Walking Dead Episode Review 5.9: What Happened and What's Going On

So we’re back after a couple months hiatus on the Walking Dead.  A new Arc is beginning so it's like a season opener all over again, what do they have in store for us this time?

The show didn’t even make it to the opening credits before a mission was established: get your ass to Mars, I mean Virginia.  Everybody Hates Chris has family there and it’s supposed to a well fortified and protected place ala Woodbury.  When they arrive, they discover that it was burned to the ground, no survivors.  Everybody Hates Chris is devastated.

Tyreese who I can’t erase out of my head as Z from It’s always sunny in Philadelphia, has become a surrogate father to EHC.  I like this angle until Tyreese gets bit in the arm while being entranced by photos of EHC’s twin brothers who ironically enough are the ones who bite him.

Then we go to cameo land where get appearances by the hunter he spared at the beginning of the season, then Bob, and the two girls he was traveling with Lizzie and what’s her face, the normal one. The Governor even shows up. The radio goes crazy and starts talking about the events. The theme here is of regret, wondering if taking a different course would have changed anything, but in the end we all have earn our keep.  Oh FMS, Beth even shows up, singing a diddy no less. I should have known she’d pop back in again, she has nothing better to do.

I’m kinda disappointed at the painting by the numbers being done here.  Cameos like this are extremely common in opening episodes.  The first one that comes to mind is when Rita showed up in flashback form in the first episode of the next season after she was killed off on Dexter but it’s a common occurrence.  Also, things tend to happen in these episodes, like when they killed off T-Dog, had Herschel bit and killed off Carol in the opening of season three. I did say that right, Carol was written out of the show before they changed their minds and had Daryl find her a few episodes later.  I kinda wish they’d just make these cast members a bit more unpredictable and spread them out over the course of the season rather than at the beginning or ends of an arc.  They did that with Lori but that’s about it, they don’t kill off ancillary characters midseason.

My gripes aside, this is a strong episode, it reminds me quite a bit of the film Jacob’s Ladder.  There was some clever misdirection done since they made you think at the beginning of the episode they were burying Beth since her death was fresh on everybody’s mind, when they were really burying Tyreese.  Also I enjoyed how they did the shifts between Cameo land and real life. These were done quite well, especially the one where they amputate Tyreese’s arm.  In the end, they teased Tyreese’s death at least three times before and now he finally paid the bill.

I’m Glad better Call Saul is on next, because I need something upbeat after this downer of an episode.

C.J. Foxx 

Author of Super-Hero Bowl VI
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