You know, I almost considered not writing anything about this episode as it really rubbed me the wrong way. There were a few good moments here and there, but for an episode that is supposed to be building up tension for the season finale and the arrival of Negan, “East” was filled with people walking around, talking, and making stupid, stupid mistakes in order to make sure that characters will be arranged on the board for next week’s removal of a piece (or two).
There are two main thrusts to the episode – well, two and a half, sort of.
In the storyline that vaguely makes sense, despite some character development that feels more like a forced re-humanizing than anything organic, Carol (Melissa McBride) has left in the night with a backpack full of food, a gun, some ammo, her big-ass knife, and an oversized coat. As discussed last time, her reasons for leaving are stupid bullshit, but we can’t have super bad-ass Carol around when Negan shows up or she’ll just kill him and the storyline will be over.
So Carol decides to walk the earth like Kane from Kung Fu, trying not to murder people, but failing miserably. In fact, the first people she comes across are from Negan’s group (they’re everywhere now, aren’t they? Where have they been all this time?) and after crying and telling them she doesn’t want to hurt them, she ends up killing nearly all of them with her secret hidden machine gun hand.
At least, I think it’s a machine gun hand. They didn’t show her going all Tetsuo the Iron Man or anything, but there’s no way a machine gun with a clip of ammo is going to be hidden in a jacket sleeve. Especially this gun:
And where are those spent cartridges going? And why isn’t her sleeve all shot up or catching on fire? And if you say that’s too much realism to expect for a fantasy about the walking dead, then fuck you.
Anyway, Carol kills as easily as I fart (and almost as often), even though it makes her sad. The killing, not my farting. So she wanders off and that’s the last we see of her this week.
It’s appropriately mega-violent, and while I’m not a big fan of the sobbing Ichi the Killer version of Carol, I will admit that it’s an interesting approach for the character. Probably moreso for McBride than for the audience, but maybe it’s time to let McBride stretch and play more than stone cold killer and happy homemaker.
Back at Alexandria, when Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Morgan (Lennie James) find out Carol’s gone, they take off after her. Now this makes actually makes sense. Rick knows that he needs Carol if trouble is coming, and Morgan feels responsible for driving her away with his infectious morality.
When they discover the murder scene that Carol left behind, Morgan is troubled, but Rick is proud. She’s a force of nature, he says. They follow a blood trail in the hopes of finding her, but a surviving Savior creeps out of the bushes and follows them.
Along the way Morgan asks Rick about the time he was all high-and-mighty and banished Carol for making the hard choice and killing Karen and David when they had the flu back in the prison. He asks if he would banish Carol today in the same situation and he says hell no. He’d thank her or probably would have done it himself.
It’s been a long time coming Rick, but I accept your forgiveness and welcome you to Team Carol.
Anyway, that storyline really flatlines when they come across a man at a farm overrun with walkers. Instead of dropping his weapon like Rick asks, he instead runs away, saying he’s just looking for his horse. Rick tries to shoot him. Morgan intervenes. The man escapes. Turns out he was a Savior.
Seriously, is anyone NOT a Savior?
Meanwhile, in the other main storyline of the episode, Daryl, Rosita, Glenn, and Michonne all apparently took blows to the head recently, because they all do stupid shit for no rational reason other than to put them in peril. All of this stems from the fact that Daryl (Norman Reedus) is super-guilty, and when he gets super-guilty he gets extra-super-sexy eyes and the urge to hop on his bike and ride out to do super-stupid things.
Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) chase after him because they realize he’s being super-stupid, and Rosita (Christian Serratos) tags along because she doesn’t really have a story purpose anymore now that she’s not banging Abraham so we might as well put her in peril, too. This immediately ups the odds that Daryl, Glenn, and Michonne, are not going to die next week. Thanks, Rosita!
So Rosita knew Daryl was going to the spot where Denise died, because duh, and Glenn gets to give a nice speech about how everybody’s needed at Alexandria since the Saviors are probably gearing up for an attack. But instead of wait for them to come to him, Daryl huffs sexily and stalks off with his sexy hair in his sexy eyes craving his sexy revenge. Rosita follows, also craving sexy revenge, but not pulling it off half as well as Daryl.
Then Glenn and Michonne get captured by Dwight (Austin Amelio), because of course they do.
Then when Daryl and Rosita find the camp where Glenn and Michonne are tied up, they are also captured by Dwight, because of course they are.
That Dwight is either a ninja or Daryl just sucks at tracking these days.
As the show goes to black, Dwight goes so far as to shoot Daryl in the shoulder, splashing the camera screen with blood before the fade-out. Just before the show ends, we hear Dwight say “he’s gonna be okay” or something like that, just in case people actually think that’s how Daryl would die on this show.
Overall, this was a bunch of crap; a return to the bad old days where the characters did stupid stuff just to make sure the plot would move and the pieces were all arranged nicely on the board before something dramatic would happen. To be quite honest, at this point, I don’t really have any idea who might die next week, and I’m not sure I really care.
Although if the scene earlier where Maggie (Lauren Cohan) appears to be having a miscarriage turns into giving birth to a miscarried zombie baby, all will be forgiven.
Do you have the guts, Walking Dead? Do you?
