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EPISODE 12: Remember
THE HOOK: Alexandria’s leader, Deanna, tries to get the group integrated back into society, but defensive walls are still up.
The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS, so I don’t recommend reading this if you haven’t watched this episode
THE LOWDOWN: Welcome to (the jungle) Alexandria. There was so much going on in that opening scene that’s almost hard to know where to start, but for argument’s sake, let’s start with Carl—PROTIP: If you see a chick skulking about in the abandoned house (outside the damn complex), you should probably say something. Talk about a ridiculous character move! After everything these guys have seen and been through, it should be a given that ANYTHING out of the ordinary needs to be brought to the group’s attention like five minutes ago. Instead we get, “huh, a chick in the window…odd, oh snap the gate’s opening!” The best was seeing the gate guy ask for their weapons though, yeah, because that was going to happen. Rick lets him know like a boss, gun in one hand, baby in the other. Pure gold.
I like what they did with Deanna’s character, and I don’t mean the gender swap—the leader of Alexandria in the comics is a dude named Douglas. I never liked him, but I instantly liked Deanna. The interviews are a wondrously entertaining tool. Rick’s speech about not letting anyone in, about being measured by your enemies, it’s all quite ironic considering that’s what she’s doing. A poker player you say? The zombie apocalypse is exactly that, high stakes, no limit Texas Hold’em. What I really don’t get though, is why Rick doesn’t open with the events of Terminus as an icebreaker/this is why I’m hesitant to trust you. He hasn’t mentioned it once. On a separate note, Carol’s interview (clever ruse) is a sensational bit of theatre. We never get to see Deanna’s face, so it’s unclear as to whether or not she believes everything she’s being told, but I’m loving secret agent Carol. And when Daryl says she looks ridiculous, he wasn’t kidding, she looks like a female version of Mr. Rogers. That said, I wish Daryl would just clean himself up already. He’s walking around like a rabid pit bull, eager to rip out the throat of the first person who looks at him funny.
Watching these guys try to integrate back into a community is both exciting and sad. It’s exciting because we get to see Rick’s face (pimp!), and everyone (except for Daryl) cleans up and tries to get comfortable. But not too comfortable. Rick has a meltdown while walking the streets, Carl goes into “OMG” overload when he gets the chance to play video games, and everyone in general is on “this is too good to be true” alert. Rick coming across that creepy dude on the porch probably did little to ease his paranoia (our evil doctor, Pete), and then there’s the whole outing to get his gun. I was a little perplexed by that whole scene. No one saw him leave? Then, he sees Carl (who saw Edith climb the wall and decided, hey, I guess I should follow her), and doesn’t seem overly alarmed or surprised. Neither of them do. It’s all like, “hey, how’s it going? Good, you? Good. There’s some walkers over there, let’s kill ‘em. Cool.” One thing’s for certain, Rick’s not happy about his missing gun. And again, Carl fails to mention Edith.
THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 5’s twelfth episode sets up Alexandria in a typical Walking Dead fashion—everything look’s great, until you run into that one asshole. Dude had it right when he called himself a douchebag. Tying up a walker to do God knows what to it before you go on patrol is a bad idea, hence our little showdown with said walker, who, of course, got free and almost bit someone. To make matters worse, how are you going to justify throwing down with Glenn? I mean, damn bro, you know him and his crew have been out in the wilds all this time, so why on Earth would you want to fight him? At least Deanna’s on Glenn’s side about how it all went down (or at least she appears to be), but who knows, I’d love to hear the exact details on what got those three guys exiled. Either way, Rick’s not afraid of anything, and is already planning for a coup if one is needed. The Ricktatorship will never die. Hail to the king, baby!
ZOMBIE KILL OF THE WEEK: Glenn takes out the walker those guys were going to torture, after it nearly rips a couple of them apart.
BLOOD AND GORE: I was worried there for a bit that we may not get any kills tonight (aside from the Sasha headshot at the gate), but Rick and Carl have a go at a small group of walkers and then there’s the fleshy one that Glenn has to take care of. The effects on the latter were pretty sick.
COOLEST SCENE: The opening at the gate was pretty damn awesome, but seeing Rick, Carol and Daryl coming clean about not letting their guards down and possibly taking over the joint was very, very cool.
FINAL VERDICT:
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