With the fallout from the action-packed “No Sanctuary” it was to be expected that the pace would slow down just a little bit in order for our group – who really just reunited a day ago, seeing as Season 5 picked up right where Season 4 left off – to make sure they were all on the same page and to take stock of their current circumstance. As such the opening scenes were full of small, condensed character interactions like Tara and Rick or Tyreese and Carol, showing the acceptance of each others actions and that the past was behind them. It cleaned a bit of the muck off the plot and reset things so that the group was very much in the now, and characters like The Governor were long forgotten.
The introduction of Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) was a nice showing of just how unfriendly and cynical Rick and his group have become. More and more, the focus has been on what kind of people this landscape creates, and Father Gabriel’s apparent sincerity catching everyone off guard is quite telling of how paranoid everyone – especially Rick – has become. When Gabriel’s church turns out to be legitimate – for the time being – our survivors take awhile to actually accept that they might just have a good night’s rest.
An episode of The Walking Dead cannot be entirely safe though, and so a quick venture to scout supplies at a local food mart is necessarily thrown in. While The Walking Dead have always been great at surprises, certain character deaths (or in this case, near deaths) aren’t hard to see coming. The minute Bob is given more lines than usual is the minute you realise something bad is going to happen to him, and the episode wastes no time being explicit on Bob’s likely fate. After a brutal, awesome scene featuring melted walkers (who look like Fluke Man from The X Files) Bob is pulled underwater by a drowned walker and struggles with it until Sasha comes to smashes it’s face in. The look of concern on Bob’s face makes things quite obvious – he was bitten, and as small as the bite may be, the walker has sealed his fate.
This is the first (sort-of) survivor death since the great, contemplative character studies of the latter half of Season 4, and so the effect from all that focused development is realised when Bob’s fate has much more of an impact than it would have if he died earlier in the season. “Alone” was one the best episodes of the series so far, and Bob was one of the major reasons for that. His plight and journey towards ‘taking the good with the bad’ kept the darkness of his friends nicely grounded, and while his positive outlook was played on in an overly explicit, expository way (an example being the game he was playing with Sasha earlier in the episode). As such, the end of the episode was upsetting as it was disturbing, but it was necessary with the series needing to push things a bit further and give the Terminates-turned-Hunters a reason to leave no question as to whether or not they are cannibals.
Gareth’s return – unlike the stronghold of Terminus – will probably be a consistent thread in Season 4 (and maybe even Season 5), and he seems much more malicious than anyone who the group has encountered yet. However, there still needs to be enough of a backstory to show how Gareth and his group have gone from genuine people – captive in their own sanctuary – to relentless cannibals. As it stands, and with the small look at his backstory we’ve gotten so far, there’s no real reason for his excessive cruelty.
Another interesting part of Gareth’s return is that Martin is seemingly still alive. Tyreese had an opportunity to kill him but must have let him go and lied to Carol about it. This – rather annoying – side of Tyreese’s character where that he is characterised as a gentle giant needs to be dealt with soon. His hugely capable (remember that horde of walkers he took down all by himself? or the walkers outside of the cabin in the previous episode?) self shouldn’t be restrained for any longer than it needs to be. It’s probable that his failure to kill Martin will come back and effect Sasha in some fatal way, thereby ‘awakening the giant’ permanently. Though it’d hurt to see Tyreese lose his sister, I say the sooner the better.
The episode also alluded heavily to the probability that Father Gabriel isn’t who he appears to be. It’s undeniable that he has more than a few secrets that he is less than forthcoming about – another frustrating character choice – so it will be interesting to see how it impacts the survivors.
The slightly celebratory scene where they are all in the church drinking and eating well was a nice way to break up the chaos these characters have been through, and it also gave Abraham his opening to try and convince the group to go to Washington. While it still seems implausible that everyone is so willing to believe Eugene knows what he is talking about simply because he seems like a scientist archetype (or a comic book guy), it’s good to introduce a sense of purpose into the group and bringing focus back to the overarching problem of the walkers and why they exist in the first place.
With Bob kidnapped by Gareth and his group – who are now “The Hunters” – and Carol/Daryl on the trail of the car that took Beth, next episode should be full of suspense as Rick and co. begin to realise that their numbers are suddenly dwindling. It’s unlikely Carol and Daryl will come back any time soon so having them separated from the group is a good movie – especially considering that The Walking Dead have now established it’s proficiency with smaller group arcs. Though I cling to a hope that maybe, somehow Bob will survive his capture and progressive decapitation, it’s likely that the series will be turning up their gross-out factor and have a few more survivors picked off for lunch. I’m thinking Sasha and maybe Rosita are on the menu.
Review Score: THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Hightlights:
1. Rick and his group suspicious of Father Gabriel
2. Even darker side to Gareth
3. Daryl and Carol separated from group
4. Abraham giving the group a sense of purpose
5. Carl investigating the church
Lowlights:
1. Tyreese underused and too soft
2. Father Gabriel frustratingly vague
3. Something bad happening to Bob too easy to see coming.
4. Not many are questioning Eugene
Episode MVP: Rick
Walker Kill of the Week: Sasha
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