So … anyone else have trouble eating after last night’s The
Walking Dead episode, “Strangers”? I must admit that it kept me from my usual
late-night snack, even though the storyline pretty accurately mirrors what
happens in the comics—so that’s great! Anyone who reads this weekly
recap, or the one I also do for Game of Thrones, knows what a fanatic I can be
when it comes to sticking with the source material. As in, the comics were popular because
they were good, and that’s how you got a TV show, and maybe your writers should
be better when adapting that original text. Just. Saying.
But so far, this fifth season has been pretty good,
cannibalism and all! Let’s talk about the best things that happened in
last night’s “Strangers,” and what they could mean for the season moving
forward.
+ “Didn't start that
way, eating people. It evolved into that. We evolved. We had to. And now, we’ve
devolved into hunters. I told you, I said it—can’t go back, Bob. I just hope
you understand that nothing happening to you now is personal. … We would have
done this to anybody. We will. But at the end of the day, no matter how much we
hate all this ugly business, a man’s gotta eat. … If it makes you feel any
better, you taste much better than we thought you would.”
So, Gareth chewing on that hunk of meat—Bob’s flesh—RIGHT IN
FRONT OF BOB is probably the best, grossest, most jarring thing The Walking
Dead has ever done, and it’s clear that season five is finally getting into the
fucked-up nitty-gritty of this apocalypse. The Governor being a rapist—the
comics went there, the TV show didn’t. Terrible body-horror things happening to
some of our favorite protagonists—the comics went there, the TV show didn’t. But
now the show is building out the Hunters storyline from the comic books by adding
in the location Terminus; swapping out the leader of the Hunters, Chris, for
the leader of Terminus, Gareth; and swapping out Dale (who is already dead on the show), who was kidnapped by the
Hunters and had his leg chopped off for food, with Bob, who was enjoying a nice
little romance with Tyreese’s sister Sasha before he gets grabbed in the middle
of the night.
Who is to blame for this? Well, clearly Gareth and Co., like
the Governor, weren’t going to let Rick’s disruption of their idyllic society go.
Sure, the Governor ruled with an iron fist and Gareth and his family were
eating people, but everyone has their own version of paradise, right? And well,
Rick’s group did pass on going back and killing Gareth, even though Rick wanted
to. And Tyreese didn’t have the gumption to kill Gareth ally Martin, even
though Carol wanted him to. And so every act of theoretical mercy that the
group does comes back on them here, with the Hunters circling around them in
search of meat.
Although, quick question: Bob clearly got bitten during that
raid on the food bank, right? And so, Gareth and Co. are eating
slowly-zombifying flesh, right? Because that is kind of great. TAKE THAT,
CANNIBALS, YOU DICKS.
+ “Not so fast.”
Lots of romantic stuff on display this week, as Maggie makes sure to grab some
kisses with Glenn and make gooey eyes at him after he discovers three silencers
during a supply run (a nice reminder that in the comics and in the early seasons of of this show, Glenn was depicted as the best procurer of resources), and Bob
plays cutesy little games with Sasha as they walk around the forest and happily
share some pecks.
But all that optimism from Bob—“This is a nightmare, and
nightmares end”—clearly highlighted that shit was about to get real bad for him,
and so by the end of the episode he’s possibly bitten by a zombie and
definitely eaten by Gareth et al. Dammit, Bob! Maybe if you had been less
happy, you wouldn’t be dinner for assholes!
+ “I don’t want to
talk about it. I just need to forget.” What exactly is eating Carol? Daryl
desperately wants to know, asking her about her weirdness and solitary mood
numerous times during “Strangers.” She won’t open up, even when Rick asks to
join her and acknowledges everything she’s done for them, and it even seems
like she’s going to bail on the group by jumping into a car she and Daryl fixed
up and leaving in the middle of the night.
But Daryl isn’t going to let his bestie/mother
figure/crush/WHAT ARE THEY disappear like that (not when “Someone’s watching,”
as he noted earlier, even though none of them knew it was Gareth’s people,
hunting them). So when he sees a car zip by with a cross on the back—just like
the one that took Beth—he encourages Carol to go with him to find her instead
of bailing on the group. So off they race into the night, which will probably
be the beginning of many weird fan-fictions for Carol and Daryl.
Will Carol eventually tell Daryl about the sisters who died
on her and Tyreese’s watch? Maybe. It seems like Tyreese doesn’t want to—I
mean, he literally says, “We don’t need to tell them about the girls; I don’t
want to”—and is instead focusing on spending time with Judith as a way to make
up for those two little girls. But at some point, even if the truth comes out,
will it even matter? Those people died, and Rick and his people lived. It’s
just that black and white.
+ “I keep to myself.
Nowadays, people are just as dangerous as the dead, don't you think?”
Welcome to The Walking Dead, Seth Gilliam! Now the third alumnus of The Wire to
join this cast (Chad Coleman, who was Dennis “Cutty” Wise on The Wire, is
Tyreese here, and Lawrence Gilliard Jr., who was D’Angelo Barksdale on The
Wire, is Bob here), the onetime Sgt. Carver steps into the role of Father
Gabriel Stokes, a man of the cloth with a weird sense of humor and a profound inability
to protect himself.
After being saved by Rick and Carol and promptly failing
Rick’s test for entry into the group, Father Gabriel lets them know about a
nearby food bank, where slimy, rotting, water-logged zombies attack the group
as they gather up canned food. It’s a nice tip—but do Father Gabriel’s claims
of holing up in the church for the past year, alone, really hold up? Rick
notices a bunch of empty, and hidden, canned food; Carol notices pages and
pages of journal entries, obsessively repeating THOU SHALT NOT KILL; and on the
outside of the church, Carl notices deep gauge marks, possibly from people
trying to get in, and the words “YOU’LL BURN FOR THIS” carved into the side of
the church.
You can figure out what Father Gabriel did, right, what he
won’t tell Rick and Co. about? It’s pretty cowardly but it’s also pretty
obvious, and all that talk about Father Gabriel only confessing his sins to
God—well, he has a lot of confessing to do.
+ “We’re strong
enough that we can still help people. … We’re strong enough that we don’t have
to be afraid. And we don’t have to hide.” A nice little speech to Carl to
his father Rick, but how long will that good-heartedness and open-handedness
last once they find out what Gareth and his group did to Bob, and what they
plan to do to everyone else in Rick’s group? Being carved up for someone else’s
dinner would probably put an end to Carl’s willingness to help others, I would
think. There’s no real bouncing back from that.
+ “Survivors … is
that all you want to be?” Abraham continues advocating for Eugene somehow
being a super-awesome scientist with a super-awesome way to save them all that
is in super-awesome Washington, D.C., and while everyone is in a canned-food
coma after their food-bank-supplied feast, he makes his stump speech for the
Mullet. Full of salty, probably stale calories for the first time in what seems
like weeks, everyone agrees that their goal will be the District.
But the suspicious behavior from Abraham and Rosita,
possibly the least developed character on this show since T-Dog (guys, remember
T-Dog?!), makes me think there is more to this Eugene-is-our-savior storyline
from their group. I don’t know; I just feel like characters who are best
identified by their mustache, hairstyle, and midriff probably shouldn’t be
trusted.
And some other final
thoughts:
+ I really enjoyed how badly Father Gabriel failed Rick’s
test, so here it is, excerpted in its entire glory:
Father Gabriel: “The word of God is the only protection I
need. I called for help; help came.”
Rick: “How many walkers have you killed?”
Father Gabriel: “Not any, actually.”
Rick: “How many people have you killed?”
Father Gabriel: “None.”
Rick: “Why?”
Father Gabriel: “Because the Lord abhors violence.”
Rick: “What have you done? We’ve all done something.”
Father Gabriel: I am a sinner. I sin almost every day. But
those sins—I confess them to God, not strangers.”
+ Does Michonne miss her katana? Not so much. But she does
miss Andrea and Herschel, which, no thanks, I’ll pass on those feelings.
+ Anyone figure out the deal with the signs carved into the
trees? Morgan, after coming upon the NO SANCTUARY sign for Terminus, sees the
other signs in the bark and goes deeper into the forest. But when Gareth’s
group hits Bob on the head and drags him away from Father Gabriel’s church,
that happened in front of a tree with another sign carved into it, like a
flipped horizontal and upside down capital letter L. I’m not sure what they
mean, but I’m also very bad at any kind of picture-related puzzle. (Oh, and
Morgan is totally going to save Bob, right?)
