Only one episode to go after this one, as The Walking Dead prepares for battle in this week’s episode, titled “Crossed”. Let’s jump into it, shall we?
As per usual, don’t read this review unless you’ve seen the episode, as spoilers will be discussed at length.
1. Damn. You. Sasha.
On one hand, I can’t believe Sasha got completely played by Sergeant Bob Lamson from Grady Memorial Hospital, because it was so damn obvious what he was trying to do. At the same time, it makes perfect sense given that the entire episode from Sasha’s perspective was about her coping (or lack thereof) with Bob Stookey’s death. When she heard that Lamson’s name was Bob, it was as if angels shined a light upon her and blessed her with a new potential love. And that story about his partner? What a perfect man this guy was.
It was really, really well played, and even though it annoyed the hell out of me – come on Sasha, you gotta be smarter than that – it was still impressive in how well the writers set up that moment. Instead of character stupidity by need, it was character stupidity organically. I know there’s not a whole hell of a lot of a difference between those two things really, but for me as a viewer, it helped a lot in accepting that whole story beat.
2. Catching Up With Everyone
As it’s the penultimate episode of the first half of season five, you knew they were going to touch on everyone, and touch on everyone they did. We had Team GREATM, Team Rick, Team Church and Team Hospital running strong, and each of those story lines had varying levels of success to them, but for the most part they worked.
While the weakest, Abraham sorting through his anguish as Eugene took his time waking up with Maggie caring for him was well done. It was definitely a slow burn, as Abraham wasn’t going to just snap out of it, just like Eugene wasn’t (although Eugene had a much better excuse). While there was very little said, I did find the touch of the water bottle Abraham was given being half full (or empty) to be a nice little moment.
At the Church, while Gabriel’s losing his shit when presented with his future as a zombie fighter wasn’t my favorite, Michonne’s concern at Carl’s very pragmatic delivery of assistance to Gabriel was pretty spot on. Danai Gurira is basically the only person in the cast capable of making Chandler Riggs’ Carl interesting (mostly), and her mama birding on him as he oh so casually discusses the best ways to hold a machete for zombie killing was great stuff. She’s become such an interesting, deep character that very little needs to be said for her to convey what’s going on.
In the hospital, Beth’s goal of saving Carol even though they were taking her off the machine made for a nice little mini mission that showed two really interesting things: 1) Beth is super capable, and I loved seeing how she made her way into the medicine locker; 2) Dawn strangely trusts Beth, but in the grand scheme of the hospital, that strangely makes sense. “I thought you were weak. You proved me wrong,” Dawn said to Beth, and given that it’s clear she values strength (and is willing to sacrifice to get that), it only makes sense she’d respect Beth.
Lastly, the big story was Team Rick trying to get Beth and Carol back, and this had a ton of juicy stuff in it. Daryl siding with Tyreese over Rick in terms of the plan (Daryl’s becoming more of a pacifist thanks to Carol’s recent influence, and it’s a good look for him), the cleverly handled execution of their capture of the guards, and their handling of the guards once they had them in custody were all very well done, but they paled in comparison to the showpiece of the Daryl versus the raiding guard fight. That was supremely badass, and Daryl ripping the zombie’s head off to use as a weapon against the guard was straight up amazing. Plus, bonus points because the zombies melted to the asphalt were maybe Greg Nicotero’s finest work yet. Loved that.
Continued belowAlso, was I the only one who really thought Rick might shoot the one guard? That was a hell of an intense moment as Daryl talked him down.
3. My Favorites
Strangely, my favorite story thread involved Team GREATM, and more specifically, Glenn, Tara and Rosita’s mission for water. That whole bit was wonderful, and it felt very hopeful in what was otherwise a pretty damn grim episode. What was there to love, really? We were given some excellent back story and character beats for Rosita for basically the first time ever, Eugene’s value was rebuilt a good bit (I really loved Tara’s defense of him and how he used the one skill he had – lying – to survive), and there were some genuinely fun moments. Tara found a yo yo! Rosita and Glenn catch a fish using a terrible 80’s windbreaker! In another episode, it wouldn’t necessarily work, but this episode needed something like this.
4. The Music
However often I mention Bear McCreary’s work on this show, it isn’t nearly enough. The music in this episode was spectacular, and it was barely even music in a traditional sense at time. It was more emotive tones, ratcheting up tension with tiny islands of sound that made us wait…and wait…and wait for the other shoe to drop, but it never came. McCreary wasn’t just conducting the music in this episode, but our very emotional states, and it was just tremendous stuff.
Most notably, in the scene where Daryl talked Rick down from shooting the guard…jeez louise, I thought McCreary was trying to kill me with how intense he made us feel that moment. Tremendous stuff.
5. Spread It Out
After several episodes with a very singular focus and basically the whole season sticking to more or less one perspective throughout, this episode telling a story from four different places and with four different groups could have been a trainwreck like it used to be. But it worked, and a big reason why that was is they stayed focused for long periods of time on each story, making sure each one had its day. Sure, when you break it down each story only had about 10 minutes to do its thing, but each beat was never rushed. It felt like it was given time to breathe.
That said, I really hope that past next week’s midseason finale they either get everyone back together or they keep switching from perspective to perspective for single episodes. Everyone being separated works in a one off sense, but staying like this all the time would make it feel overly disconnected. Let’s make episodes like this the exception, not the norm, even though it was another excellent episode as we approach the end.
