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EPISODE 13: Forget
THE HOOK: Rick, Daryl and Carol starting planning for a potential takeover as Deanna throws the group a welcome party.
The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS, so I don’t recommend reading this if you haven’t watched this episode
THE LOWDOWN: We open tonight with a visibly unstable Sasha, and by that, I mean she’s totally freaking out. Now I get it, you lose your new guy and brother in the same month (not to mention all the other insane shit that’s been going down), and it’s bound to add some hard miles to the soul. Honestly, I don’t feel Sasha brings much to the table. So she’s a great shot. Cool. Set her ass up in the tower and be done with it. If isolation is what she wants, give it to her, as it becomes clear at the party that she’s not ready to mingle. Now I guess the argument to that would be ‘we don’t want a nut job as lookout’, but hey, a nut job with a trigger finger is better than nobody at all…as long as she doesn’t shoot Daryl, Rick or Carol on their way back from their cloak and dagger meetings.
Daryl, Rick and Carol. The secret council. Personally I love it. They can’t lose their edge, not with something so great at their fingertips. Alexandria the way it is right now feels like a softer version of Woodbury, but at least they had the Governor and his lunatic posse of gunmen ready to throw down (that is, when they weren’t busy playing zombie fight club). These guys feel unprepared, but that has to be part of the illusion hiding a dark side we have yet to see (it just can’t be this easy). That said, with three episodes left, I’m wondering if Doctor Pete is going to go evil before season’s end. There’s more Wolves foreshadowing tonight, so maybe we’ll see them come out to play, or maybe both will remain hidden until next season. Something’s got to happen, that’s for sure, and I like the way they’re creeping up to it, because I get the feeling when ‘it’ does go down, it’s going to hit us hard. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.
This was a great Daryl episode. I was worried about him, the way he was alienating himself. And as much as Aaron can come off a tad sketchy, they made a good team. They didn’t manage to save poor Buttons though—I’m sure the show will get some fan backlash for that. If people whined about the dogs, they sure as hell won’t be happy with Button’s fate. On the flipside, Daryl and Aaron become friends (or at least as close to it as they can get), between the dinner and the bike. Daryl even agrees to be his new partner in crime, and I like that, Daryl is a guy who needs a purpose and even he knows it. I think that’s why he was hesitant to take the gun at the end. I was impressed by this character pairing (the last two characters I ever thought would pair up), but it works. Aaron’s either the most trustworthy of the new group, or the show’s setting us up for one hell of a curveball.
THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 5’s thirteenth episode peels away more of Alexandria’s layers, and we can only assume that once they get to the core, something will be rotten. They sure are good with appearances though, I’ll give them that. Deanna’s husband Reg seemed like a super cool guy, and he was clearly impressed with Rick. Deanna’s trying hard to break them all in, but I think she’s got a serious delusions of grandeur problem. The party looked oober uncomfortable for everyone but Rick, who manages to steal an (innocent or scandalous) kiss on the cheek. And then even he starts to act a little loopy at the end of the episode—and was that not the weirdest song ever to grace this show? The best part of tonight comes from Carol (playing the game like a boss), when she’s followed by Jessie’s kid Sam. I love Carol. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, she probably has the best turn around arc of any character on this show, going from a battered pushover, to an unmistakable (irreplaceable) badass. Only Carol can get away with threatening to tie a kid to a tree and leave him for the walkers…or bake him all the cookies he can eat. C’mon kid, take the cookies, it’s a sweet deal.
ZOMBIE KILL OF THE WEEK: Daryl impails a walker’s head on a ram’s horn. That’s hard to top.
BLOOD AND GORE: Despite living large behind closed walls, there was lots of blood soaked gore to be had. True, nobody wanted to see Buttons get the big chomp, but I think we all knew it was coming. This invokes both Daryl and Aaron’s wrath.
COOLEST SCENE: It would be too easy to say Carol’s speech (even though it’s pure gold), so I’m going back to Daryl. I’m a big fan of the D-man, and like I said, it was hella cool seeing him get some peace tonight. He needed it, and it made me smile ear to ear.
FINAL VERDICT:
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