As many fans expected, the reason for these episode titles lately is beginning to make a bit more sense. All these one-word titles seem to be in reference to a speech the ill-fated and loveable Dale gave in season 2; a moment in time when a confrontation between the relatively soft Rick and the relatively hard Shane was brewing. It’s important to reflect on Shane for a bit because then we start to see parallels between what Shane was and what Rick is becoming. Ever since Rick disposed of Shane, he has shown inflections of his fallen foe-friend’s do-or-die personality (which Andrew Lincoln has done a tremendous job in portraying); now Rick has become even more unhinged when faced with the relative softness of the Alexandrians, transforming into the Shane we all knew and loved (at least I loved him).
Rick’s sense of possession towards Jessie was all too familiar, with his view that Pete simply needed to go. Now circumstances were a bit different when Shane wanted to kill Rick over Lori; Pete isn’t well-meaning at all, but he’s still very weak. Rick knows exactly why he is so adamant on ‘fixing’ Jessie’s problem, and he seems to be welcoming a reason to murder Pete with open arms. And further to his inflections of Shane coming out, Rick had a break down at the conclusion of “Try”, after beating the hell out of Pete in front of the whole town. More on that in a moment.
Let’s talk a walk up to the lookout tower for a second, Sasha’s outpouring of her PTSD-driven rage threatens her own safety as she takes it upon herself to rid the world of walkers. She’s fed up; the walker world has taken Bob and Tyreese and she is overcoming her sense of powerlessness by excessively acting outwards against walkers. Her one-woman army act can’t go on forever though, so this is seemingly leading to something dark and something the group would do without. Michonne and Rosita attempt to help Sasha and try to bring her back to Alexandria, only to be forced into helping her take down a horde of walkers. Sasha is almost killed, but Michonne saves her; and there’s no gratitude at all. While this quick story line wasn’t bad in itself, it took Michonne out of the events at Alexandria so that when she was re-introduced – knocking Rick unconscious – it didn’t quite have the impact it could have had. We needed to spend some more time with Michonne and her need – simimlar to Glenn’s – to “make this work” in order to really feel the gravity of what she did. She knocked out a man who has saved her life time and time again in order to defuse a situation which would effectively put an end to their time in Alexandria, but her reasons for doing so are still a bit vague.
I really wanted Nicholas to suffer a terrible fate this episode, more so when he unsurprisingly went to Deanna and tried to blame the whole mess from “Stay” on Glenn and the others. Deanna continues to play things smart and obviously can see through Nicholas’ cowardly, punchable face, but it did feel cheap not having Glenn explain the situation to Deanna, rather explaining it all to Rick – who is obviously out of favour with Alexandria now.
Glenn confronting Nicholas ended unexpectedly, but stuck true to what we know of Glenn. He is a genuine and thoughtful guy who can show a tremendous amount of restraint when bad things happen to his friends. He is also very realistic, and him coldly telling Nicholas that he is basically just a pathetic moron who has no business in the real world was, I guess, better than a punch in the face. I still hope Nicholas meets a terrible fate though; kind of like that woman Aaron and Daryl found.
“Try” did feel like a bit of a breather between the events of “Stay” and the extended finale next week, but we did get an undeniable and explicit warning that those walkers with “W” painted on their foreheads are telling of a coming tension. I – and pretty much every other fan – assume that this is to do with the decapitated walker body that Aaron and Daryl found at an abandoned campsite, indicating that someone is out in the woods nearby Alexandria; someone who is probably far more sadistic and depraved than the short-lived Terminus villains.
Back to Rick. It was interesting that the cynical, do-or-die attitude of Shane fully came out of Rick when he was put in the context of Alexandria. And it makes sense. Since Shane’s death, Rick has only really been around strong, realistic survivors and that has in turn strengthened him. Juxtaposing him against the weak and naive folk of Alexandria was pushing Rick to become the man he probably never wanted to become; teasing out that brutality we saw at conclusion of Season 4 when he brutalised Carl’s would-be rapist and when him and some of the other group murdered the hell out of the Terminus jerks. Now that he has shown these colours to Alexandria there isn’t any going back; there’s no subtle undermining going on like in Carol’s case; and it puts Rick’s plan to take Alexandria in jeopardy.
On a side note, Rick killing Shane and then taking on much of his personality kind of reminds of the Kareem Saïd and Abebisi arc in Oz.
Next week is going to be very, very interesting.
Review Score: THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Hightlights:
– Violent Rick and Pete fight
– Jessie afraid of Rick
– Sasha on a warpath
– Glenn confronts Nicholas
– NINE INCH NAILS
Lowlights:
– Nicholas’ punchable face
– Not enough time with Michonne to make that final scene have much impact
Episode MVP: Rick
Walker Kill of the Week: Rosita (breaking that walkers leg and then stabbing it in the head)
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