4061

I also thought it was an excellent episode. I thought in particular the “I was no one, I was nothing” part was top notch.

As far as moonshine goes, I’ve never had any. But I didn’t see a problem with her lack of reaction. Daryl was urinating right there in the same room with her and she registered nothing. They sat in that trunk, all sweaty and nasty, for who knows how long. In short, the old ‘ewww’ baseline no longer counts in their world. She’s had fouler drinks by this time, all things considered that moonshine might have been the best tasting thing she’s had to drink since the prison fell.

4062

Yes, I’m glad you mentioned that they avoided the romance angle, nogwart. That would have been such an easy cheap thing to do. But they knew that we knew it was on the table when Emily Kenney’s character introduces the “I never” drinking game. Pretty clever, Walking Dead. Pretty clever.

Also, I loved the cuts while they were in the trunk to show the passage of time. Such an excellent episode on so many levels. Shame about the terrible song.

-Tom
4063

Physically, I don’t think the actress fits the part very well. She’s too small, too thin. She is the same height as the woman who played Andrea, and thinner. I would’ve preferred a taller woman with more muscle on her for the part. But I think the actress does a good job, they just can’t put her next to any of the taller people in the show.

4064

Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed this episode a great deal; easily one of the best this season. It was nice to finally get back into Daryl’s head after he’s languished as nothing but a bad-ass cypher for much of the last season or two. And Beth finally got enough actual dialog that I can now remember her name without going through a mental flow-chart of “Maggie’s sister, so Hershel’s daughter, so… Beth.”

I thought that the opening sequence with the car’s trunk was REALLY well done. The show often manages to make a single zombie fairly creepy, especially if the heroes are unaware of its presence – a good example being the newly-dead Patrick returning from the showers in the second episode this season. By contrast, a large horde of zombies is rarely all that scary on-screen. The trunk scene was the first time I had actually been creeped-out by the idea of a large group of them… probably because the director made the decision not to show a single one of them.

I also enjoyed the scenes in the country club - lots of good, unexplained stories in there as well as some great symbolism. As always, I appreciated the TWD’s habit of implying that any given location was the scene of a complex and undoubtedly tragic story that you have to piece together yourself, and the country club had a bunch of that - all the wealthy folk in their pearls and once-tasteful golf outfits; the “rich bitch” quasi-mannequin; the “welcome to Dogtown” room. Great stuff.

The contrast between the squalor of Daryl’s woods camp and the opulence of the country club bar was nice, and I liked the buried-but-useless hatred that Daryl showed towards the rich, whitebread Georgia elite with his darts game.

I really liked Beth’s changing clothes, something that we’ve seen a bit of in the last couple of episodes. From a logistical/realism standpoint, that’s nice to finally see: unlike food, which will have mostly spoiled in the two years since the ZA started, clothes seem plentiful and mostly intact, and it’s bugged me that Rick is wearing a barely-there, tattered rag when most of the houses seem to be full-up of decent clothes. But of course there is more to it that that: changing clothes or keeping your rags is a character thing. Michonne changed into clean clothes last episode because she’s decided to finally commit to the group; Beth changes in this episode because she WANTS to become a different, less dependent person. And then of course she immediately gets covered by gore again, showing that her quest to change herself superficially simply won’t make any real difference for long.

The conversations in the moonshine shack were fine. I too am pleased that they didn’t end up drunkenly screwing - which was where I was positive the episode was heading.

I didn’t care for the song at the end either, but they needed something musical.

4065

Apparently I’m the only one bothered by how stupid it was to impulsively burn their only shelter when it’s late and they probably want some sleep.

4066

Well, of COURSE it was stOOpid - they were drunk!

4067

Well, of COURSE it was stOOpid - they were drunk!

And then again, undoubtedly they (the director/cinematographer) wanted to burn the place in the dark for the visibility of the flames. Am I the only one bothered that the first flames up were very yellow rather than alcohol blue?

4068

Nah. The theme of the second half of the season is coming to terms with the new, post-ZA you. The shack is Daryl’s walking away from his past and Beth’s declaration that she doesn’t need walls or the protection of others to feel “safe”.

So yeah, they burned down their shelter… but (a) neither of them need that (metaphorical) shelter any more, and (b) I think it was supposed to be getting close to dawn anyway.

4069

Do you think walkers would just go into the flames like moths and burn up?

Guys, guys, I have an idea!

4070

I figured that they weren’t staying. The only reason they went there was the moonshine. Daryl knew about that place all along and apparently never mentioned it to Beth, so I take it that the place is not suitable as a base camp. Considering that, once someone says “Hey, let’s burn this place down” well, why wouldn’t you?

4071

I would at least wait until daylight. For all they knew there was a Walker right behind them when the building went up.

4072

When I’m that blasted I rarely have that much foresight. I’m lucky I remember how my feet work.

4073

Guys, guys, come on. We’re losing sight of the important things here. Namely, how awful that song was. Never forget!

-Tom

4074

I think they should just end each episode with the Benny Hill chase song playing over an extended scene of Carl being chased by zombies.

4075

The music selection in the show is really terrible. It’s Zach Snyder-music-selection bad.

4076

They should just let Beth sing for every episode.

 -Tom
4077

Zombie Idol

4078

Well, uh, okay. At least we got a little of Beth singing. I’ll take what I can get. That was actually a pretty cool song, whatever it was. Why couldn’t they have used that at the end of last week’s episode?

And Daryl’s close-quarters mortuary fight was like pretty much every time I’ve lost a character in State of Decay. But he managed to make it out alive. Way to go, Daryl.

 -Tom
4079

I was confused when it started last night, as I didn’t realize we were looking at pre-prison Bob at first, and then Daryl and Glenn showed up and I’m like “whoa, when did they get back together?!”, but then we had the “Hi, I’m Bob, Bob Doombringer, sure I’ll join your group!” scene and I realized what was happening. On the plus side, the musical selection for wandering Bob was decent. After that I thought the episode played out pretty well.

The Bob, Sasha and Maggie story played out pretty much as expected. Bob simply doesn’t want to be alone again, he’s beating the odds every day he stays with other people, and you knew he wasn’t going to let Maggie go off on her own to suffer the same fate he had twice already. I wasn’t really convinced though as to why Sasha did not want to head to Terminus. The script seemed to be saying she was just scared if she went there and Tyrese was not already there that she’d have to give him up for dead, but that didn’t seem to be a plausible enough reason and the actors were not selling it very well either. Fingerpainting made me laugh, and Maggie was awesome with that street sign. I’ll remember that little tip for future zombie apocalypse reference.

The Daryl and Beth story was far more interesting. Once again they encounter a setting which sparks intense curiosity. Who was living at the funeral home, and what were they doing there? Was it the same person who led the walkers to the front door, then snatched Beth? That old black car sure looked like it belonged at the funeral home. Poor Daryl, no tonly did he lose Beth, but now he’s fallen in with the bandit guys from Rick and Carl’s house. I’m secretly hoping Daryl kills them all in their sleep, takes all their stuff, and uses it to rescue Beth.

4080

I thought it was a solid episode all around. But I’m more interested in this potential new direction for Daryl. He’s now been forced back into a group that’s more akin to the family dynamic he grew up in and it will be interesting to see what affect this will have on him. I’ve always felt that Daryl’s altruism was in spite of his upbringing. They’ve never talked about a positive influence that might have existed in his world during his formative years, so I just assumed that his sense of right and wrong was a natural part of his DNA. But now we’re going to get a chance to see how he existed so long in a world full of Merle’s before he was allowed to express that sense of right and wrong with a group that accepted him for that very reason.