OK, so “Slabtown” kind of sucked. The Beth-entric episode from last week (which I didn’t recap because I’m the worst, I know) was generally pretty repetitively doomy and gloomy until the last-second Carol reveal, so I had higher hopes for this week’s episode of The Walking Dead, “Self-Help.” “Self-Help” was better, I think, but mainly because of that reveal: Of COURSE Eugene is a liar! Duh!
Solid step forward, Walking Dead; if this season has been doing anything right, it’s the pacing of these episodes, which are moving along pretty nicely. Gareth and his people—dead! Beth—hopefully about to get rescued by Carol and Daryl! And now we have Eugene, admitting that his entire story is bullshit. And we’re only five episodes into the season! I’m overcome with happiness, guys.
But, did Abraham’s back-story in “Self-Help” work? I’m not entirely convinced; I think there was a vagueness that was ineffective. Maybe I wasn’t paying full attention—totally a possibility—but in the comics (SPOILER ALERT) it’s very clear that Abraham had a wife, daughter, and son, all of whom were hiding out in the grocery store together. But his wife and daughter were raped while his son was forced to watch, and then when Abraham beat the perpetrators to death with canned goods, his wife and children run away from him (hence the note “Don’t try to find us), only to die a few steps outside of the grocery store. Traumatizing shit!
And I don’t think the flashbacks here fully conveyed all of that; we got the Abraham beating people to death and we got his family running away from him and then him finding their bodies, but without the precursor—without them being terrified of how he was protecting them—I don’t know if it had the same impact. Because the point here was that Abraham thinking he’s doing the right thing can very easily turn into the wrong thing, right? But that wasn’t so clear.
Anyway, let’s talk about some other things that happened in “Self-Help.” (Yes, we’ll get to the sex eventually, you perv.)
+ “I’m not a scientist! I don’t know how to stop it. I’m not a scientist. I know I’m smarter than most people. I know I’m a very good liar. And I know I needed to get to D.C.” For all of you that have been thinking, “Uh, that guy with the awful mullet and the hick accent cannot be our only hope,” good job, you were right. Which makes you smarter than practically everyone on this show! But when you’re desperate and when you’re looking for absolution, I guess you’ll go with anything. So after weeks of dragging Abraham and Rosita along with his scheme, and then involving Rick et al., and watching people die to protect him, Eugene finally comes clean.
Was it his burgeoning friendship with Tara that did it? Abraham’s increasing violence and determined craziness? A mixture of both? Regardless, Eugene is now revealed as being full of shit, which puts the group in an awful position. Do they continue on toward D.C., even though there is nothing actually for them there? Do they turn around and try to go back to Rick’s group? Do they stay put, hoping that Rick’s group will catch up with them in time? Is Maggie ever going to acknowledge that her sister Beth is still missing? Lots of questions to consider.
+ “I know it sucks and it’s scary, but it’s time to be brave.” I still can barely remember Tara’s name, but I liked her in this episode as a parallel to Eugene. She too once aligned with someone she thought could protect her (the Governor), only to realize that such an alliance didn’t entirely sap her of responsibility in this new world order; I think the show has done a nice job aligning her storyline with Eugene’s, someone who has also made poor choices to protect themselves. Granted, I thought it was strange that she would agree to keep his secret of blowing up the school bus since that almost got them all killed, but I like whatever weird burgeoning friendship the two of them have. It will undoubtedly get affected by Eugene’s telling the truth, but for now, I think it works as a way to develop both of them a bit further.
+ “I just need to know you’re good.” So I guess this season so far has been positioning Glenn as the cool-headed second-in-command for any leader that comes along? Because back when he was with Rick, he was consistently concerned about where Rick’s headspace was and how that would affect the group moving forward, and now he’s doing the same thing with Abraham—checking up on him as a way, perhaps, to ensure that he and Maggie won’t be in danger moving forward. But ultimately I think it’s a disappointing way to use Glenn as a character, since he used to be such a resourceful badass. His relationship with Maggie changed him in the comics, sure (especially because in them, Carol’s daughter Sophia is still alive, and when Carol dies, Maggie and Glenn basically adopt Sophia as their own child, which is clearly a storyline that has been scrapped for the show since Carol is so amazing now and Sophia is dead), but I don’t know if this particular use of Glenn is the best. He could be more of a take-charge guy, not the one who checks whether the real take-charge guy is actually going to take charge. Blergh.
+ “He’s harmless.”Um, how is Rosita so OK with Eugene watching her and Abraham have sex? Granted, this episode gave Rosita a lot more to do than ever before—She can speak! She isn’t afraid to argue with Abraham! She knows things about cars!—and now she finally has a more reasonable outfit. But I still shudder at the pathetic creepiness of Eugene watching them going at it. How could you stay in the mood? How many times has that happened before? THIS IS A TERRIBLE RABBIT HOLE OF GROSS QUESTIONS, I WILL STOP NOW.
+ “About time things started going our way.” Yeah, I would say Eugene using the pressurized water to essentially liquefy all those zombies is a pretty solid win for our group. Definitely one of the most solid examples of zombie-gore effects so far this season.
And finally, some odds and ends:
+ “Maybe I’ll let you shave me down all over.” Real sexy, Abraham.
+ “We’re friends. We have each other’s backs. That’s it, that’s how it works.” Tara is so optimistic; eventually it has to bite her in the ass.
+ And here, have a bunch of Eugene’s interactions with other people, because they are great:
Tara, about Eugene’s mullet: “Is it your source of power?”
Eugene: “That’s classified.”
Glenn: “Why the hair?”
Eugene: “Because I like it.”
Eugene, discussing his mullet before he tells the truth: “T. Brooks Ellis, director of the The Human Genome Project, he told me my hair made me look, and I quote, ‘like a fun guy.’”
Eugene, discussing the mullet after he tells the truth: “I also lied about T. Brooks Ellis liking my hair!”
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment