The Walking Dead, S 5 Ep 1: No Sanctuary
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS Alert.Soooo. The Walking Dead's season 5 premiere was on Sunday night (computer problems caused the delay in my posting, many apologies), and it was... Something. Full. Jam packed! With blood and gore and zombie mayhem.But that was only part of it. Did I mention there was blood and gore?OK, so. To sum up: the vast majority of our hearty and intrepid group had, one way or another, made their way to Terminus. The members of Rick Nation that were assembled at Terminus were:
Rick, Carl, Michonne, Daryl, Maggie, Glenn, Bob, Sasha, Abe, Rosita, Eugene, and Tara
...where they were herded by the Termains into one railroad car (big mistake, Termians! Divide and conquer, not consolidate so the conquerees can plan their escape, duh). They were supposed to wait for their untimely deaths and eventual repurposing as Termian dinner. Yes, the Termians were hipsters, so they repurpose, they don't simply kill and eat. In the pursuit of nose-to-tail no-waste perfection, they probably had a plan to use their victims' bones as the boarding around an ice hockey rink (refrigeration capabilities to follow). Yes, the people at Terminus were cannibals. Yes, we suspected it all along, and now we know it.
You're either the butcher or you're the cattle, they said, blah blah blah. And they're all, we'll kill our captives and bleed them out over a trough, and if one of our own should die, then he or she will become dinner too because nothing is personal and we can't help it if everyone is made out of delicious meat, we are clinical, institutional evil, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Got it, Termians. Who else did we have to worry about?Carol and Tyreese were still on the railroad tracks, with baby Judith (world's most unlikely zombie apocalypse survivor), making their way to (but not quite at) Terminus. Carol is increasingly suspicious of Terminus because of reasons. Plus, she is so full of badassery, it's almost ridiculous. #TeamCarolOld What'sHerFace...I mean, Beth...is running the risk of being Old What'sHerFace all over again, since she was missing for the last two episodes of season 4 and was the only major cast member to not be featured in the season 5 premiere. George reassures me that she'll have her day, and it seems like we'll be clued into her circumstances in next week's episode but nonetheless, this week? Beth WHO? Moving on.There are a few themes that the writers seem to be addressing fairly regularly throughout the series. One recurring theme discusses the concept of what makes a monster. Sure, the zombies are terrible, but they're just eating, and it sucks that they're compelled to eat live human. But if they were compelled to eat only....grass, or squirrels, or pomegranates or something, an entire cottage industry would develop around the care and maintenance of pet zombies and their peculiarities.You all know it's true.But the people...the people are the ones who do some truly terrible things, like institute cold, detached evil. Or, as we saw in the time jump at the end of this episode, be the group that's so evil/rapey/kill-y it turns decent people clinically evil. Or be the sort of people who would kidnap What'sHerFace. And how could we forget The Governor, and his trophy room full of zombie heads in fish tanks? (Though even he didn't descend into cannibalism, except for that one time he bit Merle's fingers off. I mean, the town he founded was essentially Mayberry, in comparison to Terminus. And I digress.) Even amongst our intrepid heroes, Rick has bitten someone's throat out AND, in this very episode, has promised a relentless pursuit unto the death for all Termians, almost as though he were...compelled...to hunt and kill. Everyone else in Rick Nation is like, Dude, they're scattered, they're either going to run or die, so relax, MMMkay? While Captain Rick quiets down, I don't think his lust for Termian killing has subsided one teensy bit.Turning the idea of monster-dom even further on its head, Carol draped herself in a poncho (looking a whole lot like Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars), smeared herself in zombie gore to mask her human scent, and infiltrated Terminus in a herd of zombies (walkers, whatever, get over it) to rescue the blood-gutter-bound inhabitants of Rick Nation, and we're with her all the way. Go, Zombie Carol! Take your undead horde and go get those bad guys!
What? So now we're siding with the zombies? They're not the bad guys any longer? Unexpected. But OK. I'm listening.Furthermore, the moral center of the group? Always dies. First, Dale "The world we know is gone. But keeping our humanity? That's a choice," died (though I still maintain he was killed largely because he was super-annoying). Hershel "Life is always a test" died. And now we have a new moral center, in Glenn, who almost--not once, but twice--took a baseball bat to the back of the head in this episode. Later, when Glenn realized there was at least one captive locked in a Termian railroad car, he said, "We have to let those people out...that's still who we are."Sigh.
It is official. Glenn is the new moral center. Let us get ready to kiss Glenn's ass goodbye. And if, in the time jump at the very end of the episode that showed us the beginnings of cannibal Terminus, the cruel leader we saw was the character Negan from the comic book (which I suspect), then Glenn is definitely toast. Comic readers, you know what I'm saying.
Now, for the other quandary from episode 1: WTF was Eugene talking about? Sasha finally pinned Eugene down (figuratively, of course) and said (paraphrasing, perhaps), "Hey, just level with us. What is it that you've got? Why are we going to defend your mulleted head?" He said:
Even if I provided step-by-step instructions complete with illustrations and a well-composed FAQ and I went red-rain, the cure would still die with me...I was part of a 10-person team with the Human Genome Project to fight weaponized diseases with weaponized diseases, pathogenic microorganisms with pathogenic microorganisms, fire with fire. Inter-departmental drinks were had, relationships made, information shared. I am keenly aware of all the details behind fail-safe delivery systems to kill every living person on this planet. I believe with a little tweaking on the terminals in DC we can flip the script, take out every last dead one of ‘em. Fire with fire.
Right. So. I can't figure out if he's full of shit or...what. On the one hand, he's got a fair share of "anti-government conspiracy whack job" sprinkled in his speech. He's using big words that sort of go together, but don't necessarily say anything. This speech sort of reminds me of the nonsense speech the clock gives in Beauty and the Beast, when he takes Belle on a tour of the Beast's castle.On the other hand...Eugene does say, "The cure would die with me." And he talks about fighting diseases with diseases.Is Eugene immune?I've been wracking my brain trying to understand the nature of Eugene's relationship with Abe and Rosita, and it hasn't made a lick of sense. He's a burden. He can't fight, he's actually a detriment if he's got a weapon in his hand. I can't believe that he would come across as that smart that he's got them bamboozled. Unless he's physically worth protecting. Unless they know this for sure. Unless, maybe, they've seen him recover from a bite that would have killed anyone else. And there's some kind of "we'll have to talk to them (meaning, Rick Nation) later" private conversation that Rosita and Abe were having, but who knows what that's about? Some folks think they don't like having the baby around, because really, Judith is kind of a detriment too, though at this point that baby isn't going ANYWHERE. Nothing they can do about her, really, except leave. I suspect their side chat had more to do with Abe and Rosita's agenda with Eugene than with anything else. They'd gotten everyone in Rick Nation back together. I think they just think it's time to head to DC.Despite the bloody zombie mayhem, we had some happy reunions. Rick and Carl got to reunite with Judith, Daryl ran to Carol. *sniffle*
Poor What'sHerFace has to wait until next week to hope for reunion. And in all this, one thing I noticed was the silence. There were no joyful squeals and hoorays at the sight of newly reacquainted loved ones; all the greetings of long-lost, feared-dead friends were given in relative quiet, with hugs and pats.Because you never know what is near enough to track you to your sound.That's how it goes in the zombie apocalypse.And then! Part of next weeks preview showed us that Morgan has returned and is tracking Rick Nation. Wild card! He's a killing machine with an anti-zombie agenda, almost as relentless as the zombies themselves. If he's in the game, then there's no telling what will happen with the Rickites.
So, to repeat: Glenn will die, this season. We'll meet Negan. Carol will continue to be badass. So will Morgan. Eugene is immune. Beth will have something interesting to do, or she will ask to leave the cast. And Rick will continue to hunt Termians, because revenge is where his heart is.See you next week!In the meantime, here's a little Bad Lip Reading and "Carl Poppa".[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCSj82GS6pk]