Season 2, Episode 10
“The right choice is the one that keeps us alive.”
Tonight's The Walking Dead flipped a bit of conventional wisdom about the show on its head; while the SOP in reviewing the show has been to compliment the action sequence and whinge about how the character work and conversational scenes are all slow and boring and whatnot. Tonight however, we got what feels like the first conversational scenes that actually meant something, and that were able to evoke any sort of legitimate emotional response. (And we got some more zombie action sequences. Because this show knows why people really tune in.)
Last week, I said that that episode was roughly split into two stories. Well, forget that. “Triggerfinger” may have started out as two separate stories, but around the halfway mark the two stories came together and then the episode fell into a giant muddles mess, much like it always does. “18 Miles Out” by contrast starts out with two separate stories and stays that way, and it seems as if the episode is all the better for it.
In the wake of tonight's episode, I have a new theory that I would like to apply to the show: it's not that the idea of people talking about their problems in a post-apocalyptic world is a bad way to fill some time on a zombie show, it's that this particular show hasn't given those ideas enough room to breath that it merely seems like a bad idea. So often the show is interested is running the characters around on a pointless mission to someplace, or depicting how all of the characters are doing, that even when it gets around to giving us conversational moments, there's not enough screen time for them to grow and build and move beyond their theoretical beginnings and transform into something more specific and personal. And even when the show does devote a large amount of time to ideas and arguments, usually there's so many going on (as was the case two weeks ago) that no one can break away from the confusion.
Obviously this is the case here, and it's really easy to see why. From the main cast, we had only four characters make an appearance: Rick, Shane, Lori, and Andrea. This was rounded out with only three recurring characters – Maggie, Beth, Randall. All the other characters that we gotten to know were completely absent tonight, though a few were mentioned in passing, supposedly doing something or the other off screen. This is, by my recollection, the first time the show has gone with out a character making at least a passing appearance. (And even if some character has gone missing from an episode, the show's never done to this scale before.) We can only speculate as to why this was the case, and while the likely answer was the show was saving money so it could afford the larger-than-average action sequence for this episode, I would like to pretend that Glen Mazzara has gotten the writers to start thinking about storytelling economics.
Regardless, both stories were fairly good this week, as the limited characters involved in each (three off the farm, four on) allowed for a lot of breathing room and organic development. The better of these two was Rick and Shane's, and that undeniably is due to the fact that their argument also happens to take place during/around a zombie attack. Even here among the show's best character work to date, the action scenes were still the standout of the episode, but it's looking as if that could possibly change by the next season. The story started off small by having Rick confront Shane on the roadside, and then it built to cresendo in the parking lot as they slugged it out over Randall's fate. This argument inevitability grabbed the attention of some nearby zombies, and soon the three men were all under attack. It was a brilliant action set piece of course, but it's real power lay in how it grounded the argument the men were just having. Suddenly Shane's warnings about making the right choice to stay alive don't sound like empty rhetoric from a paranoid sociopath. The threat is real, and standing around and arguing about it isn't going to help anything.
The argument back at the farm made for weaker companion story, but that's mostly because we haven't seen that much of the youngest Greene daughter, and it wasn't until tonight that I think I finally got her name down. (It's Beth, by the way.) Additionally, the argument about whether one should commit suicide in the face of apocalyptic doom has been done before, specifically with Andrea and her really boring story arc during the first half of this season.
But what made this storyline work overall was how it branched out beyond Beth, and grew to incorporate all the women. The main antagonism here was between Lori and Andrea, who appear to be at each other's throats not only about whether suicide is acceptable under these circumstances, but also a whole lot more. Watching as their argument grew from suicide to Andrea's role in the group to Lori's selfish (and lucky) way of holding on to her family was fascinating, as well as being one of the most organic and realistic arguments I've seen on TV in a long time. When two people who really despise each other go at for long enough, eventually all arguments grow past their initial disagreement and end up hitting a variety of topics, and it was great to see this scene acknowledge that. (Though honestly seeing Lori attempt to stick Andrea in a traditional gender role was just uncomfortable in just so many ways.)
The real gut-punch here of course was when Andrea purposely left Beth on her own In order that she could really choose whether she wanted to take her own life. So often these stories end tragically, but The Walking Dead decided to take a different route and have Beth decided to live after one shallow cut to the wrist. It will be interesting to see where this develops – both in terms of Beth's decision to live, and in Andrea's expulsion from the house – but I'm glad that the show for once was able to give us some moral ambiguity about something.
Other Thoughts:
That was Wye Oak's "Civilian" that was played over the closing minutes. The song was also used in the show's promotional campaign for this season, but this felt like the first time when the song really worked with the material.
So Maggie's still worried about where she stands with Glen, and she goes to Lori for advice. Ugh, just stop.
Given that there was actually a shot of Rick gun sticking through the hole that he just shot in a zombie's head, this was perhaps the most gruesome episode of the show to date, yet the gore was also a lot more localized and specific. Nothing on the level of output of gore like when that horse got tore up by the zombies back in the pilot, but perhaps even more unnerving.
In the wake of tonight's episode, I have a new theory that I would like to apply to the show: it's not that the idea of people talking about their problems in a post-apocalyptic world is a bad way to fill some time on a zombie show, it's that this particular show hasn't given those ideas enough room to breath that it merely seems like a bad idea. So often the show is interested is running the characters around on a pointless mission to someplace, or depicting how all of the characters are doing, that even when it gets around to giving us conversational moments, there's not enough screen time for them to grow and build and move beyond their theoretical beginnings and transform into something more specific and personal. And even when the show does devote a large amount of time to ideas and arguments, usually there's so many going on (as was the case two weeks ago) that no one can break away from the confusion.
Obviously this is the case here, and it's really easy to see why. From the main cast, we had only four characters make an appearance: Rick, Shane, Lori, and Andrea. This was rounded out with only three recurring characters – Maggie, Beth, Randall. All the other characters that we gotten to know were completely absent tonight, though a few were mentioned in passing, supposedly doing something or the other off screen. This is, by my recollection, the first time the show has gone with out a character making at least a passing appearance. (And even if some character has gone missing from an episode, the show's never done to this scale before.) We can only speculate as to why this was the case, and while the likely answer was the show was saving money so it could afford the larger-than-average action sequence for this episode, I would like to pretend that Glen Mazzara has gotten the writers to start thinking about storytelling economics.
Regardless, both stories were fairly good this week, as the limited characters involved in each (three off the farm, four on) allowed for a lot of breathing room and organic development. The better of these two was Rick and Shane's, and that undeniably is due to the fact that their argument also happens to take place during/around a zombie attack. Even here among the show's best character work to date, the action scenes were still the standout of the episode, but it's looking as if that could possibly change by the next season. The story started off small by having Rick confront Shane on the roadside, and then it built to cresendo in the parking lot as they slugged it out over Randall's fate. This argument inevitability grabbed the attention of some nearby zombies, and soon the three men were all under attack. It was a brilliant action set piece of course, but it's real power lay in how it grounded the argument the men were just having. Suddenly Shane's warnings about making the right choice to stay alive don't sound like empty rhetoric from a paranoid sociopath. The threat is real, and standing around and arguing about it isn't going to help anything.
The argument back at the farm made for weaker companion story, but that's mostly because we haven't seen that much of the youngest Greene daughter, and it wasn't until tonight that I think I finally got her name down. (It's Beth, by the way.) Additionally, the argument about whether one should commit suicide in the face of apocalyptic doom has been done before, specifically with Andrea and her really boring story arc during the first half of this season.
But what made this storyline work overall was how it branched out beyond Beth, and grew to incorporate all the women. The main antagonism here was between Lori and Andrea, who appear to be at each other's throats not only about whether suicide is acceptable under these circumstances, but also a whole lot more. Watching as their argument grew from suicide to Andrea's role in the group to Lori's selfish (and lucky) way of holding on to her family was fascinating, as well as being one of the most organic and realistic arguments I've seen on TV in a long time. When two people who really despise each other go at for long enough, eventually all arguments grow past their initial disagreement and end up hitting a variety of topics, and it was great to see this scene acknowledge that. (Though honestly seeing Lori attempt to stick Andrea in a traditional gender role was just uncomfortable in just so many ways.)
The real gut-punch here of course was when Andrea purposely left Beth on her own In order that she could really choose whether she wanted to take her own life. So often these stories end tragically, but The Walking Dead decided to take a different route and have Beth decided to live after one shallow cut to the wrist. It will be interesting to see where this develops – both in terms of Beth's decision to live, and in Andrea's expulsion from the house – but I'm glad that the show for once was able to give us some moral ambiguity about something.
Other Thoughts:
That was Wye Oak's "Civilian" that was played over the closing minutes. The song was also used in the show's promotional campaign for this season, but this felt like the first time when the song really worked with the material.
So Maggie's still worried about where she stands with Glen, and she goes to Lori for advice. Ugh, just stop.
Given that there was actually a shot of Rick gun sticking through the hole that he just shot in a zombie's head, this was perhaps the most gruesome episode of the show to date, yet the gore was also a lot more localized and specific. Nothing on the level of output of gore like when that horse got tore up by the zombies back in the pilot, but perhaps even more unnerving.
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