“If they can’t make it, then we’ll take this place.”
Hello, all! Welcome back to The Walking Dead recaps, which
took a break for these past two weeks because of a. the Oscars and b. life. My
apologies for my absence! But let’s take a look at this week’s episode,
“Remember,” which brings our group of survivors fully into the Alexandria
community—for better and for worse.
For better: Rick has purpose! He’s showed and shaved and shorn,
and now he’s the constable of the community, with Michonne at his side, and
he’s already weighing Alexandria leader Deanna (played by actress Tovah
Feldshuh, who you may recognize from many, many episodes of Law and Order) and
her decision-making style. If the Alexandria people can’t take Rick and Co.’s
group and tries to mess with them, well, who cares—“we’ll take this place.”
It’s simultaneously a mission statement and a promise.
For worse, though: Not everyone else has purpose! Rick and
Michonne are named constables, but not all of them have jobs yet, and not all
of them have been accepted into the community yet, either. Noah, Tara, and
Glenn spar with Deanna’s egotistical son, Aiden, when he takes them on a run, spouts
some power-hungry nonsense at them, gets angry when they kill a walker Aiden
was trying to torture, and then eventually proclaims that the three of them
can’t go on runs with his team. And then there’s Daryl, who supposedly takes a
shower but remains the Dirtiest Man Alive and then guts a possum he killed on
their home’s clean front porch. Oh, and then he and Glenn get into fights. It
doesn’t seem like anyone is going to be baking them welcome-to-Alexandria pies
anytime soon.
What else happened of import? Let’s consider the most impactful
things that happened in “Remember”:
+ “We’re about
transparency here,” says leader Deanna, who interviews and videotapes the
members of Rick’s group while weighing whether they should be able to stay in
the Alexandria Safe-Zone and which jobs they should receive. (If you’re a
comics reader, you know this role was originally Doug Monroe, but here we’re
getting a female leader instead. Fine with me!) I’ll be intrigued to see how
the rest of her career planning shakes out, especially as we learn more about
the infrastructure of the safe zone. Do people maintain the fences? Are there
guards on watch all the time? Do they have a religious presence? Will Carol
have to keep wearing sweater sets? Important questions!
+ “It’s all about
survival now … people out there are always looking for an angle … how they can
use you to live,” Rick says when being interviewed by Deanna; I like the
nice shock he demonstrates at Deanna’s admission that they’ve been in
Alexandria since practically the beginning of the outbreak. But I also like
that, of course, Rick’s statement about the people “out there” describes his
own group, too. They’re also “looking for an angle” when it comes to
Alexandria; they’re also considering how to use the community so they can stay
alive. It took only a day for Rick to confidently decide that they would steal
the place from Deanna! I mean, that takes resilience and confidence and a
little bit of crazy, which I guess is Rick in a nutshell.
+ “It’s been a long
time since anyone around here’s seen a baby,” says Jessie, the pretty
blonde who drops off supplies for a shirtless Rick and then gives him a
haircut; she’s talking about the Alexandria citizens’ response to Judith, who
is winning over hearts and minds. (If they keep her storyline from the comic
books, I WILL BE VERY HAPPY, I AM JUST SAYING.) In contrast, though, Alexandria
does have children who are Carl’s age, including Jessie’s son, Ron; we see Carl
struggling to make small talk with these kids and finally deciding to just play
video games together (what a luxury at this point). But he also has his eye on
Enid, another child who showed up in Alexandria after living through the
roughness of outside—and where is she going, scaling the perimeter wall in the
middle of the day and setting off into the woods on her own? Did she steal the gun Rick had hidden in that blender? Intriguing.
+ “The boy and the
baby, they deserve a roof … I guess.” Poor Daryl. Most everyone is excited
about how Alexandria could be a return to who they were before they spent all
that time trying to survive, but without that kill-or-be-killed mentality, who
is Daryl? Is he really going to fit into this tightly, rigidly structured
society? Carol is smart enough to know that they should keep up appearances,
but for all his badassery, Daryl can’t handle lying or falseness. There’s a
reason why Rick informs Carol and Daryl, and not Carl or Michonne, about his
plans to eventually take the place, and I know that’s because Daryl and Carol
are the most willing to put everything on the line for the group. But how Daryl
handles himself in the immediate future is still something to consider.
+ “We won’t get weak.
That’s not in us anymore.” That’s nice of Rick to say in response to both
Carl’s and Carol’s concerns about staying in such a comfortable place for too
long, but what Rick doesn’t seem to acknowledge is how everyone else in town
will react to them, and whether getting pulled into their orbit will affect the
group dynamics of Rick and Co. Consider Jessie – what if something were to
happen between her and Rick? Wouldn’t a romantic attachment make Rick weak? Or
if Carl and Enid strike up a friendship, couldn’t that also be a liability? As
much as Rick wants to maintain the group’s strength, that could really only
work if they remained completely separate from everyone else in Alexandria. And
from how Deanna smartly placed Rick and Michonne in positions that will
incorporate them into the community quickly, it doesn’t look like sticking to
themselves is an option.
And some favorite
lines of the night:
+ “We brought dinner,” says Daryl, while holding the possum
he just shot in front of the gates of the Alexandria Safe-Zone. Never change,
bro.
+ “If I didn’t win re-election, I was going to be a
professional poker player. I’m not kidding,” Deanna tells Rick when discussing
her past as an Ohio Congresswoman and her talent at “reading people.” Keep in
mind that she already admitted to “exiling” three people who “didn’t work out.”
Having all that power concentrated in one person seems quite dangerous.
+ “Welcome to Alexandria,” growls Jessie’s in-shadow,
cigarette-smoking husband, who tries to threaten Rick as he’s walking through
the neighborhood in the middle of the night. I think the reveal that he’s an
abusive, crappy husband will come in next week’s episode, right? The show is
clearly making him this obviously ominous for a reason.
+ Here, have this interaction between Daryl and Carol as she
urges him to “keep up appearances”:
Carol, looking super-clean in a hand-me-down Chico’s
cardigan: “Have you taken a shower yet? … I’m gonna hose you down in your
sleep.”
Daryl, possibly slightly cleaner but still fundamentally
grimy: “You look ridiculous.”
+ “You wanna end up on your ass again?” Michonne doesn’t
mess around, you guys.
+ “That’s what you do. That’s what you are,” says Deanna when
she names Rick and Michonne constables. But does that mean they’ll take their
newfound responsibilities the same way? The contrast between the details of
their personalities could be interesting moving forward, especially if more
crappy behavior from Aiden is in the group’s future.
