The Walking Dead: Forget
March 8, 2015 7:05 PM - Season 5, Episode 13 - Subscribe

Alexandria rolls out the welcome wagon. Carol tells a bedtime story.

Sasha can't buy in. Daryl gets his chopper on.
posted by mandolin conspiracy (97 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Lots of cookies
posted by slipthought at 7:10 PM on March 8, 2015 [10 favorites]


Come on Alexandrians, you've just imported refugees from the zombie apocalypse and you expect boundaries?
YAY DARYL GETS A NEW BIKE
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:08 PM on March 8, 2015


Also, how many Love Actually posterboard jokes have been thrown at Andy Lincoln on set?
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:11 PM on March 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


Carol's story was definitely scary as shit, but I just don't think that kid would have not told his politician mom. This episode was kind of a burden to sit through. Michonne was barely there. Abraham cracked a joke. Rosita was barely there, looking like a teenager. Carl yanked some money from another kid. Darryl Darryled. Sasha freaked the heck out and it just didn't seem to be well thought out. She's shooting angelic white people's pictures with a gun that has a silencer on it? Ok, sure. They should have had her be somewhat normal at some point in the episode and then the freakout would have had more impact as it was clear she was struggling with her humanity. But as it was she was just in scared rabbit mode the whole time and it was just a waste.

This whole are they evil or are they not thing is just getting wearisome. Get on with it. I don't have a reason to care about a single one of these characters, in our group or in theirs, the way they're currently acting. I'd rather watch Morgan for next week's whole episode then watch this kind of thing again.
posted by cashman at 8:12 PM on March 8, 2015


The suburban party (complete with Coronas and seven-layer dip and flawlessly starched clothes) was a little much. And I don't mind slower episodes per se—actually, I think it's good to change up the pace—but it did feel like nothing much happened in this episode.

Three more episodes in the season. The finale is called "Conquer". HMMMMM.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 8:52 PM on March 8, 2015


I wish Rick, Carol, and Darryl could find some morals again.
posted by yonega at 9:04 PM on March 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


Non-stop awkwardness. Very disappointing after last week's tantalizing promises.
posted by davidmsc at 10:47 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


I liked the kid interrupting his mom and Rock's flirtations at the party to demand that Rick get a stamp: a scarlet A for adultery Alexandria!

However, seems like this episode and the last episode could have been edited together better. There wasn't a lot going on and it was annoying not to follow up on the mystery with Carl's rival/potential bad-ass girlfriend or follow up more with who the exiles. The "W" found on one of the dead bodies seemed just tacked on by the writers to signal "Hey, we haven't forgotten that there's supposed to be a major bad guy at some point this season!"

And I think at this point the show has made it clear that the Alexandrians are not the wolves, they are the sheep. The conflict is going to be to what extent our heroes are the shepherds, or just a different pack of wolves.
posted by skewed at 10:51 PM on March 8, 2015 [11 favorites]


I guess there's no longer any mystery as to which one is the little angel and which one is the little devil.

I also like the parallels with the first season when Shane was sighting on Rick in the woods and thinking about blowing him away, and Dale catches him, and the scene at the end of this episode when Rick is contemplating blowing away Pete.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:10 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


What happened to Gabriel? He has just disappeared. It looks like he finally show up next week, but, wtf?

Also, RIP Buttons the Horse, and my husband totally called it when he noticed one of the walkers by the horses's head, being very calming and guiding it down. Horse trainer!
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 2:01 AM on March 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


This is the first time I've felt like the cast is too big and unwieldy; no one is getting their share of screen time to develop. Now I think they're going to thin out the cast. I've probably watched too much Mad Men and read too much Tom & Lorenzo, but Carol's sweater covered in red flowers (ha!) made me think she might get killed off in Alexandria.

I guess there's no longer any mystery as to which one is the little angel and which one is the little devil.

And a nice reversal of expectation, too. No one is what they seem on the outside. Especially Carol. She is dark.

Every episode lately seems to have Daryl making some meta-statement. This one was about how, the longer you're out there, the more you become your true self. I feel like Daryl is our tropey Native American wise man, in touch with nature and with living souls. Having said that, I really loved his bonding time (including spaghetti slurping) with Aaron. I can see how they'd be a good pair out recruiting.
posted by tracicle at 2:12 AM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


This show is becoming so disjointed it's barely there.

- Sasha freaking out: Couldn't we use Darryl or Rick or Carl or Michone or someone we're actually invested in for this? It's a generic thing that could have come from any cast member but it just seems forced when 100% of it comes from Sasha.

- Rick is dealing with two things: first, he's joined a group of people he doesn't trust and he's planning his defense in case they turn out to be murderers or cannibals or cowards who inadvertently put everyone at risk. Second, a hot blonde likes him but she's married. Rick seems to treat these issues as equally important.

- Michone fiddling with a plastic sword and hanging her real one on a wall was actually pretty good, I wish we'd spent more time with her.

- Aren't Rick's "family" all staying in the same two houses? Why on earth do they need to have secret meetings out in the woods and say things like "They're going to get suspicious if we keep meeting like this" when they could just talk in one of their bedrooms at home?

We need a real hero on this show. Rick and Darryl and Carol have been playing the "being out here turns you into a monster" game so long I no longer trust them or root for them. They're the bad guys. I'm ready for someone like Abraham or Michone who hasn't totally lost their moral compass to take over and defeat those three.

When the whole town explodes (probably because Pete freaks out after Rick kisses his wife one too many times) and erupts into an "us vs. them" battle, I'm going to be pretty angry if all of the cast members stick with Team Rick and help him defeat a town full of innocent weaklings.
posted by mmoncur at 4:10 AM on March 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I thought Carol's threat was less "scare the kid into not telling" than it was "scare the kid so when he tells the story no one believes it could possibly be true." She's been playing up this innocent suburban housewife persona, and everyone in town is buying into it. How could sweet, helpless Carol possibly say something so nasty and terrible to a kid? Must have been a nightmare.
posted by 2ht at 4:57 AM on March 9, 2015 [9 favorites]


I seem to be in a minority here, where I really quite enjoyed the episode, all the way from the horrible stitching on the back of Michonne's cut-down police jacket (because she did it herself), to Rick listening to the walls sing to him at the very end (because it's been too long since Rick lost his grip on reality). I even laughed at the scarlet "A" stamps.
posted by Mogur at 5:05 AM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


The "A" is also a callback to Terminus, where they were held in the "A" cattle car.

I"m a little sad that there's only 3 episodes left. They will probably spend most of next season there, I imagine.
posted by Catblack at 6:03 AM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


I'm kind of disappointed with what they've done with Glen and Maggie. They (more Glen than Maggie though) used to be portrayed as being part of the core group of leaders. Now they seem to have been relegated to the sidelines. I think even Abraham got more screen time then both of them put together.
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:43 AM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Clearly, the "A" on the kid's stamp stands for "AntiChrist". The kid is delivering the Mark of the Beast, and anyone who doesn't accept it is fed to the Gun Librarian.
posted by Dr. Zira at 6:50 AM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


What happened to Gabriel?

It's almost like they gave Gabriel the Poochie treatment.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:54 AM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


They will probably spend most of next season there, I imagine.

Really? I'm pretty much expecting the next two episodes to be our folks gradually getting more invested in this town and its success, and then the last episode of the season, the Wolves will show up.

I didn't love this episode, but I didn't hate it, either. They need to spend some time building these relationships with the town and its people in order for it to actually matter when it all inevitably gets destroyed. And since both the main characters and we the audience expect, at this point, that it's all inevitably going to get destroyed, that process of getting any of us or them to care is necessarily going to take a while.

Likewise, I think (hope?) that the show is ultimately driving to a point about moral relativism; against this relatively normal and pre-apocalyptic backdrop, Carol, Daryl and Rick seem like monsters - but none of them has actually changed or gotten worse in the last couple episodes; Carol in particular is the same now as she's been since she was burning potential disease carriers in the prison yard. It's just that against a post-apocalyptic backdrop like Terminus, everything they're doing now would seem brilliant instead of monstrous. (Considering "stash guns outside the perimeter" was explicitly part of their Terminus playbook, and given Carol's track record with kids(!), none of the stuff they've been up to the last couple episodes should surprise anyone.)

Probably the stuff I liked least in this episode was the Sasha "plotline". Having her be the token "not-handling-it-well" person in the group just draws attention to how improbably well everyone else in the group is handling it, how little time they've been given to adjust, and how few allowances are being made by anybody for the fact that they are all traumatized as all get-out. For a group that took in a girl who didn't speak for what was it, like three weeks or something? They sure seem to be not-very-understanding of Sasha. Just draws attention to the artificiality of a lot of parts of the plot.

The large cast itself isn't a problem, the problem is that most tv shows with a large, ensemble cast like this understand that when you're not focusing on a character, there needs to be at least an implied "this is what they're doing when we're not focusing on them". Early in the show when it wasn't focusing on Carol you could assume she was doing laundry or something, and when it wasn't focusing on Daryl that he was out hunting. In the prison you just assume everybody's involved in the day-to-day of making the prison habitable, going on supply runs, etc. Here they've established that everybody gets a job, but they've been so slow to establish what those jobs actually are that a bunch of notable people, like Gabriel, Eugene, Abraham, etc., are all in limbo. So, for example, next episode if there's no Michonne we can assume she's being a cop and patrolling town, and that Maggie is helping the mayor, but if we still don't see any Gabriel we'll still have no idea what he's doing. Just something they needed to establish faster and more efficiently - instead of telling us everybody except Daryl (and I guess Sasha?) got assigned jobs, they could've cut 5 minutes of stuff out and showed us a 5-minute montage of everybody actually starting their assigned jobs (Abraham, fix this truck!; Eugene, here's a mop; Gabriel, here's a lawnmower) and the whole all-these-characters-are-in-limbo feeling would go away.
posted by mstokes650 at 7:05 AM on March 9, 2015 [10 favorites]


- Sasha freaking out: Couldn't we use Darryl or Rick or Carl or Michone or someone we're actually invested in for this? It's a generic thing that could have come from any cast member but it just seems forced when 100% of it comes from Sasha.

- Rick is dealing with two things: first, he's joined a group of people he doesn't trust and he's planning his defense in case they turn out to be murderers or cannibals or cowards who inadvertently put everyone at risk. Second, a hot blonde likes him but she's married. Rick seems to treat these issues as equally important.


Perfect time for Lori to start calling Rick on the phone again.
posted by dogwalker at 7:11 AM on March 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


A much better show would actually transform Rick and Carol into villains and make us very uncomfortable with how long it took us to notice that this had happened when we finally figure it out. This is not that show.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:21 AM on March 9, 2015 [13 favorites]


I'm getting the feeling that as time goes on, it's not so much that Rick doesn't trust them (that's a little of it left over from when he walked in the gate) but it's becoming more of "these people are too naive to even have a 24 hour lookout so when the inevitable shit goes down, we have to be ready to take care of our own." Everything is TOO good, TOO comfy and nobody is paying their dues and taking proper care of the setup they have. Doesn't pass the smell test for him.
posted by pearlybob at 7:44 AM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


As much as I love Carol, I agree that, with this particular kid at least, her threat wouldn't have the intended effect. That kid is going to go blab his face off at the soonest opportunity (if not to his parents, than to other children in the community), or at the least, will be so avoidant of Carol in the future that his parents will wonder what's up.

Also, Deanna's actress, Tovah Feldshuh, reminds me strongly of Kate Mulgrew for some reason. Think it's the flinty(?) squint-look thing.
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:40 AM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


She reminded me of Kate Mulgrew, too!

Yeah, that kid is totally going to tattle.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 10:22 AM on March 9, 2015


Carol's contempt for the Alexandrians being soft and unable to survive on the outside is kind of undercut by the fact that a 10 year old boy got the jump on her.
posted by Uncle Ira at 10:22 AM on March 9, 2015 [15 favorites]


Sasha freaking out: Couldn't we use Darryl or Rick or Carl or Michone or someone we're actually invested in for this? It's a generic thing that could have come from any cast member but it just seems forced when 100% of it comes from Sasha.

Sasha lost her boyfriend and her brother recently and horrifically, and doesn't seem to have a close bond to anyone else. I'd say she's the best candidate to come unwound right now.

Overall, a middle quality episode. Not as strong as last week, but miles ahead of some recent clunkers. I like the burgeoning Daryl/Aaron friendship and feel like it really worked. Daryl's willingness to try to support what is happening in Alexandria is a good development for that character.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:06 AM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Now if he would only trim those bangs a bit.
posted by something something at 12:15 PM on March 9, 2015


A much better show would actually transform Rick and Carol into villains and make us very uncomfortable with how long it took us to notice that this had happened when we finally figure it out. This is not that show.

I really wish it was. I'd love it if they rebooted the show by having the people of Alexandria (plus some of Team Rick) rise up against the new threat to their town (Rick and Carol) and defeat them. Or at least "exile" them.

But you're right, this is not that show.
posted by mmoncur at 1:53 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think Daryl is the most interesting character on the show right now. I don't see him as a monster, I see him battling his same old trust issues, but on his own now, without Carol being there every step of the way (she's too invested in her own little facade right now), and he's all the more lost and conflicted. Is A-Aron his new Carol? I don't know, but I too liked the way he allowed himself to enjoy dinner and the subsequent "job." He always strikes me as a feral cat; outwardly mean but secretly starving for affection, the two tendencies always at odds with each other, leading to frustration, anger, denial, sadness.

The other characters feel like they are becoming (or already are, or continuing to be) two-dimensional, with such little screen time and not much to say/do within the little time they get. I don't really care much about the secondary characters from the Abraham era, though I agree that Sasha's panic is understandable, given her losses.

Carol's little speech did scare the hell out of me, though, and it's insane to think the kid wouldn't run and tell everybody about it, I don't care how good those apple-sauce-and-acorn cookies might be.

Lastly, if Abraham doesn't cut his hair soon, I don't know what.

P.S. Anyone else think of "these are my words" when drunken Abraham was spouting poetry, like Michael Cudlitz did in Grosse Pointe Blank?
posted by flyingsquirrel at 2:16 PM on March 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


Rick, Rick, Rick, you so creepy!

Also, I'm calling it right now that A isn't the only stamp that the Alexandians have and they are the ones marking people with W before they send them (w)andering into the (w)ilderness.
posted by Iteki at 2:25 PM on March 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


I think the A and the W are supposed to parallel each other.

The "A" is pretty clearly a call back to Terminus; last year's finale was called "A." The A experience of Terminus is branded into him, making him the person he is now. I think the first experience of "whoa Rick is going bad bad not insane bad" was when, after they get away from Terminus, Rick snarled that the Termites "don't get to live" and everybody is all um Rick? U okay man?

Maybe the writers meant it to be a scarlet A a la Hawthorne, but that would be pretty damn silly. And, well, maybe they did, it's a sometimes very good show, a sometimes clunker.

If Sasha hadn't freaked out at some point it would have been a misstep. In this season, who has lost more? Also, the freak out is clearly signaled by her blowing away photos. And I really liked that; nothing happened except she can't sleep and then she blows away some photos. But I thought that and the music did a good job of replicating what it's like to be Sasha at this juncture.

I have a hard time with animal death on screen, and for some reason I thought they were going to get that damn horse and was rooting for them. Man, there's a way to make me root for Aaron: have him kill walkers eating a horse with Daryl, put the mercy shot into the horse, and then acknowledge the worst thing: the two of them were responsible for the walkers getting the animal. There are too many times these days we see zombies tearing people apart; to have their dead bodies all over that horse -- ugh fuck those fucking zombies.

I guess, although it muddled, that Rick's groping for his gun after the love interest and her husband passed, is that Rick's radar is tuned for threats in a way that he's on hair trigger.

In a way, I feel like this season would be best binge-watched. I guess this is an inevitable comparison given the source material and the show runner, but if this were a series of comics I was gunning through, I would look at Sasha blowing up pictures a half-minute before turning the page, and then maybe enjoy it on a second read.
posted by angrycat at 2:59 PM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


What's the population of this little safe haven? Thirty? Fifty? Two hundred sixty-six? The show never gives us a sense of that. It seems small, then three new faces wander by. If Rick and Carol are setting in place a coup or even just contingency planning, wouldnt it make sense for Rick as Town Cop to organize some patrols, some drills, some exercises to see just who it is we're dealing with here? And how well they can shoot? And who all gets invited to the cocktail party? The whole town? Half the town? Just the Important Folks? If so, what's everybody else doing tonight?

Alexandria seems too ill-defined for me to be invested in either its survival or destruction. And Daryl's role as oracular mumbler grates on my nerves.

But Carol!

Carol is singlehandedly saving this show for me right now. Of all the survivors, her character arc (shattered, resassembled, and now growing into her new jagged edges) is the one I'm most sold on. The way she slipped so comfortably into the suburban housewife persona, and how she held that mask steady while whispering pure nightmare fuel in that trembling little boy's ears. Chilling stuff and a great performance by Melissa McBride.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 3:00 PM on March 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


Oh and then Aaron feeds Daryl some righteous spaghetti.
posted by angrycat at 3:01 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


I am curious about how Alexandria works. Our group's apparent lack of curiosity surprises me. They're all trying to play angles and deal with their past traumas and fulfill the roles that have been assigned to them, but they don't seem very interested in what life is like for the people who have lived in Alexandria until now. Wouldn't you want to find out? I know that I would.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:07 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Can we talk about how the show just skipped right on by Michonne and Rick being together? If Michonne was this bad ass, beautiful, single sword wielding white chick you're telling me we wouldn't have had a romance going on far beyond a look here or there?

And then Rick gets into this shitty town and kisses some woman in like 2 episodes? Yeah, sure.
posted by cashman at 3:33 PM on March 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


I don't really agree with people who say that Daryl has no moral compass. He's long been kinder than Rick, more generous, more willing to risk his life for other people. Whenever there's a rescue mission, Daryl's always been the first one to step up and say "I'll go. Let's go right now."

He's been wobbling around on the edge of the precipice lately but I think this episode was a definite step away from it -- and from Rick -- for him.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 4:03 PM on March 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Rick's love life is kind of muddled. In an alternative universe, it worked out pretty organically. Interesting to see if the show keeps tonguing Rick's empty socket of a love life.

I liked Michonne's cut-down constables jacket. And her hanging up her sword thing (contrast with the Rick, and presumably Carol, picking up an illicit handgun while Daryl declines). However, in Eastern practices (which her sword was modeled after), it's pretty bad form to hang up a sword without its sheath whereas you see naked blades as Western castle decorations all the time.

No way the kid doesn't tattle. At the least he'll freak out and start acting weird, and then the truth will come out.

The Group definitely had trust issues. However, having had clueless bosses, I sympathize with them since Deanna doesn't understand that other people are more dangerous than the roamers and refusing to have everyone armed while within the walls. Which is a little weird given gun culture in the USA. Was Deanna, and everyone else, a socialist before Z day or what?
posted by porpoise at 4:15 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm glad they didn't turn Michonne into a love interest. I would like to see more shows where two people of the opposite gender can be incredibly close without there being some kind of spark.

Now that I think about it, this show isn't really much for romances. The writers haven't put two people together since the farm, which is nice. I don't watch this show for the romance.
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:30 PM on March 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


That's a copout to me. The question is, if Michonne was Michonne but she looked like the lady we just met, would the writers have them in a romance. And it's pretty clear if that woman had saved Rick's child and done all the things Michonne has all while being one of the most kick ass zombie killers on this show, would there at least be some actual undeniable romantic interaction between the two of them, and I think the answer is absolutely.

On Talking Dead it kind of came across like this is Rick's first love interest since Lori. Which is just bananas level disrespect ultimately. It's kind of like how we've had a couple different gay couples on this show, yet on Talking Dead all Kevin Smith could think to do was bait, talking about Daryl and Aaron's budding love. It has happened on numerous shows. You'll actually have a gay couple on screen, but a lot of people just want to skip right over that.

Intersectionality comes into play here, and there are some who've noticed Michonne has been through hell and back and almost all of the other characters get hugged or comforted after what they go through. Michonne doesn't get that by and large. I mean I'm glad at a basic level that Michonne is there at all, and hasn't been killed off. But it's 2015 and that's not gonna cut it.
posted by cashman at 4:43 PM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


I am glad that uber-manly Daryl seems to be forming a friendship with Aaron. This is 2015 and maybe that means it shouldn't be a big deal, but a lot of people watch this show and I daresay at least some of them are young people to whom that example is a big deal. Maybe some straight kid realizes that being a Real Man doesn't mean you have to be homophobic. Maybe some gay kid realizes that being gay doesn't mean he's not a Real Man. This is good.

As far as Rick and Michonne go, I'm...not sure? I agree that the role Michonne has played in the story, if played by a pretty blonde white lady (and not a hot, toned black lady), may have become a love interest for the leading man. But I'm also not sure I would want to see Michonne become a love interest for the leading man, no matter what color he was. That may be a copout, too; it sounds like a copout. But I don't know that the show could make Michonne and Rick lovers without making Michonne Rick's girlfriend. Besides, I just can't really see Michonne being into a damaged, lurpy psycho like Rick; as far as I can tell, Michonne has (post-apocalypse) only ever had eyes for Andrea.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:14 PM on March 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


Yeah, you can see the writers go out of their way to not have Michonne and Rick engage in emotional intimacy. You see sometimes Michonne imploring Rick to make this or that decision, but beyond that, isn't that it? Hell, I think she's bonded more with Coral.
posted by angrycat at 5:23 PM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


if you wanna get all grar about it, there's some really meaty hate tweets from last week when they had Aaron kiss his boyfriend. like, people were fine with the skin being ripped off a dead rotting human body, but two men kissing was too much for them. so yeah, Daryl becoming friends with Aaron is encouraging and necessary.
posted by dogwalker at 5:25 PM on March 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


I am glad that uber-manly Daryl seems to be forming a friendship with Aaron

Oh he wasn't talking about friendship, he was talking about watching Daryl and Aaron being for romantic love. For example, I learned Teen Wolf had an actual gay character on the show but there was a hubub trying to get two straight characters together, ignoring the actually gay character.
posted by cashman at 5:25 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]




Considering what happened the last time Carol had a one-on-one with a kid, I'd say this little boy got off easy.
posted by kythuen at 6:17 PM on March 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Would be interesting if the kid became a Carol follower now, kinda like her freaky little horde of children at the prison. I could see the kid developing a fascination with her. I mean, who wouldn't? Bakes awesome cookies; kicks awesome ass.
posted by slipthought at 6:27 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


undercut by the fact that a 10 year old boy got the jump on her.
Let's not forget that it was Rick's stupid statement that set the kid on Carol in the first place! Nice one, Rick. You think they would have set Karl on kid-patrol/distraction for the night.

I really liked that knowing given Carol's arc over the last two seasons, and with Melissa McBride's excellent delivery of the threat to the kid, I had a moment of wondering if she was going to kill the kid and just try to make it seem like he trapped himself in the chocolate freezer, or something.

My ridiculous nitpick for this episode: Buttons was waaaaay too shiny and sleeks and flowing of mane and tail to have been "wild" for more than about 3 minutes. Hollywood always screws that up.
posted by TwoStride at 6:45 PM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


Buttons also survived the apocalypse for two years or so, but one whiff of the Rick Grimes crew and it's lights out
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:02 PM on March 9, 2015 [16 favorites]


I'm surprised that Buttons didn't make an appearance on the Couch of Doom on Talking Dead.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 7:54 PM on March 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Where do you think the couch's leather came from..?
posted by coriolisdave at 8:05 PM on March 9, 2015 [7 favorites]


I'm surprised that Buttons didn't make an appearance on the Couch of Doom on Talking Dead.

Hardwick made mention of just that - suggesting they should have had the horse on. I'm guessing next week it just might happen.
posted by cashman at 8:12 PM on March 9, 2015


I see what you did there.
It was just a missing tooth reference, honest! No, nothing kinky happens with the socket. Not yet.

posted by porpoise at 8:58 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


WHAT
THE
FUCK
CAROL
posted by Jacqueline at 9:00 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


WTFC

Yeah, Sasha's freakout has nothing on Carol. No matter that Rick blew Carol's raid, Carol just blew The Group's goodwill/benefit of the doubt.

If it gets out.
posted by porpoise at 9:05 PM on March 9, 2015


Crap, something kinky did start happening with the socket. Damn my memory.
posted by porpoise at 9:37 PM on March 9, 2015


I thought the horse was supposed to be a metaphor for Darryl until it got devoured by the zombies. (I noticed the horse trainer zombie too. Amusing but even a horde shouldn't be able to take down a horse. I did appreciate the fence that blocked one exit but still, zombies are slow.)
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 9:42 PM on March 9, 2015


I felt that it was more of a "the horse died because we tried to save it" and Daryl maybe having second thoughts about being "saved" by this community. The horse being taken down was a cautionary tale to Daryl; the horse would never have put itself into such a position as being fenced if it never flirted with people (like Daryl when he spearheads rescuing members of The Group).

Holy carp, what was the situation with Daryl and Beth?

It does put the seed of doubt in my mind though, whether Daryl is purposefully acting more feral than he really is or if it's a defensive reaction against being around other people. Again, it's a trust thing; he's learned to trust The Group, and that might make it easier for him to trust the Alexandrites. Like a horse who was once saddled.

It's great that the Daryl character appears completely neutral on homosexuality. His reservations with joining the Alexandrites or even being friends with Aron have nothing to do with it. His sexuality ought to be more interesting than Rick's, and the Daryl/Carol arc is infinitely more interesting (to me) than Rick's single-dad horn-dog (eventual?) poor decision making. The show's obviously setting up Rick to do something stupid because of pent up baby batter.
posted by porpoise at 10:10 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Has Carol been that manipulative from day one?
posted by porpoise at 10:25 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Not on this show, unless they do a massive recontextualization.
posted by cashman at 6:50 AM on March 10, 2015


Although with Carol's recent deception, it does make that whole hey, I found this grenade thingy in your pocket while doing your laundry! a bit more interesting.

They flash back to season one and show Carol talking to Jacqui at the beginning of the 'Wildfire' episode before they head toward the CDC, and the two of them pledge to Vasquez/Gorman the whole group if walkers are closing in. Later as they finally reach the CDC, as Rick is saying he saw the camera move and is pleading to possibly no one, a new camera shot shows Carol reaching into her purse. But the door opens.
posted by cashman at 7:15 AM on March 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Man, Carol's kinda the scariest thing in the Walking Deadiverse right now, at least to this viewer.

And it's pretty clear if that woman had saved Rick's child and done all the things Michonne has all while being one of the most kick ass zombie killers on this show, would there at least be some actual undeniable romantic interaction between the two of them, and I think the answer is absolutely.

I feel the same way.

But I also agree with folks who think that it'd be a bolder move to have two strong leads who are in a strong relationship without it involving romantic tension. In other words, more of a Donna and Doctor relationship than a Rose and Doctor relationship.

I fear though that we'll end up with a Martha and Doctor type relationship than: a strong, black female lead who is reduced to making moon eyes at the white male lead and stalling in her own development because the suits and/or writers don't have the guts to commit to either a full on romantic relationship between the two or a strong but non-romantic relationship. So she'll eventually fall to the wayside and end up with some beta or even gamma male character. :-(

(Btw, I'm glad I'm not the only who thought "Captain Janeway!" upon first seeing Deanna.)
posted by lord_wolf at 9:11 AM on March 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think the first experience of "whoa Rick is going bad bad not insane bad" was when, after they get away from Terminus, Rick snarled that the Termites "don't get to live" and everybody is all um Rick? U okay man?

Yes, absolutely. And what made it worse was that he was completely validated after the Termites chased them and lopped off Bob's leg. Rick was actually right that they should have hunted them down and killed them, so his knee-jerk reaction of brutality was proven to be correct in that instance. The problem, of course, is that such a reaction is not always merited, and now that he is living in Alexandria those instincts--as applied to the townies--are utterly misplaced. What will be interesting is the timing of when the Wolves show up; if they come before Rick reveals himself as a baddie, then he may redirect his focus to the "real" bad guys and avoid/delay being unmasked. If they come too late, it will be interesting to see the townies have to choose between the devil they know and the devil they don't.
posted by gatorae at 9:33 AM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Remember when one of the producers (can't remember if it was Nicotero or Kirkman) was on the Talking Dead couch and made a point of saying that Darryl isn't gay? I wonder if that was with a mind to this part of the story. (Although I think it would have been fun to wonder about Darryl's budding relationship with Aaron.)

But instead we got "No, no, no, nope, nu-uh, not gay, no siree bob!"

In honor of Carol I made cookies last night, but without acorns and applesauce.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 9:52 AM on March 10, 2015


I think the first experience of "whoa Rick is going bad bad not insane bad" was when, after they get away from Terminus, Rick snarled that the Termites "don't get to live" and everybody is all um Rick? U okay man?

Wait, what? Rick was absolutely right. How does it do anyone a favor to let those evil bastards live? Not only is it a threat to the group if they follow for revenge (like they did), it's immoral to let them continue to live, knowing what they have been doing to others. Rick was totally right about that. The others were just exhausted and scared. And really, they should have gone back to see if others were imprisoned at Terminus - which Rick probably wouldn't have cared so much about. And that's where Rick is probably too far over the line. But his instincts are spot on for this world.

As for Alexandria, I would probably be feeling just like Rick. Deanna actively resisted putting someone in the clock tower. Really? That's sketchy as hell. I would have put out an armed patrol first thing when I got there if I was Rick, and put one of my own people in the clock tower at gunpoint if need be. It's pretty obvious to me there's something else going on in Alexandria -either that or they're just completely incompetent when it comes to security.

So maybe Rick is actually gone bad bad. Especially if he's considering killing his sexual rival. But he's also completely adapted to surviving in the world, and the Alexandrites aren't, in fact they are all wrong. So wrong that it might get everyone killed.

So if I was Rick I would be thinking along the same lines. The question is, how far gone he is. I think his instincts are completely spot on and the others are way too trusting. We'll just have to see if he's gone Shane or Governor level crazy or if he's just a brutal yet benevolent dictator.

"You can't go back, Bob."
posted by natteringnabob at 10:05 AM on March 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


They seem to have a lot of faith in all their private plotting remaining private, considering how they already found Aaron using a parabolic microphone.
posted by cardboard at 11:04 AM on March 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


A lot of on-the-nose in this episode.

The longer it's out here the more it becomes what it really is.

I'm good.
You don't have to be.

Coming back in from outside the gates, Carol, Darryl, and Rick walk three different ways. Rick stays to his left along the wall, completely in shadow.

It's great that the Daryl character appears completely neutral on homosexuality.

I wondered whether the writers were just playing with the internet chatter about whether Darryl is gay. Hey, let's have them hang so people can have more to chew on. But I can be kinda cynical about serial television.

but I just don't think that kid would have not told his politician mom.

He's the kid of Rick's love interest & the doc, not the politician. I'm not sure I buy the idea that nobody will believe him; if nothing else now Carol's sweetiepie image will undermine the kid's belief in the threat (unless she repeatedly prods at him). Though perhaps she assumes after enough time it won't be believable.
posted by phearlez at 12:02 PM on March 10, 2015


He's the kid of Rick's love interest & the doc, not the politician.

Ah, okay. Right. That makes it more believable for me that he may be frightened into staying quiet.
posted by cashman at 12:06 PM on March 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Coming back in from outside the gates, Carol, Darryl, and Rick walk three different ways.

Heh, I loved how contrived that shot was. Never mind that Darryl has to walk straight over a kerb and across a lawn, like an out-of-control mower. THREE DIFFERENT WAYS IS WHAT THE SCRIPT SAYS. MAKE IT WORK.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:11 PM on March 10, 2015 [9 favorites]


Okay what about Rick listening to the zombie outside the fence and smiling. What was that?
posted by angrycat at 3:34 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


what about Rick listening to the zombie outside the fence and smiling

If Rick's crazy bad bad, he could be thinking about how he's going to take Alexandria. Or get rid of the Dr. so he can have the girl.

Or maybe he's just thinking about being behind a wall and how good that is.

Or maybe he's trying not to forget what it's like to be outside, as per the show title?

Too early to tell what he's going to do. Maybe he'll go almost crazy and Darryl will talk him back. Or maybe something stupid and contrived happens and some Alexandrians die but Rick saves the blonde but her husband dies and he becomes leader and gets the girl. (I know, nothing contrived ever happens on this show). Or maybe he's going to go full on Governor.

I think the Wolves will show up before he goes too bad bad though.
posted by natteringnabob at 5:11 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Okay what about Rick listening to the zombie outside the fence and smiling. What was that?

It was the friends he could meet, he could meet. It said so in the song.
posted by oulipian at 7:53 PM on March 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


Heh, I loved how contrived that shot was. Never mind that Darryl has to walk straight over a kerb and across a lawn, like an out-of-control mower. THREE DIFFERENT WAYS IS WHAT THE SCRIPT SAYS. MAKE IT WORK.

I laughed when I saw that. I just imagined Rick saying "Now let's walk three different ways so nobody knows we had a SEKRIT MEETING!"

Maybe the writers meant it to be a scarlet A a la Hawthorne, but that would be pretty damn silly. And, well, maybe they did, it's a sometimes very good show, a sometimes clunker.

I vote for Silly Clunker. Note the scene at the end where Rick and Blonde walk by each other and flash their "A" stamps at each other. It's pretty clear that neither one of them is thinking "Go Alexandria!".
posted by mmoncur at 10:11 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


After the Scarlet Letter reference (the Doctor is the first person noticeably wearing one at the party; I seriously thought it was going to be some old-school punishment that shows the town is whackier than it seems), all I could think of was that A was for "alive".

You never know when you might need to check.

Then the giant W on the zombie's head, for "walker" sealed it for me.
posted by tracicle at 12:50 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


When the A appeared after the W, I imagined for a second that maybe they'd gone the arthouse route and hidden every letter of the alphabet throughout the episode, sort of like Peter Greenaway's Drowning By Numbers. But then I remembered I was watching Walking Dead.
posted by oulipian at 4:46 AM on March 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


I don't know about you all, but I had a weird craving for root beer throughout this whole episode.
posted by Seamus at 5:25 AM on March 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


y'all remember the A the Termites painted on the church where our group was hiding out, right?

I guess I'm cool with it as an expanded Scarlet Letter reference. Clearly there's Adultery, but Hester Prynne's brand was supposed to exclude her from the community.

Here, the A of Terminus that has been branded into Rick is something that will end up excluding him from the community -- I suppose Carol also has her A, and that will end up excluding her from the community.

But the writers have turned the A on its head a little bit so that wearing an A is a sign of being in the community.

Really, all of this could have been avoided if one of the group said, 'y'all remember our cannibal story? Well -- this A on our hands is sort of like a swastika after that experience.'
posted by angrycat at 9:19 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


there's also the whole Hawthorne thing of associating Hester and her A with the scary/beautiful wilderness that all the members of her community are terrified of
posted by angrycat at 9:22 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, Rick didn't blow the gun raid; Carol did. She stole a chocolate when the number of remaining chocolates was on a chalk board above the freezer and the Provisions Lady had told her it was in short supply.

And more also-er: I thought the show established that Michone may be rather fluid in terms of her sexual preferences but definitely preferred romance to familiarity. Rick is familiar but not romantic.

...which makes Rick getting all moon-y eyed over the first pretty thing he sees in the first (possibly?) stable environment he's been in in, what, two years? more believable.

The show is not brilliant, but it is entertaining.
posted by digitalprimate at 12:31 PM on March 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


"She stole a chocolate when the number of remaining chocolates was on a chalk board above the freezer and the Provisions Lady had told her it was in short supply."

I wondered about that. When she did it, I thought that she couldn't be actually intending to steal the chocolate because she knows that it's carefully tracked. So I thought that maybe she's putting it in her pocket in case she's caught and she can confess to stealing the chocolate? Although I'm not sure how they'd fail to notice the guns she'd be carrying. And she'd still be eventually caught, or at least suspected, because she was the last person to get into the chocolate. I guess she could have intended to return it later.

That all seems way too elaborate and, anyway, she wasn't caught and it wasn't explained. More likely that it's some inexplicable thing where the writers gratuitously show Carol being dumb. For no good storytelling reason.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:04 PM on March 11, 2015


I forget: does she take the chocolate before or after the kid discovers her? (I'm wondering if it's her setting up a "I caught him stealing" backup story in case the kid does tell, but I don't remember if the order of events supports this theory.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:50 PM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


She took it out of the freezer before she started putting pistols in the bag.
posted by Seamus at 2:54 PM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Ah, never mind then. Back to Ivan's "inexplicable gratuitous dumb" explanation.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:48 PM on March 11, 2015


i hope it wasn't gratuitous, because I forgive the show that only when it comes to grotesque zombie deaths
posted by angrycat at 4:07 PM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think the chocolate thing was meant to be similar to some of Rick's moves; it's an indication that there is fallibility here, a possibility of corruption. These aren't people who are prepared to challege the structure purely because it's what's best for everyone - there's also some ability to take it too far for personal gain.

The problem being, as pointed out, that it's a STUPID way to do it. If Carol is going to be corrupt she's going to get away with it.
posted by phearlez at 7:16 PM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


"The problem being, as pointed out, that it's a STUPID way to do it. If Carol is going to be corrupt she's going to get away with it."

That makes more sense to me. I mean, the part I didn't quote. The idea that Carol really doesn't give a fuck -- she's going to steal some chocolate because, hey, chocolate. But, even so, seems like if Carol were to steal chocolate, she'd do it in a way that wouldn't be a risk to her and the whole group. Doing it when it's carefully tracked, she'd been there earlier that day getting chocolate, and while stealing a bunch of guns ... that's all kinds of stupid.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:21 AM on March 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


I assumed that it was so she could be hung for a sheep as a lamb if caught. Oh, hey, you caught me stealing chocolate, I don't know what came over me, I am so ashamed, I guess I really wanted people to like me and my cookies, hurf durf, silly old me; as opposed to "oh dear, you caught me in here stealing guns, silly old me, I wonder why I wanted them....". That she didn't want to waste her good excuse on a kid who could be threatened is perhaps a misjudgement, but still might work afterward: "oh gosh, yeah he saw me with the chocolate, and I was so embarassed, I asked him not to tell and offered to make him cookies. what? threaten him? my gosh no, poor boy that sounds like a cry for attention".
posted by Iteki at 3:12 AM on March 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Re: Carol and the chocolate: y'all may be overthinking this a bit. Imagine you have just spent the past 2 or so years out in the fucking zombie apocalypse. You smash rotting Zombie skulls on a daily basis. Your family is dead. Your friends die regularly, despite your best efforts. Most of the other humans you meet are out to kill you or your friends. You recently wore zombie guts to infiltrate and destroy a compound filled with cannibals. And you've spent days at a time without enough food or water.

And now you're having chocolate rationed to you by some incompetent yuppies? Yeah right. Screw you and your rationing system, Alexandrites!
posted by natteringnabob at 3:32 AM on March 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I took it as Carol just being unable to resist chocolate after so long. She's tough but she's still human.
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 7:59 AM on March 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


> "we've had a couple different gay couples on this show, yet on Talking Dead all Kevin Smith could think to do was bait, talking about Daryl and Aaron's budding love."

Amen, cashman. Kevin Smith's really fucked up and homophobic attempts at humor on Talking Dead were so ugly. He came across as disturbingly out-of-touch with the social norms of 2015.

The charming Mr. Ross Marquand, on the other hand, was the bright spot of that Talking Dead-- and his dead-on hilarious impersonation of Matthew McConaughey advising Sasha is definitely worth another watch.
posted by hush at 9:35 AM on March 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I've pretty much given up on Talking Dead; it was OK as a tight half-hour, but a whole hour of it is too much. Doesn't help that I'm not a fan of Hardwick's OH-SO-BOUNCY ENTHUSIASM.

(The "live interactive quiz" results are totally faked, no? Watch carefully: every single time one of the red-herring answers gets a dramatic rise and fall in the first few seconds.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:35 PM on March 12, 2015


Sounds like the "sequences that do not change the outcome have been edited" sort of thing you see disclaimed on realiy shows.
posted by phearlez at 3:35 PM on March 12, 2015


If Carol has to bust out the chocolate excuse, that kid better hide because shit just got real.
posted by angrycat at 4:48 PM on March 12, 2015


Also, Rick didn't blow the gun raid; Carol did. She stole a chocolate when the number of remaining chocolates was on a chalk board above the freezer and the Provisions Lady had told her it was in short supply.

I assumed she stole the chocolate as a cover for if she was seen or caught. She could "confess" to stealing the chocolate to divert them from wondering what she was in there for.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:51 AM on March 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


escape from the potato planet: The suburban party (complete with Coronas and seven-layer dip and flawlessly starched clothes) was a little much.

I think that was the point - my wife and I both latched onto the wine glasses as our significant indication that "oh shit, these people really are sheltered." Alcohol bottles are designed to be decently tough, but wine glasses are always as thin as can be, so having them intact, and all matching, indicates they are largely untouched by the chaos outside.

We liked this episode more than some of the prior ones, despite some of the hokeyness commented upon already. We're familiar with some of the questionable decisions made in writing and/or directing this show, so from that threshold, this was a decent character-setting episode. As others have noted, the cast is too big for everyone to play a significant role in every episode, though it is odd that Gabriel (plus Glen and Maggie!) can go from being key characters to sidelined so quickly.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:22 PM on March 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


I doubt that boy is going to tell anyone anything. The creepiest thing about Carol's little speech is how much it resembles the shit pedophiles tell kids to silence them, which often works all too well.
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:49 AM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Buttons also survived the apocalypse for two years or so, but one whiff of the Rick Grimes crew and it's lights out.

As everyone knows at this point, non-palomino characters are disproportionately likely to get killed off in short order on this show.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:03 PM on March 15, 2015 [4 favorites]


Oh and then Aaron feeds Daryl some righteous spaghetti.

I am horrified by the amount of spaghetti they had prepared for two people. Limited supplies and they used what looked like two whole boxes. This compound is a complete nightmare.
posted by srboisvert at 3:08 PM on October 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


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