To The Well Once Too Often [The Walking Dead Dissection]

In a story about a band of survivors in constant peril the sin of safety is major one. Thankfully, this episode did a little bit to shake things up in this frustratingly slow season but some major issues still remain.

Well… one issue. Which is driving me insane.

Seriously crazy.

Glen causes a clean up on aisle four, Daryl picks a lovely metaphor for a lady in need and splish splash someone is taken a bath AFTER THE JUMP…

Brutality

Okay, let’s get to the good stuff first. The Walking Dead is at it’s best when it can hit a few power pitches. Solid character development feeding into high suspense moments is one. We are treated to a few of those between the gang’s well excursion and Daryl’s solo run through an abandoned house.

Hard to think of anything else on television that so regularly (and believably) puts their characters in that kind of danger without completely wearing down the treads on those tires.

We also get a particularly brutal creature design in the form of a water logged zombie. Bulbous, bleached stretched skin rounding out a physique reminiscent of a nightmare fuel Michelin Man. This well dweller was a movie-level grotesque who meets a five-star gory end after being ripped in half and showering the water supply our survivors are trying to protect with undead entrails.

Yummy.

Dilution

Considering the glacial plot pacing this season, one has to start wondering why we’ve moved so slow.

Consider this:

Last year at this time we had already… gotten Rick from his normal life into a hospital bed in a coma, awoken and back to his family. Shane went from inside Lori to inside a shame spiral. Rick battled a Merle mutiny in Atlanta that eventually led to the good ol’ boy sawing his own arm off. At the end of episode four a zombie attack wipes out half of our survivors including the sister of a main character.

This year… we lost Sophia and haven’t found her. Carl got shot and Shane had to reveal an ugly side of himself to get supplies that saved his life. The survivors found a safe farm that for the time being looks like a nice place to settle down. Glen got some stank on his hang low.

Which is more interesting?

It just seems like this is a diluted story. Last season’s six episode pace was dropped into a pitcher like concentrated orange juice and a stream of pointless, time-wasting, boring conversations have diluted it into the thin suspension we consume today. Watered down.

ARE WE SERIOUSLY STILL LOOKING FOR THE GIRL?!

The search for little Sophia has quickly decomposed into The Walking Dead’s Nikki and Paulo. Just like the infamous Lost couple, it’s not that a pair of castaways with dangerous pasts were an inherently bad idea. In fact, the series succeeded wildly on that breed of character.

The Walking Dead will similarly thrive on forrest based missions that stress the fragile fabric of the group and play on vulnerable emotions like the hunt for Sophia has.

The problem for both lies not in the concept but in the execution. Or rather lack there of. N&P become human stop signs for plot momentum in the extremely dodgy first half of Lost’s third season. Quite simply, they didn’t serve a purpose, they had no skin in the game and nothing to do.

The hunt for Sophia has been a dead end so many times I cringe whenever it’s mentioned. I’m even getting sick of the few elements I used to enjoy (read: Daryl’s homespun wisdom). Thankfully, it looks like we are finally ready to ring some movement out of this fetid corpse of a plot device.

ARE WE SERIOUSLY JUST NOW GETTING TO THE PLOT IMPLICATIONS OF LOOKING FOR THE GIRL?!

In the “next week on” we begin to see some tension between Shane and Rick about abandoning the search. If they are not going to end this the least they can do is have it shift the dynamics amongst our main characters.

Glen Gets It On

The “you know… in the comic book” argument is one that I have grown to hate in discussing this series but allow me to dust off my annoying geek hat for this very, very minor quibble. Although I don’t mind how Glen and Maggie screwin’ in the abandoned pharmacy went down I do think it missed a very interesting element of the book. Specifically, the identification of sex as a frantic, natural release of emotion. The idea being, in such troubled times “any port in a storm” becomes the law of the land.

Maggie came off more as “bad girl who doesn’t care what daddy thinks” and less “animal in need of release”. Again, not bad but I do believe you’re leaving money on the table by not exploring further the newly emergent dynamics of sexual coupling.

Where Are We Now?

The same place we were last week. Sophia still lost. Carl is slowly getting better. Lori discovers she’s preggers.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Chupacabra

You know I’m gonna love the name of the ep and the promise of my favorite character from season one returning has me circling this as a make or break episode. Seriously, if they squander Merle this column might turn ugly next Monday.