[MASSIVE spoilers throughout. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200 if you haven’t watched the episode.]
This has already been a great season for The Walking Dead, but the second half has been fantastic beyond expectation. We’ve seen the deaths of favorite characters, wild plot twists, and some terrific scenes and confrontations, and it seems like it’s only just beginning.
And even though it seems like we are finally coming to some level of civilization, we realize we actually aren’t. That’s what makes this week’s episode a complete mindf*ck. Damn, was it beautiful.
Two weeks ago we heard the fated “we ARE the walking dead” line spoken by Rick to the other survivors. Confronted with dire circumstances, they believe their time is coming to an end. Hope seems lost. Today, however, we’re in some weird alternate reality in which we’re in a town filled with Stepford Wives and attending wine & cheese parties. That’s what makes things even more terrifying.
There were a couple of great themes in the episode, echoing thoughts from last week.
One revolves around the survivors’ fear that they’d “forget” how to live in this new reality by falling back into pre-zombie suburban life. Deanna (Alexandria’s de facto leader) makes a quip about everything seeming to be too “pie in the sky” to be real. This “is it real?” thread permeates everything about the town. Everything really does seem perfect. There’s no violence, plenty of love, and even cookies Mrs Neidermeyer wanting a pasta maker. As the viewers, we know something is off. The survivors know something is off. No one else is telling us what that is, though.
Perhaps the only person that is feeling this uneasiness is Sasha. She’s just coming off from losing her brother to the most wicked of ways, wondering what would have happened had he survived just one more day to make it to the new community. It’s impossible for her to think that things could actually be getting better. In the great opening scene, she grabs the happy family photos from her new home, takes them into the woods and uses them as target practice, feverishly taking shots in hopes that walkers would hear her. “Come and get me,” she utters, hoping to shatter this surreal situation.
It all seems to come to a head at Deanna’s house party. A party in the apocalypse? With wine, whiskey, beer and cookies? One of the more bizarre moments centers around the now polo-wearing Abraham’s infatuation with available beer. He seems like a Lowes associate at a company party, waiting for the burgers to be done on the grill. Sasha can have none of it, though. She’s so far removed from society that she doesn’t know how to get back in, causing her to mentally explode on one of the citizens. “THAT’s what you’re worried about?” she screams as she’s asked about favorite foods. Translation: “The undead are outside, we’ve lost family and friends, and we’re going to die. Your perfect world is fake, your problems are minor, and you’re blind to see it.” Sasha is waiting to die.
The other big theme hits back to Rick’s quote in the barn. In fact, it’s Darryl who reminds us that the group has become almost feral. “The longer they’re out there, the more they become what they really are,” he says to Aaron as they follow a horse the children have been seeing. The once-domesticated horse is slowly returning to its wild state, like the survivors themselves.
Rick has been without his wife for nearly a year, and has no idea how to react to women. He seems to almost instantly fall for Jessie, kissing her at the house party. He’s been taking, taking, taking for so long, that his nearly alpha male instincts might be pushing him to “take” Jessie, even so far as to brandish a weapon around Jessie’s husband.
Carol is becoming more and more terrifying of a character. Since she lost her daughter in the second season, she’s often done things that make us wonder what her true intentions are. When stealing back the group’s weapons, Jessie’s son confronts her, prompting her to go through a detailed list of gruesome things that would happen to him if he told anyone.
Darryl is a strange case. He’s always been on the run from something, whether it was zombies or his rough past. When he and Aaron come upon the horse being brutally attacked and eaten by walkers, the saddened Aaron mentions how the horse always managed to run (from fear). Perhaps this is a metaphor for Darryl’s life, and Aaron seems to notice this, offering him the job of recruiting other survivors for the community. Darryl, almost overwhelmed by the show of faith, accepts the task.
I think whatever this is building up to, whether it’s a struggle for leadership of the community or some revelation of what the community actually is, is going to rip apart the group even further. They’ve just survived Terminus, a similar situation that was presented as a perfect community only to have it become something all-together different. But perhaps where the literal meaning of the word “Terminus” is an ending, “Alexandria” is some what viewed as a beginning, as it was one of the first giant cities of modern civilization.
It’s hard to put a finger on what’s happening, and how to determine sides. What’s even more bizarre is the sudden appearance of brands: we find a walker with a “W” scratched into its head, and the citizens of Alexandria are stamping “A” on their hands. It’s epitomized in the final scene of the episode, as Rick puts his branded hand on the protective wall, listening to the walker on the outside.
“People are the real threat now,” Rick tells us. Something tells me that assumption is about to play out.
All images courtesy AMC
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