is part of the thrill. Daryl and Beth feels like fan service. Would it happen eventually without them forcing it? Probably.
As far as the characters know, they’re the only survivors from the prison. Everyone they knew is gone and for the most part, whenever they encounter new survivors, the newbies try to kill them. Take Beth’s random abduction, for example. Who has gas left over a year into the apocalypse? Even the group at the prison had to start rationing gas. Michonne took to riding a horse or walking on her numerous trips out to track the governor.
But they’ve introduced yet another group of survivors, led by a guy named Joe.
Right off the bat, it’s obvious they won’t take any guff from Daryl. But are they friend or foe? So far, they’ve only threatened violence if Daryl does something rash and stupid. Will they help him find Beth? Who knows? Joe and gang weren’t on screen long enough to do more than tease their existence.
When will we catch up with the other survivors? What do you think is happening with Glenn, Rick, Michonne, Carol, and the others? Let us know in the comments below.
We put the vert in covert… or maybe not. Any time the Zombie Survival Crew hits a new city, we tend to draw attention.
Hard to hide when arriving alongside Special Forces commander Michael Rooker, Blue Brigade commander Norman Reedus, plus first lieutenants David Della Rocco and Sean Patrick Flannery. And of course ZSC CIC and Red Brigade commander Juliette Terzieff, with yours truly scrambling to keep up.
Hey, your Orange Brigade commander is no slouch, but Juliette moves quickly. Blink and you miss her darting through a crowd of thousands. Which happened. Several times. Like a flesh and bone version of “Doctor Who” baddies, the Weeping Angels. Sacramento had no clue what hit them when Wizard World Comic Con rolled into town.
Once the shock passed, the locals and those who traveled from out of town to attend the event embraced the insanity and ran with it. The show opened Friday evening to a huge crowd, with many, many more folks to visit over the weekend. We saw tons of creative costumes, homemade fan shirts, and beautiful artwork. The massive crowds inside and out of the convention center attracted a herd of zombies—well over a hundred in the pack—leading Wizard World to call in the God of Thunder himself, Chris Hemsworth, who helped in the good fight to save mankind.
Everyone’s efforts were repaid with smiles, kind words, hugs, and a lot of good local food to fuel us throughout the long weekend. We take pride in personally ensuring the safety of the folks in California’s capitol city.
Just another stop in the ZSC’s bid to prepare and protect the world from the undead hordes!
Sunday night posed a viewing quandary for many folks. When time came. Of course the ZSC Command Center TV was turned to AMC for the newest episode of “The Walking Dead.” Unlike any other episode in the series, this week’s featured only two of the main cast for the duration. Kudos to Norman Reedus and Emily Kinney for their performances. It couldn’t have been easy to carry an episode on their own—with a little help from not-so-friendly neighborhood walkers.
Wait a minute . . . . Have you watched the episode? There’s spoilers below.
The overall theme for season four seems to be acceptance. Not necessarily of others, as we saw in this episode, but of the circumstances life’s thrown their way and the deaths they’ve witnessed along the way. Everyone in this world had to step back and look at their lives objectively. What good would it do to be pissed at the world? Would anger put food on the table? Could it bring back their loved ones? Anger certainly can come in handy when it comes to killing walkers, as we saw with Daryl’s hole-in-one tee-off in the locker room during the middle of the episode.
But anger can also make one sloppy, careless. Beth has been working through the stages of grief since her father’s murder and the attack on the prison. The anger stage set her off on a mission—she wanted booze. It wasn’t an end to their problems she desired, just a drink to take the edge off everything she’s avoided confronting emotionally.
“All I wanted to do today was lay down and cry, but we don’t get to do that.”
Beth’s ignored her feelings since early on at the prison. After they lost the farm, she switched her focus from what she needed to what others needed. It gave her a somewhat healthy distraction, but also didn’t allow her time to mourn her losses properly. Until now when it’s just her and a growly redneck traipsing through the woods. Now she’s got all the time in the world. There’s no kids to take care of. No food to cook. No home to clean. No one to talk to—let’s face it, Daryl is not Chatty Cathy. She’s stuck mourning all her losses at the same time, most notably losing the home she thought they’d remain in until someone somewhere came up for a solution for the undead problem.
Her mission for a “real” drink took them to a country club. Right off the bat, the place feels hinky. As they clear the building, picking up needed items along the way, it becomes apparent something horrible happened inside the club’s main building. Something not done at the hands of walkers. Even when death knocked at their door, the class structures inherent in a place like a country club—where the wealthy are given free rein to lord over the employees—were still in play. Through the dead Beth and Daryl found, we start to weave together a story told through the ages. The wealthy, when caught unprepared for disaster, were obliterated by those who felt their money made them less than human. How could anyone who never had to beg and scrape to pay the bills have any feelings? The reasoning isn’t sound. Frankly, it’s insane. The stress of survival does bad things to people. We’ve seen it time and time again in four seasons of the show.
Daryl doesn’t often show typical signs of stress. He’s like a duck in water, letting everything roll off his back. Sadly, it’s always been this way for him. This week we finally learned what exactly Daryl did before the walkers came—not a dang thing, apparently. He tooled around with his brother Merle, causing mischief and doing nothing productive with his life. Daryl didn’t call the shots. He acted as a lackey for his drug-addled, loud-mouthed older brother. Possibly the most shocking part of the episode wasn’t any of the walker kills, or even Daryl’s borderline abusive attempt to teach Beth how to use a cross bow. Daryl talked about Merle and his father. He never talks about his family, and hasn’t mentioned his brother since Merle was turned walker and Daryl killed him. Dwelling on the past is not his favorite pastime.
Escaping the past isn’t so easy, though. The prison attack, all those needless deaths, it’s eating away at Daryl. He finally made something out of his life, finally stepped out free from his brother’s long shadow to fashion himself into an apocalyptic hero of sorts. Only to lose the majority of the people he’d agreed to protect. Beth told him, “I know you look at me and see another dead girl.” Because that’s all they’ve left in their wake from Atlanta to the farm to the prison, dead girls who couldn’t hack it. He saw this and tried like hell to save them. And failed. Listening to Beth’s resigned statements about her final fate, how he’ll be the only one of their group to survive, hurts Daryl on a level he’s not comfortable showing her. He doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t want to fail the family he’s chosen and fought for. Failing his blood family was bad enough.
Daryl and Beth vented, fought, drank, and finally came to understand what makes each other tick. This is vital to their continued survival. Beth won’t throw a fit and wander off to nearly be eaten. Daryl won’t try to take on too many walkers and end up at the wrong end of all those rotting teeth. They’ve got each other, now. No one else. They need to make it work or die trying to find a new place to call home.
What did you think about having an episode with only two cast members? Let us know in the comments below.
The second half of Walking Dead’s forth season should, by all rights, be slow-paced. Right? There’s no way with the huge cast cut down to manageable chunks to manage huge, tension-filled scenes chalk full of blood, guts, and grief.
Wrong.
So far the second half of the season moves smoothly, with a few hiccups mostly to cut out unneeded moments best covered in dialog later. This episode focused on the new folks—Sgt. Abraham Ford, Rosita Espinosa, and Eugene Porter—along with Tara and Glenn, and Rick, Carl, and Michonne’s plan to get their bearings before moving on from their little slice of normality.
Last week, we were introduced to Sgt. Abraham Ford and his companions, but didn’t get much further than, “Hey, who the heck are these people?” In episode 411, there’s a lot more time spent with Ford, in particular. Right out of the gate, it’s disturbing how much he enjoys a fight. Tara called him on it when she noticed his smile during a walker (biter) attack. Ford is a formidable fighter—mean and silent until he’s sure he’s got the upper hand. He wastes little energy on showmanship. And boy does he enjoy T.C.o.B. – Taking Care of Business when it comes to the walkers. What drives him? A personal vendetta against the undead? Or is he more like Lizzie, someone who kills because they enjoy it? Unlike the show’s pint-sized sociopath, Ford at least appears to care what happens to the people he’s taken under his wing. Not to mention, being totally gung-ho to deliver Eugene to whatever semblance of government survived this far past the original walker swarm. Yet Ford somehow fails to acknowledge Rosita’s emotional attachment. He’s isolated himself, drew everything in until he’s a laser, focused on the mission at hand.
For his part, Eugene doesn’t seem as concerned with reaching Washington as Ford. He’s smart. Smart enough to know they can’t travel alone and hope to survive. Does he really have the answers Rick and his crew struggled to find back in season one when their last-ditch effort landed them at the doors of the CDC? This far in, there’s no way to know what’s going on in Eugene’s head. Or on his head. What is up with the mullet? It makes me not want to trust this guy at all.
Glenn doesn’t seem to trust them, either. He’s still weak from the flu, liable to pass out again at any moment. But when it comes to finding Maggie, he’ll walk straight into Mordor and knock on Sauron’s front door. Which he very well could be doing. There are no guarantees he’ll find his wife again. The hope instilled in Glenn from his time with Hershel shines through like the sun through storm clouds. How far can he walk fueled by hope alone? Three hours by truck is a far way to backtrack on foot. By then, Maggie could be anywhere. She’s not going to sit idle, hoping he’ll come across the bus. Glenn is ruled by his emotions, blindly walking toward whatever future rises over the horizon. The only way they’re going to have hope of finding each other is if one stops and makes a plan. Obviously, Glenn isn’t the one thinking about tomorrow. Only today.
Better to live in the moment instead of haunted by the past. Michonne’s existence since the day she was introduced on the show has been dogged by what happened to her at the onset of the undead outbreak. Never once has she opened up about how she became the hardened fighter she is now. Not even to Andrea, with whom she spent months traveling and killing to survive. “I’m done taking breaks,” she told Rick. Michonne is finally ready to stop running from her past and embrace the future. A future she sees alongside Carl and Rick, apparently. For the first time ever, she reached out to someone else and vocalized her internal pain. Carl, for all his bravado, is actually a good shoulder to lean on. He’s eager to learn anything about his friend, to the point of badgering her. But he also knows she needs to do this. She needs to touch someone on an emotional level in order to ground herself against the tidal waves of pain the past sends her way. While in the process of bleeding the rot from her soul, Michonne doesn’t forget who she’s dealing with. She turns her soul cleansing into a game for Carl. In return for her mental growth, he learned how to better forage for essential supplies. Seems like a fair deal.
Unfortunately Rick doesn’t get a chance to witness the bonding between Michonne and Carl. He’s supposed to rest and heal after his beating from the Governor. Instead, he’s forced into flight-or-fight mode by a group of piggish intruders. These guys are bad news and we never really see them. The camera work during the moments when Rick dodges from room to room trying to avoid detection is well done, but slightly disorienting which detracts from the tension. Still, a very well done moment. It proved Rick isn’t ready to be put down like an old dog. He’s still in the fight, limping but committed to making it to tomorrow.
Several of the smaller survivor groups are headed in the same direction now. Dare we hope the crew will be whole once again? True fans of the show know better. Hope was decapitated long ago.
Why do you think Michonne lied to Carl about what she found in the pink room? Let us know in the comments below.
Talk about some tense moments. Pretty sure there’s holes in the Command Center’s couch after the newest episode of “The Walking Dead.” Well, holes not put there by scavenging zombie bunnies. They’ll eat anything, much like the walkers in this episode. Note to dead guys: flames are not food. Fire bad, bleeding corpse pretty. Okay?
You shall not pass . . . if you wish to avoid show spoilers.
This week, viewers caught up with the remainder of the main characters, starting with Daryl and Beth. During their stay at the prison, Beth fell back in the habit of journaling and covered their journey to make a home in the apocalypse—something we never saw, but once her entries were read in the episode, they struck a nerve. Listening to Beth’s strained hope after they found the prison in contrast with her and Daryl’s mad dash through zombie-infested woodlands twisted the knife still firmly implanted in viewer’s hearts after the mid-season finale. Beth’s hope stemmed from her father. From the idea that normalcy was once again obtainable after so long on the run once the farm fell to the undead. From the simple idea of having a bed to call her own. The prison is gone, a smoldering graveyard. Her bed left to provide rats and bugs with homes. And Hershel . . . there’s no hope left in his unseeing eyes.
Daryl isn’t packing much hope, either. He’s got the stare of a man waiting for the split second he isn’t good enough to make it in the wild. For him, that may be weeks out. Daryl also understands, without him, Beth and her journal of hopes and dreams would be chow, much like the pile of dead walkers and human chunks they found near the train tracks. In a way, she’s become his motivation. Before Daryl had Merle, then little a** kicker, and later when everything looked good he opened his home and heart to any stray people he encountered who needed help. Regret is a powerful drug. As is guilt. How many deaths does Daryl hold over his head? He personally rescued a good portion of the prison’s inhabitants, put them directly in the line of the Governor’s tank fire.
Luckily for Daryl, and Carl and Rick, Judith is alive. Tyreese is the kiddo pied piper. Not only did he rescue Judith from becoming a yummy snack, but he’s also toting around Lizzie and Mika. Much to his delight. Tyreese is all heart. There’s limits to it when faced with a screaming infant, eternally frightened Mika, and the picture of sociopath behavior Lizzie. Any saint would turn to Satan for help dealing. Tyreese doesn’t. He convinces himself he’ll see the three girls to safety, even if it means relying on the darkness in Lizzie to be his backup. That’s a dog that’ll come back to bite everyone. Lizzie is too unstable. Too unpredictable. The type of person who’d murder anyone and everyone to see to her own survival. Does that extend to her sister? For now. It certainly doesn’t extend to Judith. The only reason the baby survived the episode is because someone else stepped in.
Carol is back. Actually, according to her she never left. Which everyone should’ve expected. As far off the reservation as Carol went in the days before Rick told her to never return to the prison, she always acted in a way she thought would protect others. The good of the many outweigh the perils of the few. Since Sophia passed, Carol hardened her will. Forced herself to tap into the internal strength she’d built enduring her abusive husband’s verbal and physical attacks. Unfortunately, her extreme survivor’s point of view clashed with how Rick operated. Will Carol’s strength come in handy? Can she work with Tyreese to keep the girls alive? Most importantly, is there any way she can pull Lizzie back from the abyss?
Glenn and Maggie fans have it the roughest right now. They’re separated. Maggie faced a gauntlet of walkers to make sure her husband didn’t die when walkers overwhelmed the escape bus from the prison. Not alone, she’s supported by Sasha and Bob. They’re help, but not the succor she needs. Maggie won’t be whole or sane until she’s reunited with Glenn. Speaking of, the man has a well-intentioned death wish. Out of everyone who should’ve left the prison in the dust, he’s still there. Weakened from his bout with the super flu. And completely alone, or so he thinks. Glenn isn’t a helpless lamb. He’s learned how to toughen up since they abandoned the quarry. He’s also the only one of the main survivor group, aside from Carol, possessing any supplies not shoved in their pockets when they bolted. Supplies he’s now agreed to share with Tara because he knows his limits. He isn’t like Shane or Daryl. Glenn’s strength is in his heart and mind. Both of which he’ll se to find Maggie, no doubt.
There’s some new faces coming to the show. How they’ll mesh with the survivors is completely unknown.
Were all your questions from the mid-season finale answered? Tell us in the comments below.
These Walking Dead mid-season breaks seem to take longer and longer to pass. But here we are, back in the saddle . . . or rather, clinging to the couch cushions alongside 15.8 million viewers and partaking in the intimate, tense mid-season premiere.
Spoiler Warning! There, you’ve been warned. Proceed at your own risk.
Like the first half of season four, the second half is taking a step back from the grand full-cast episodes to focus on a handful of characters, delve deeper into what keeps them moving despite the fact that they’re at rock bottom. Starting from scratch after the prison battle won’t be easy, especially for those who relied on the council and Rick to keep them safe. This episode focused on Rick, Carl, and Michonne.
For the first time since her introduction at the end of season two, Michonne gets a little depth of soul. We’ve seen glimpses, primarily with Andrea and again after her friend’s death when Michonne reluctantly held baby Judith. Her dream/nightmare said more in three minutes about the south’s deadliest woman with a sword than a season and a half, filled primarily with her seemingly mindless zombie slaughter. It wasn’t until now that we know for sure she had a child, a lover, a friend she felt comfortable and joked around with. Most importantly, Michonne knew how to smile. How to love. A facet of the woman we’ve yet to see clearly. Even when she came around with gifts for Carl, they were found on hunts for the Governor. When she stayed with Andrea to keep the seriously ill woman safe before they went to Woodbury the first time, it was part kindness, part selfishness—she didn’t want to be alone any more.
Michonne came close to losing herself. And why not? She’d watched the people she came to trust and care for under attack from artillery and walkers. Some of those people died. Some survived. But she has no way to know who walked away from the mass grave that was once their home. Andrea left her. Michonne put a sword through Hershel’s decapitated head. Every single person she opened up to deserted her. Even though they didn’t do it by choice, after so much loss a person begins to wonder if there is something inherently wrong with them, they’re the catalyst to their own pain. Somehow pushing their loved ones away to deaden themselves to the horrors around them. Michonne is a pro at this. Until now. She fell into her old routine. Made a new pair of walker friends to lead her safely through a herd of undead. All it took was a glimmer of hope, a muddy boot print, to shake her mind loose of the numb blanket she’d wrapped it in after saying her final goodbye to Hershel. Her moment of clarity didn’t come with a light bulb. It came in a blood bath where she slaughtered twenty-three walkers to keep herself from physically joining them. She’d already joined them mentally.
On the flip side, Carl left the prison slaughter ready to live, to kill anything and everyone posing a threat to him. And his father. Not that he’d admit it. Carl’s sullen teenager act hit a high during the episode. He had good reason—his father’s near-death at the hands of the Governor, friends scattered to the winds, Judith most likely a walker hors d’œuvre, and the loss of the only home he’d known since the day Shane and Lori dragged him out of his childhood home in King County, Georgia. Necessity put Carl in the role of protector, provider. Using the skills he gleaned from Shane and Daryl, he embraced the sociopathy his idols exhibited to secure not only a house, but an entire neighborhood. Throwing it in his father’s face, using Shane to yet again grind in the salt Rick’s deceased best friend poured in his emotional wounds, wasn’t exactly Carl’s shining moment. Everyone has a breaking point. Michonne’s came when she saw herself as a walker. Carl’s came when he thought he’d be forced to live alone. Watching Chandler grow into the large shoes Carl will wear on the show often leaves fans stunned. He digs into a pit of emotion most kids his age can’t access and leaves it all there for us on the screen. Major kudos to Chandler on his work in this episode. It is above and beyond his best, with better things to come, for sure.
We didn’t see much from Rick in the episode. His injuries were too bad. He needed time to recover and fell into something mirroring the coma he’d been in when the series began. Which is fine. Rick has been the show’s punching bag from the get-go. He physically could not be the top dog this time around. Couldn’t even bring down a walker when armed with an ax. Falling short in sight of his impressionable and rebellious son ate at Rick. What could he do? Nothing. For once, the right thing for Rick involved a couch and an extremely long nap. Arguing with Carl would’ve been a waste of words. The kid was in his own zone—a stubborn refusal to listen he ironically inherited from his father.
Next week, it looks like we’ll catch up with Beth, Daryl, Glenn, and Maggie. Get used to the small cast episodes. Robert Kirkman has said they’re playing with the show’s format, keeping the focus on a few characters at a time so fans aren’t cheated out of what makes them tick.
Who else do you think survived the prison attack that we haven’t seen yet? Let us know in the comments below.
Looks like our tenacious Commander-in-Chief, Juliette Terzieff, went on another recruiting spree. Welcome James Allen McCune to the Zombie Survival Crew.
No stranger to dealing with the undead, James Allen McCune is best known for his role as Jimmy, Beth’s boyfriend in the second season of AMC’s hit drama “The Walking Dead.” We plan to utilize the skills he picked up while filming the show to help us. And won’t hold it against him if he has a flashback to his final days on the TWD set.
James is currently filming season four of Showtime’s “Shameless” . . . when he isn’t eating nachos and playing video games in his trailer, and hopefully practicing his skills with a sword.
Did someone leave a sign in front of the ZSC command center or something? We’ve got another new addition to Zombie Survival Crew Command ready to join our ranks! Brigadiers, raise your weapons and give a salute to Ming Chen, the newest Zombie Survival Crew commander!!
As one of the starts on AMC’s “Comic Book Men” Ming Chen provides plenty of knowledge about all things geek, and takes his share of razzing from fellow Secret Stash employees. Behind the scenes, he’s the tech guru for Kevin Smith’s View Askew and SModCo websites. He cohosts the “I Sell Comics!” podcast with fellow ZSC commander Michael Zapcic on Smodcast Internet Radio (S.I.R.) every Thursday. Ming donates his tech skills pro bono to Street Poets Inc. and The Kenny Gordon Foundation.
Ming joins his Comic Book Men compadre Michael Zapcic as a member of our Special Forces, under the Command ofMichael Rooker.
Raise your arms and salute the newest ZSC commander to join our ranks, Michael Zapcic!
Zapcic may sell comic books for a living, as well as starring on AMC’s “Comic Book Men” but that doesn’t mean he’s unprepared for the zombie apocalypse. Not with a wealth of comic book battles locked in his encyclopedic mind to pull information from.
While waiting for the undead to shamble forth, Zapcic continues to work in Red Bank, NJ at Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash while filming “Comic Book Men.” Every Thursday he records “I Sell Comics!” for Smodcast Internet Radio (S.I.R.) with cohost Ming Chen. Along with his fellow ZSC commanders, Zapcic believes in aiding charities to make the world a better place now, instead of later. He’s proud to support The Wayne Foundation and Lunchbreak of Red Bank.
It is no secret that Lizzie is completely unglued. Her grasp on her own mortality and the real danger the walkers pose to her safety was never solid. In this episode, it becomes painfully clear that she’s always been slightly off. Little Mika has obviously spent ample time learning how to distract her sister from whatever isn’t right in her head. We have no name for what’s wrong with Lizzie. She’s convinced the walkers are simply an evolved version of ourselves. They speak to her. Demand she take care of them and provide food. Somewhere along the way, being undead became an appealing prospect. Was this a way to cope with the losses her family faced since the walkers started shuffling around? Hard to tell now that we know she wasn’t all there to begin with.
Lizzie’s madness cost her sister her life. Is anyone to blame? No. Nevertheless, Carol’s guilt nearly cripples her, makes her hesitate to do the necessary thing. Is death ever necessary? In our world, no. Murder is senseless. Unnatural to the teachings of the numerous world religions which are the cornerstone of our morals. But in a world where every day is a fight to take just one more breath, one must weigh the good of the many against the individual. Carol and Tyreese were faced with that decision—try to save Lizzie, despite the depth of her mental illness or ensure Judith’s safety, as well as their own. In the end, Carol’s ruthless practicality stepped in and allowed her to make the hard decision. Lizzie had to die. No matter how they arranged it, someone would end up alone with her and Lizzie’s inclination to turn everyone into a walker would get the best of her, and them. What if Lizzie ran off and some do-gooder brought her into their camp? Nothing good could’ve come from her continuing to live unmedicated and unchecked by her sister’s kind soul.
