AMC’s The Walking Dead returned from their traditional mid-season break with a strong episode, refreshing a season that was dangerously edging towards dull territory with an unappealing cop arc. With the slate relatively clean, The show’s writers are now free to re-build their characters and have them open up to each other more, revealing their thoughts and feelings which have been bottled up by the recent events. In the case of Glenn, Michonne, Rick, and Tyreese, we are reminded of how thoughtful they are and that they have all the same worries as we, as viewers, do. The main one being where is this all going and when will it end?
Rick is reconciling with the fact that he knew Dawn never meant to shoot Beth, but he wanted to kill her anyway. Glenn backs this line of thought; they are the survivors of the group which have been with us the longest and to watch them become so numbed to this dreary world to the point where they no longer care if someone ‘deserves’ to die or not is scary.
The above four and Noah scope out the gated community that Beth was going to take Noah to – Noah’s home – only to find that it had all but completely burned down. There were a few walkers scattered here and there but nothing which would suggest an overwhelming infestation. That didn’t stop the writers from upping up their big death game though, and so we sadly said goodbye to one of my personal favourites, Tyreese.
Chad L. Coleman has done some brilliant work with what he’s been given, but what he has been given hasn’t always been ideal. In the comics, Tyreese is a fan favourite but for some reason the show decided to overplay the softer side of Tyreese to the point where it made complete sense for him to be killed off. While all other survivors have been hardened by this walker-ful world, Tyreese’s stomach for violence has become weaker and weaker. The writers could have done wonders with his character and brought the ‘inner bad-ass’ out like we all wanted, but they kept stalling. In the end our hope that Tyreese would survive after Rick severed his bitten arm was as futile as the hope that Ty would come back from his forever pensive state.
A great moment was when Ty talked Noah back into action, unknowing that it’d ultimately lead to his death. Tyreese reflected on that breathless moment when he took on an entire herd of walkers by himself, revealing it was driven more by a death wish than some pent up anger. He cheated death back then, was this him paying that debt?
We knew that something bad was coming when Noah, in his deeply upset and hysterical state, ran off from Tyreese towards his childhood house to find his family had been eaten. Whenever someone under 21 runs away from someone over 21 in a post-apocalyptic world you can almost be certain that a death is near. This also marks the second big death that Noah has inadvertently been a part of so we’re expecting a lot of guilt to come from that.
Tyreese’s death was a reminder that anyone could slip up and stop paying attention at the wrong time, and that this show isn’t fixed on patterns when it comes to big exits. Aside from the big gap between episodes, Beth had only just had her brains outed in episode 8, and then the group loses one of it’s most capable assets in episode 9; if the group doesn’t ‘stop’ soon like Michonne suggested then these deaths are likely to continue until the group is well and truly thinned out.
Another big thing to come out of this episode was the unique direction that Greg Nicotero brought to the table, using his hypnotic strokes to paint a dreamscape that actually worked quite well while Tyreese was sitting there bleeding out in Noah’s home. We got a nice sequence with Tyreese battling himself via The Governor, Bob, Beth, Lizzy & Micha, and Martin. These all represented conflicting sides of Ty as well as unresolved issues which he needed to let go of and accept. It was a nice way to farewell a character which hadn’t always been handled very well (by the writers) and introduced another unique episode into the show’s history.
The use of various imagery from moments in Tyreese’ TV time was also clever, welded together with directive flair as we watched it all foreshadow Ty’s passing. The writers tricked us into thinking that was Beth the group was burying at the start, keeping that hope alive right until that distant shot with Rick and Glenn taking Tyreese’s dead body out of the car.
As it stands, the group are now on a course towards Washington despite Eugene’s lies, which means they will be on the road for quite some time before they reach there. We’re expecting at least one more big death to come creeping up on us as we enter the second half of Season 5, and as always, we’ll be watching The Walking Dead with a constant sense of dread, especially now that they have just thrown two big deaths at us in 2 episodes.
Review Score: FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Hightlights:
– Stylish direction
– clever use of imagery from previous Tyreese moments
– Superb acting from Chad L. Coleman
– Glenn and Rick opening up to each other
– Tyreese recalling his brush with a walker horde
Lowlights:
– Noah running off was frustrating
– Tyreese taken down by your everyday kid walker
– Tyreese dropping his guard the way he did felt a bit unbelievable
Episode MVP: Tyreese
Walker Kill of the Week: Rick
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The Walking Dead screens on FX in Australia.
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