Our weekly review of “The Walking Dead” has returned, as this roller coaster of a half season enters “The Grove” on a low point. Does it pick back up, in an episode Robert Kirkman noted as particularly awesome/important, or does it continue its rapid descent into the abyss?
Let’s find out.
As per usual, details and events of the episode are discussed at length. If you haven’t watched, do not read this review! You have been warned.
1. Worst. Cold Open. Ever.
What in all hell was that cold open? I presume that was Lizzie who was running around toying with a walker, but has there ever been a more vague and useless open to this show? These opens tend to be the backbone and cold hard guarantee of quality in a week’s episode, but this week? It just made me frown and wonder why precisely this was happening, even if it was meant to underline Lizzie’s insane relationship with walkers, which has been a dead horse that has been beaten gratuitously by the show.
Note: this was written before I saw the scene that happened later that was, in fact, the cold open from another angle. It still doesn’t make sense as a cold open. Bad cold open. Bad.
2. Before I Move On
While watching the show, I typically am writing notes the entire time on things I’d like to talk about in relation to the episode. When I looked through my notes after this episode, I had written the word “crazy” nine times. NINE! That’s saying something, as this is a show that features crazy like it’s a contractually obligated inclusion in every episode.
But nine times in one set of notes? That’s how you know it’s a Lizzie episode.
3. Look at the Flowers
Now, part of my problem watching this show is that I struggle with shows that are stupid for the sole purpose of setting up plot points. That is something this show is guilty of on the regular, but in this episode, we had to suspend disbelief that both Tyreese and Carol – two characters, relative to those around them, who have their heads screwed on right – would think it was a good idea to leave Lizzie around anyone ever. Seems a bit unreal that they’d do that.
That being said, everything else in terms of how Lizzie was handled? Tremendous. By the time we got to the point where Lizzie had actually killed Mika for the purpose of getting her to turn (“I can hear them,” she implored to Mika) and was about to do the same to Judith, this moment – which undoubtedly was the creepiest one in the history of the show – it only made sense that it would happen, but it still hit like a freight train.
Then, the way they handled Carol straight up Lennie’ing Lizzie was phenomenal as well. I’ve mentioned this before, but Melissa McBride has somehow made Carol the best character in the show, and when she has to put down this girl she clearly loves because of the danger she represents, it shows in heartbreaking fashion just how far she is willing to go to protect the group. A tragic moment that was brilliantly handled.
4. All That’s Left
The scene between Tyreese and Carol after the deed was done was, undoubtedly in my mind, one of the best scenes in the series. As they looked across at each other, forlorn and heartbroken, with Tyreese convinced that this woman he’s with is the only person he can trust in the world, Carol admitted that she killed Karen and David.
Now, at this moment, literally anything could have happened and I would not have been surprised. It was a moment where my mind went to the Telltale Game, and I was thinking how hard it would be to pick from the options Tyreese had.
But when he chose to forgive her, and to tell her that he knows – he knows – Carol will never forget doing it (“It’s a part of you now”), it is the most powerful option for the show in both the present and the future. Chad Coleman and McBride are two of the finest actors on the show, and they made this intense moment one that their relationship and the show could build off of.
Continued below5. Anything Could Happen
A lot of people will be talking about the line that was “crossed” by the show, but this was a line that is routinely destroyed by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard on the book. In fact, this very scenario – where Lizzie kills Mika – is almost a direct lift conceptually from the brothers Ben and Billy in the comic.
That doesn’t make it any less valuable. Instead, it’s actually something to me as a skeptic of the TV show and as a fan of the comic that validates the show in a big way. The thing the comic has always proven to be capable of that the show hasn’t always done is being willing to make anything happen at any time. There aren’t lines to be crossed. There’s just what has to be done. In both Herschel getting beheaded at the end of the last half season and everything about Lizzie and Mika, the show established that it is capable of hitting that extra gear, and the show – and us as viewers – are all the better for it.
