After a bit of a return to typical form last week – some good Daryl stuff aside, “Still” was a bit of a mixed bag – this week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” features more of the cast regardless of its rather lonely title. Does that mean the show gets back towards what it was at the half season’s open, or does it continue back to what it once was? Let’s find out.
If you have not watched the episode, spoilers will be discussed. Don’t read beyond here!
1. Welcome to Stookeyville
Remember all of those times I’ve said that this show really differentiates itself on great cold opens? Well, this week’s one was quite a bit less so, as instead of doing something really exciting, it inexplicably gives us background on Bob Stookey, a tertiary character on the show if there ever has been. Not only that, but it opens with a tremendously awful song – one of my perpetual issues with the show – that helps set the mood for me to dislike it.
Larry Gilliard, Jr. plays the part of Bob quite well, and on an island, the open is pretty fascinating in its bleakness. But good god, it doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know, it really wasn’t that interesting and it was completely unnecessary. It’s like they had a roulette wheel of potential story lines and went with this as the open strictly because it came up.
Now, I had thought the reason it happened was because they were going to kill off Bob – that thing happens when characters get story where they normally don’t in shows like this – and the best part of the opening 10 minutes (or maybe even the whole episode) was that they had him apparently get bit, but in reality not. Way to prey upon our expectations as viewers, team.
2. All these tracks leading to the same place
This episode really should have been called crossroads, as it was all about characters taking or not taking the road to “Sanctuary”. In fact, Daryl ended the episode literally at a crossroads, with all of the hardasses that Rick tangled with a few episodes back, while Team Glenn and Team Maggie continue along the path in that direction.
Back to crossroads, though, there were a number of conversations hypothesizing about what the other cast members may or may not do if they came there as well, with Maggie going so far to debate what she should or shouldn’t do based off what Glenn theoretically did or didn’t do. I don’t need to explain that this was not scintillating television.
Honestly, this middle part to the season is really starting to suffer because the show is pushing chess pieces around aimlessly when we know what the final move is already going to be. The story tension isn’t there, and instead, it’s occupied by forced story mechanics and some gratingly slow scenes.
3. WHY MUST BETH ALWAYS SING?! AHHHH!
One of my biggest pet peeves on the show is how – no matter what – they always find a way to make Beth sing. Granted, Emily Kinney (who plays Beth) is a singer in real life (and 28, which I just found out and which also blew my mind) so they’re playing to Kinney’s strengths, but good lord, could we have it a little bit less? I actually just muted my television as that happened, patiently waiting for anything else to happen.
Oh, and when you combine that with the song at the open AND the song at the close (which may have been the same song, but drove me to black out), this episode really utilized The Walking Dead’s great vice and frequent weakness in the form of TOO MUCH MUSIC FOR A SHOW ABOUT ZOMBIES.
I’m sure they feel Beth’s bits are poignant moments of normalcy and character bits for Beth, and the other moments and their rawness are heightened by the music the play, but to me, they just make me want to turn off my TV.
4. Zombie rush
Now, I know that the showrunners have come to realize that people love some good ol’ fashion zombie killing, and you know what? I enjoy that too.
Continued belowBut only when it makes sense.
Twice in this episode, epic packs of zombies just showed up – one when someone gathered a billion of them to send after Daryl and Beth so he/she could capture Beth, the other when Maggie and Sasha reunited – and both times, it didn’t make a lot of sense.
The Daryl scene was far more interesting, as Daryl fighting zombies is always fun to watch. However, there were SO many zombies. Are we supposed to believe that someone gathered all of these zombies and then sent them after Beth and Daryl without somehow getting captured themselves? I know we have to suspend all sense of disbelief, but that was completely asinine. Whoever captured Beth apparently is the Zombie Whisperer, because otherwise that makes as much sense as having a Bob Stookey centric cold open.
Meanwhile, when Sasha spies Maggie with one zombie around her, she heads downstairs and immediately 10 to 15 zombies show up. Yeah, that’s totally great from a zombie killing standpoint, but do we really need forced drama through situations like that? Why does this show have to lean so heavily on forced and nonsense story beats to keep our interest? Disappointing.
5. A big ol’ poop sandwich
This was the worst episode of the season by a mile, taking 43 minutes to accomplish what, exactly? Beth gets captured and Daryl joins Team Badass Murderer Guys. That’s basically it. Two more groups are headed towards sanctuary, and Beth and Daryl are doing…other things. It’s back to the basics for this show, spinning wheels and plates more than doing anything else.
In a show with a fantastic hook and a great cast, there’s nothing that harms it more than its success and its writing staff. The former extends seasons so they have to create story filler, and the latter because they are clearly not capable in extending the narrative in intriguing fashion.
I’ve soured on the show again, much to my chagrin. Next week looks like it is entirely focused on Team Tyreese & Carol, which is crazy to me as that means we could end up with Rick, Carl and Michonne – arguably the three most important characters at this point – only appearing in half the episodes in season 4.5. They are not balancing this season well, and after three good episodes to start, we’re back off the rails again.
Alas.
