The Walking Dead, Season 5 Episode 10 - "Them

Blair Fink (Twitter: @BlairMFink, Instagram: @BlairFink)

Steve Bethel (Twitter: @the_lazy_gamer, Website: steveisthelazygamer.blogspot.ca)

"Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I guess I'll go eat worms."

The Walking Dead, Season 5, Episode 10, "Them"

DEAD INSIDE

Well...not a whole lot to talk about in this episode. I sure hope something interesting happens soon. I'm not sure I can take another forty minute walking montage. But let's try to open this up a bit.

Don't Open. Dead Inside. It's what was written on the chained-up doors in the hospital in the first episode of the entire series. Then, it meant there were literally dead beings inside the doors. Now, it's the characters who are dead inside. But I'll be gosh darned if they don't start opening up by the end of the episode anyway. Doesn't it just warm your cold, shrivelled, little heart? No. It doesn't. I get they have to address the impact of Beth and Tyreese's death, but it is so painful to watch these sad sacks drag their defeated selves down the road with metaphorical (and now literal) rain clouds hanging over them. Daryl is turning into more of a loner and has to resort to burning himself with a cigarette to actually feel something, Maggie is stoic and pessimistic, and Sasha is destructive and hostile. What a pleasant crew.

Sasha: broken. Maggie: broken. Noah: broken. Daryl: about to break. Preacher: losing faith. Everyone: thirsty (except Abe). This is getting ridiculous, it's so depressing, it hurts my soul to watch it. I have to hop on YouTube and watch adorable animal videos to get my spirits back up.

I may have spent more time on finding this video than on my part of the writeup.

I'm a little surprised it took so long to show wild dogs. I would imagine that packs of dogs would be a very real threat in a situation like this, mind you I would have thought that would have happened a lot sooner. Unless they were all in hiding and scavenging, but now are starting to get desperate. Which I suppose is what they were trying to depict. Add a little more desperation to the episode. As exciting as that scene could have been ol buzz kill Sasha buts an end to it before it can even begin. I wanted to see some "The Grey" style, circling pack hunter, showdown shit, not a stand off that caused about zero intensity.

When the zombie horde attacks the barn, the show lays it on pretty thick that only the power of teamwork miraculously saved them from both the zombies and the wrath of God. *rolls eyes*

That is one sturdy ass barn. Massive trees are uprooted in the storm yet they are all save and sound, cozy and dry(!?!) inside. That is craftsmanship!

The Walking Dead is at its worst when it gets too talky. For me, it didn't get any worse than Rick's little speech in the barn about his grandfather and how...wait for it...”We are the walking dead.” REALLY? How very meta of you, Rick. I can only imagine the lobbying in the writers room to take it one step further and for Rick to show Daryl the “From a friend” sheet of paper in the style of his character from Love Actually. Sheet one: HERE'S SOME WATER. Sheet two: TO ME, YOU ARE PERFECT FRIENDS.

So what do we know? They've been wandering for three weeks. A quick Google maps check tells me it would take 200+ hours to walk from Atlanta to Washington. That's a long trek, even with driving portions of it. Let's do some math; If you assume 8 hours of walking a day, which they probably do more(as well as drove part way). Times 3 weeks since Atlanta, that is 168 hours. Which is good. Because that means they better be close and they better start doing something more interesting.

As for the water, "From a Friend'? Ok, I admit that would seem fishy, for a moment lets not focus on the fact that someone has been watching them for some time. Instead let's look at the clues here. Clean, crisp sheet of paper/card stock; so whoever left that is clean (no finger smudges or dirt), and have clean, storage/living spaces, so they are obviously in a better position than our group. They left about 20 liters of water; that is a lot of water to give as a handout in this situation, so again, this/these "friends" are much better off than our heroes who spend about 2 minutes collecting rain water before rushing off for cover. I thought they were in need of water? You can't just sit in the rain for a few minutes and boom there goes your dehydration. Then we meet our "friend". At least there was some tease at something exciting happening soon-ish...hopefully, because I was ready to give up like some of the members of the group. 

It isn't until the last minute that my interest is piqued, when Maggie and Sasha are about to Instagram the sunrise until some dude named Aaron wanders straight out of an L.L. Bean catalogue and into their field of view. We've seen this a bunch of times before, obviously, about trusting strangers claiming to be friendly (and it hasn't gone well yet) but I'm still interested, if only because it will mean things might start happening, instead of the entire freaking cast doing the Charlie Brown sad walk down the road.

QUESTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS

-Carole seems fine after being on life support a few weeks earlier. She really is the John McClane of this show.

-How does Daryl still have smokes? How did he open, clean and fix the music box? This is no ordinary man!

-So Gabriel seemed to be straying from his faith, at least until the rain came and he asked forgiveness

-Why didn't Michonne and Sasha wrestle in the rain? (If that had happened I might have brought it up more in the above write up)

-Where are we at on Rick's beard? Awesome? Too much? Ladies, your thoughts?

Blair's Rating: C-

Steve's Rating: 2 shitty music boxes out of 5

Blair's MVP: Judith

Steve's MVP: Judith (I've never seen such a quiet baby)

Blair's Deadpool Pick: Noah

Steve's Deadpool Pick: Maggie (I'm really rooting for her)