“Luck runs out.”
Another season of The Walking Dead is complete with last
night’s fifth season finale “Conquer,” and I’ll go ahead and say that I think
this season may have been the most successful of the show so far (aside from
the first season, which probably had the strongest scenes overall).
Yes, the whole Dawn storyline was terrible, and yes, Beth’s
protracted death sentence wasn’t great, and oof, Sasha’s characterization is
still pretty underdeveloped and melodramatic. But I think “Conquer” continued
to do a lot of things right that the show, as a season, has done right so far. The
deaths mattered; I’m still torn up
about the loss of Tyreese. The suggestion that maybe Rick isn’t a good guy resonated; the final shot of this
episode, contrasting Rick and Morgan, exemplified that wonderfully. The notion
that any kind of constructed social order is undeniably futile in this new world, and that “civilization” can
make you weak, was hammered home in Alexandria to solid effect. Those were all
good things!
To be fair, “Conquest” still dragged its feet a bit. We don’t
get a clear answer, necessarily, about what the carved “W” means in the walking
dead; yes, the dude who threatens Morgan gives half an answer of cult-like
mumbo jumbo, but clearly we’re just setting up next season’s big bad at this
point. There haven’t been any repercussions for Father Gabriel, despite his
continued sabotage of Rick and Co. and Alexandria as a whole. And although we finally reunited Morgan and Rick, that
was a scene that has been seasons in the making. It needed to happen now, lest the dragging-out of that subplot get
fully ridiculous.
But let’s talk about the five things that were most
important in “Conquest,” and briefly theorize on what will happen next season …
+ “Put that down.
Because I want it. I want everything you have. Every last drop. … I’m taking
you, too. And you’re not exactly gonna be alive.” Great cold open for the
show this week as we finally see a living person with the “W” carved into his
forehead. I don’t think he was introduced with a name, but the guy displayed
maximum creepy factor while threatening Morgan, yammering on about “wolves” and
“natives” and how wolves are “back now” and “transformed into men” to get their
revenge on people or something? I don’t know, it was all very cult-like. (For my
comic book readers, I think that the “wolves” are going to be the show’s
version of that guy with the thing who uses it against the other guy? If you know
what I mean?) But Morgan wasn’t having any of it, whipping out some amazing
ninja skills with his walking stick and beating up both the main guy and his
co-hunter who tried to surprise-attack him… yet they managed to survive, and we
see them again at the end of the episode, showing up at the food factory where
Aaron and Daryl almost died and acting like they owned the place.
So what is my takeaway here? These guys are soldiers of some
other leader, someone else who helped design the insane traps of the food
factory, and they’re coming for Alexandria next, since Aaron dropped his supply
bag with pictures of Rick and Co. in it. Obviously.
+ “Wasn’t nobody’s
fault.” All the fan-fiction writers who thought Daryl and Aaron would kiss
in that car, sorry all your dreams got crushed when that didn’t happen. And
yet! Daryl doesn’t have many friends, and it’s clear that he cares about Aaron
and sees him as an ally—why else offer to essentially sacrifice himself to save
Aaron’s life? Clearly he sees Aaron’s mission of bringing new people to
Alexandria as a viable, worthy one, and I think Daryl honoring those intentions
by giving up his own life is an important step.
But of course neither of them had to die because MORGAN
SHOWED UP AND WAS AMAZING, and honestly this whole subplot was great. From
Aaron and Daryl trying to find and save the guy in the red poncho (basically a
redo of the subplot with the horse Buttons from a few episodes ago) to
stumbling upon the food factory and tripping off all the elaborate traps (those
undead corpses hanging from meat hooks will haunt me for a while) to Daryl
decapitating three zombies at once with the chain whip to then finding that
chilling note in the car they hid out in (“Trap bad people coming don’t stay”),
it all worked. Excellent tension! I didn’t even notice how that one female
zombie crawling toward Aaron and Daryl under the truck had strangely,
blindingly white teeth that looked like she just visited a dentist. Didn’t
notice that at all!
Also, the spray paint on the black SUV, “WOLVES NOT FAR”—did
the “wolves” themselves do that? As a way to advertise themselves during
hunting sessions? I didn’t get it, but it was a powerful image to end the
season on, I suppose.
+ “Something’s gonna
happen. Just don’t make something
happen.” So, Rick killing Jessie’s husband, Pete—do we consider that a real
turning point for Grimes? He’s killed people before, people who threatened his
group; don’t forget the slaughter of the cannibals in Father Gabriel’s church
(which, honestly, might have been what fully pushed Father Gabriel over the
edge). And to be fair, killing Pete was justifiable not only because of his
abuse of Jessie and his sons, but also of course for his killing of Deanna’s
husband Redge with Michonne’s stolen katana sword. But while Michonne warns
Rick to not “make something happen,” isn’t everything
that has happened in Alexandria since Rick and Co.’s arrival technically
his fault?
That’s not to say Aiden wasn’t an idiot. He was. That’s not
to say Pete wasn’t a jerk. He was. But Deanna had some kind of false happy
society constructed, and Rick, with his reality of what the world is really
like now, smashed that all apart. He didn’t make Pete kill Redge, but he set
events in motion that theoretically crafted that possibility. And so when he
executes Pete, and when Morgan sees it, the suggestion is clear: Is this Rick
Grimes the same man as all those seasons ago when he and Morgan first met?
Morgan, the man who just saved Daryl and Aaron because “all life is precious”—what
is he going to think of the man he just traveled all these miles to reconnect
with? On the map Abraham left for Rick, he said the world needed him, and that
was the argument Maggie, Michonne, Carol, and the rest made at the Alexandria
public meeting to discuss his fate. Carol couldn’t have said it more clearly: “People
like me, people like us, need people like him.” But you have to wonder which
version of Rick Grimes is the best one, and whether killing Pete is the Rick we
need or just the one we’ve got.
+ “The word of God is
the only protection I need.” Goddammit, Father Gabriel, you are the worst!
I want great things for Seth Gilliam and I’m happy that he has work, but ugh, how much longer can we go on like
this? Father Gilliam tries to offer himself up to get eaten in a
suicide-by-zombie death wish, but can’t go through it. After failing, he then
leaves the door open to Alexandria, letting zombies walk in (although, you
could blame Deanna’s son, the one played by Julian from One Tree Hill, for also
being an idiot, but still). Then he antagonizes the suffering Sasha and
encourages her to kill him. Get your shit together, Father Gabriel! You can’t
go on like this!
And yes, Maggie is a good person for breaking up the fight
between Sasha and Father Gabriel and then praying with them instead of finally acting on the knowledge that
Father Gabriel tried to sway Deanna against the group (did she really not tell
anyone about that earlier?), but Father Gabriel is, at this point, dead weight.
How long until he tries to sabotage them again? I have concerns!
+ “They need us. They’ll
die without us.” Carl got significantly better as a character this season,
but this conscience? It’s not sustainable. Not when Rick is right about how “the
ones out there, they’ll hunt us, they’ll find us … try to kill us.” And
sometimes, even the ones on the inside will try to kill you, too—how else to
explain Pete? “Luck runs out.” And as good as Carl’s intensions are, it would
be good for him to remember that—for everyone in Alexandria to remember that.
And finally, some
odds and ends:
+ I have been irritated with the Sasha storyline for the
past few episodes, but that image of her lying on top of the bodies in the mass
zombie grave she was digging—OK, that was powerful.
+ Tara wakes up! And Eugene and Abraham make up! (“I almost
killed you.” “Yeah, there’s that.”) Rosita is one very happy camper.
+ Morgan grabbing the rabbit foot from the car after evading
the “wolves”—a good way to bring in the “luck” theme running through this
episode.
+ This week’s choice Abraham line, delivered while defending
Rick to the Alexandria public: “There is a vast ocean of shit you people don't
know shit about.” Fact!
+ Michonne is so ride or die with Rick, I love it: “That was
for you. Not them,” she says of her punch to knock him out during the fight
with Pete last week. I believe her—if he had killed Pete then, they definitely
would have gotten kicked out of Alexandria immediately. But diffusing the
situation bought them time, which of course Michonne would be smart enough to
understand.
+ Carol is Rick’s personal Lady Macbeth, and I adore her for
it. Can’t argue with her Alexandria assimilation tactics—“Just tell them the
story that they want to hear. Because these people are children, and children
like stories”—as well as her cold analysis of all it would take to overpower
them—“We still have knives. That’s all we’ll need against them.” And her
hissing at Rick to “do it” when Pete shows up at the meeting, brandishing
Michonne’s katana? Excellently done.
+ “I screwed up, and here we are” could be the title of Rick
Grimes’s autobiography, honestly.
+ Anyone think that the “wolves” are probably led by the
people Deanna sent away, the “two men and a woman” that Aaron describes to
Daryl? “I brought them in and I had to see them out,” he says—and I wouldn’t be
surprised if he sees them all over again next season.
+ Michonne slinging her katana back on at the end of the
episode = all is right with the world.
