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The Walking Dead: Indifference

Lizzie: “We all change. We all don’t get to stay the same way we started.”

Is it a good thing when you really don’t know what to think about an episode?

Does this mean that the writers have given you a “real-life” ambiguity or have they just pushed the real life thing too far? I really can’t decide how I feel about the ending of this episode. We’ve been wondering for a while if Carol has gone over the edge. Is she just a realist in a horrible world or is she teetering into the abyss that Rick was circling last season? Is she a cold-blooded killer or just too kick-ass a woman for Rick to handle? Did she challenge him and his reluctance to act one too many times? I’m just not sure.

Maybe Rick does have his head in the sand and Carol is right. You just send the feeble newbies out to prove themselves and if they get eaten you just move on and mourn your watch. This episode is another reflection of the theme of this series. How do you stay human in the worst possible conditions? How do you know when you have lost your humanity? What kind of world is worth saving? Lizzie puts it bluntly when she says everyone changes and the walkers are just another version of us. Is this a reality you accept? Do we just allow ourselves to become hard, practical and brutal when it comes to protecting our own? Isn’t that who the Governor became? Do we have a choice? Many questions with no answers.

The group at the veterinary college have a similar discussion. Do you just give up and drink anti-freeze or do you keep on fighting to survive even if you are the last one standing? Both Bob and Tyreese consider death as an option preferable to “watching the dominoes fall.” Bob is willing to risk his life to find even a little peace. He almost pulled a gun on Daryl to keep that bit of peace. Daryl, the person who has probably been closest to death before the apocalypse has nothing but contempt for those who give up. How would Daryl respond to the news that Carol was the murderer? How will he respond to her disappearance?

Lizzie continues to be a creepy and perturbing child. She has a child’s view of the walkers and although there is some truth to her view I am worried that she will use her knife to kill or as she might see it – help people change. She tells Carol that she is strong but I tend to agree with her little sister. Lizzie is just messed up. I’m not sure who is going to get hurt when she finds out that Carol is gone.

People are continuing to fall apart. I just can’t decide if the person who disintegrated the most this episode was Rick or Carol. I’m wondering what the impact on the community will be with the loss of Carol (anyone else notice how strong women, particularly single women, just seem to disappear on this show?) and if we will meet her again.

Bits and Pieces

I am now heavily leaning toward Daryl and Michonne as a couple.

I really hope that they walked off with tools, batteries, oil and other stuff from that garage. It looked like a gold mine.

Those were pretty inept and lucky newbies. How did they last this long?

Bob was pretty clear that the walkers who had the flu might make them sick. Would the flu virus keep living in an essentially dead person? And the flu isn’t spread by blood anyway.

Quotes

Michonne: “It’s a good colour. It brings out your eyes.” (With a smile!)

Sam: “I thought everyone was an asshole before this all went down. Now I love people.”

Michonne: “Anger makes you stupid. Stupid gets you killed.”

Daryl: “Those douchebags in the vines, took themselves out-holding hands-kumbaya style.”
Bob: “Everybody makes it until they don’t. People nowadays’ dominoes. What they did, maybe it’s about not having to watch them fall.”

Carol: “You can be a farmer Rick, you can’t just be a farmer.”

Carol: “Somebody else’s slideshow.”

6 comments:

  1. I was so angry with Rick when he made Carol leave. I don't believe she's gone off the rails, I think she has just grown numb - the same Rick did at the end of last season. Yet, he was allowed to therapize (is that a word?) his numbness with farming, and when the same happens to Carol, he forces her to leave? Not cool.
    Also, she is a smart, tough and kickass woman. Not very wise to send her away when they need every capable (not to mention healthy) hand to defend the community! And on top of that she's one of my favorite characters.
    Other than that, I the episode was great as usual. Loved the bits with Daryl and Michonne. The couple in the house Rick and Carol found were so sweet I wished they would survive and come to the prison, but at the same time I knew TWD just doesn't do things that way. Oh well. At least we saw Michonne smiling. Did it happen before od was it her first?

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  2. Great thoughts, Doc. All the questions you raise --- so many! --- are the things I've been pondering since watching the episode.

    Rick banishing Carol was a really interesting story decision. I completely understand why he made the decision, but it really felt like the wrong call (much like what Carol did). It's not even that I think banishment is necessarily the wrong consequence for her actions --- I could certainly see the group having trouble trusting her again --- it's just that I don't think the judgment was really Rick's to make. He should have taken her back, told the others, and let the group decide (even risking Tyreese's wrath). Does he not see the irony or hypocrisy in unilaterally deciding to exile her (which could be tantamount to killing her in this world) for her unilateral decision to kill two of their own? How is making this choice on his own that much different than what she did?

    But even though I don't agree with Rick's choice, I think it was a good story move, because it will likely bite the entire group in the ass. There's bound to be a lot of tension when he tells the others what happened (I'm just assuming he's going to be straight with them --- I guess we'll see). And, hopefully, Carol will be back. Probably with a vengeance. She's a lot harder than she used to be, and she is not just going to leave those girls. I kind of love that the writers gave us several believable choices, possibly justified in some respects, but still poor on the whole, that are going to keep spooling out lots of unintended consequences. I can't wait to see how it plays out!

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  3. Tough call Rick. I can see his reasoning behind it. But I'm sure this will have far-reaching consequences, like Carol teaming up with the Governor or something. And it seems highly likely that Lizzie will go all Children of the Corn on everyone once she learns Carol is gone. She totally called Carol mom so that can't be good.

    Really though, the way Tyreese is acting I'd keep Carol and replace Tyreese. Dude is losin' it big time. I'm sure when Michonne asked Tyreese "Why didn't you just let go?" that had some double meaning. And Rick's hand is taking longer to heal than is normal in TVland so I'm sure that has some significance as well. Honestly, every time Rick hurts his hand I keep thinking they're gonna chop it off.

    Tyreese is a fan favorite from the comics but so far I'm finding him very insufferable. I notice I kinda shut down my brain every time he talks.

    Michonne and Daryl eh? They'd probably create the deadliest baby ever.

    The scene at the college reminded me of The Last of Us.

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  4. Re: the hurt hand. Herschel did tell him it would take about a week to heal. And when the episode started it had only been about a day and a half since he hurt it. The stab wound from Morgan in 'Clear' pretty much bothered him the whole rest of the season (about 1 week elapsed time). It even took Daryl (!) a couple days to recover from getting pierced by his own arrow and then shot by Andrea back in S2. So I think the hand still being an issue after slightly more than a day meets "TV normal" for this show. :)

    Freeman, I love your comment about the potential offspring from a Daryl-Michonne pairing. I'm not on any particular 'shipping train for the unattached characters yet, but I do rather love the prospect of those two creating some kind of ZA super-soldier!

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  5. I was thinking that with the hand but then I was thrown by Tyreese's eye which seems to have healed rather quickly even though it was pounded into pudding by the very same hand.

    It's probably best not to question it. I decided to finish Under the Dome in spite of myself and two characters had cuts and bruises on their faces throughout the whole season which took place over the course of about 8 days. Yet another character was shot, and he was up and about with no lingering issues after a night. Granted. Under the Dome is just terrible.

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  6. I was on ESPN about 10 days ago, and I saw a small window with an advertisement for Season 6 of The Walking Dead, and I clicked on it....but it was a very small video window, and I quickly closed it.

    I hadn't watched any of the series before, but I became intrigued from the small blurb I saw on ESPN. So..... in my typical binge watching fashion, I'm up to Episode 4 in Season 4 in about 7 days. I had to, since I was watching youtube and pissing myself off about spoiling the whole series that way.

    All that said, my first comment on this show here. Rick banishing Carol to me is hypocrisy, after all he's done in the best interests of the group, which often has resulted in death, even to innocents. This isn't the real world anymore, it's a nightmare, and Carol is no more a danger than anyone else.

    Did Rick even think for a second of banishing Carl for the cold blooded murder of that frightened, surrendering boy a few episodes back? Don't get me wrong, what Carol did was likely wrong, but she was trying to protect, which are Carl's exact words about his murder of the young boy.

    Different rules for family? Not right.

    Otherwise, I enjoy the show, and many of the characters.

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