by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels.

5×16: “Conquer”

Conventional wisdom would suggest that, as a genre show, there’s a ceiling in terms of how good a show like The Walking Dead could ever be. Even though The Walking Dead explores elements of the human condition like most all art and fiction, a show with zombies in its central premise is, rightly or not, almost always going to be pigeon holed. It could be considered a great horror show or a great action show, it can be recognized for its makeup or effects, but the fact is that, regardless of its quality, most would never include it in the same conversation as its upper-class AMC brethren like Breaking Bad or Mad Men. I’m not going to put The Walking Dead in that same class either, but I will say, unlike those shows, that I didn’t give up on it in the middle, and after this season’s conclusion, I’m glad I didn’t. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels.

5×15: “Try”

So things look bad right now for Rick and co.  Sasha’s got some kind of survivor’s guilt going on.  No matter who Deanna believes, Glenn or Nicholas, her son’s still dead and she’s not okay with to that.  And Rick, well Rick really could’ve handled his whole side of things a lot more diplomatically.

The big news this week is that everything’s falling apart. After four episodes of building Alexandria up as the safe zone our heroes need, yet another of our group has died, and Rick’s carnal desires may cost them everything. We finally get the confrontation we’ve been waiting all of two to three episodes for (even though it feels like forever) and Rick takes it to Pete in a way that’s actually pretty disappointing. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels.

5×14: “Spend”

Just when you think everyone’s safe… they go and kill the guy nobody really cares too much about! A lot of things happened in “Spend” and there’s a lot to unpack, so I’ll try not to go off on too many irrelevant tangents. Like I normally do.

“Spend” opens with a measure of hope and a look towards the future with Noah speaking to Reg, Deanna’s husband, about learning architecture (okay, so it literally opens with a small character moment for Father Gabriel, but I hate that guy and will address him later). So far most of the learned skills in our group have centred much more around hunter-gatherer tasks, so it’s refreshing to see one of our heroes learning something that’s still important, but not quite as directly practical as insert knife here. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels.

5×13: “Forget”

The Walking Dead is a show that’s had character and pacing problems ever since the showrunners decided to keep Shane around for so long past his due date, and that’s a trend that reached its crescendo last season when the Governor’s extended story was allowed to truncate the seasonal arc. While that may be an example of weak storytelling (no matter how valuable it may have been to learn more about the Governor), it’s also an example of how difficult it can be to write for a seasonal structure where a midseason break calls for two different climaxes. Even though the narrative through line should be strong enough to carry the entire season, it’s still tough to match up two different climaxes when they’re separated by eight episodes of material. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels.

5×12: “Remember”

Subtlety? Discretion? Strategy? Characters acting sensibly? What’s happened to The Walking Dead?

While not a lot happened in this week’s episode, there was a lot going on on more personal levels as our heroes decompressed and relaxed just a little a bit into the seemingly very real possibility of normalcy. Particularly towards the earlier parts, the episode really felt like a great, big, comforting bear hug from your therapist, like the moment when the hardened, emotionally distant protagonist who’s clearly been through a lot finally feels comfortable crying in front of people. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels.

5×11: “The Distance”

For a long time now, The Walking Dead has had a huge problem with developing a certain type of character — voices of dissent. From Dale to Andrea to Tyreese, anyone who might have had a valid opposing point and who was clearly operating as the group’s conscience in the face of unrelenting death and violence invariably ended up becoming incredibly annoying even as our heroes slowly became the monsters others should fear. It’s a change perhaps best highlighted early this season with the group’s massacre of the remaining Terminites, but one that’s been been glimpsed as early as season two’s “Nebraska” when Rick shot Dave and Tony in that bar. Right or wrong, our surviving group members have moved further and further away from the virtuous beings they would rather be and have, by now, gone pretty far down the path of straight-up murder as first resort, mostly because the Dale’s and Andrea’s and Tyreese’s tend to die out, and with them their morality. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels.

5×10: “Them”

The very first point I ever made in assessing The Walking Dead on a weekly basis (and by extension heavily serialized fiction in general) concerned whether or not you can skip an episode and not miss anything. Especially with a show where the season’s aren’t stretched to fill out more than twenty weeks of television, it’s important (and should be a given) that every episode is vital in achieving the season’s goals. The first half of season five, which has been widely praised as a fairly drastic improvement over previous seasons, is a strong example of this as each episode had an important role in moving the needle forward in our hero’s quest for post-zombie apocalypse existence, and I’ll admit that even episodes that I didn’t like at least informed us on what’s going on or what we’re supposed to be feeling.

I’m going to say upfront that you may as well have skipped “Them”. Continue reading →

by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels.

5×09: “What Happened and What’s Going On”

Under normal circumstances during a zombie apocalypse, you’d be pretty happy if not thrilled to run across a guy like Tyreese in the midst of your struggles. He’s big, he’s strong, doesn’t seem particularly opinionated; he’ll be good in a fight, he’ll be useful. If there’s one thing your group probably doesn’t need through said apocalypse though, it’s another moral centre, whether it’s the quiet religious guy who slowly goes crazy or the seemingly strong character who basically acts like a freshly neutered Rottweiler until his untimely demise. For a little while, this show actually had both.

So welcome back to our Walking Dead season five coverage, and doesn’t it feel like a lifetime ago that we last met here? Continue reading →