The Walking Dead
Season 5, Episode 6
“Consumed”
Rating: A+ (AGAIN)
This week on The Walking Dead, the further adventures of Carol and Daryl! While these little solo outings with each section of our separated group make for some really great television week-to-week, the pattern is beginning to wear a bit thin. It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have three different cliffhangers that we still haven’t had answered, but as it stands we have no idea who followed Daryl out of the woods, what happened to Carol, or if Eugene survived Abraham’s assault. Though it seems like two of them are going to be solved by the episode’s end.
We catch up with Daryl and Carol (well this doesn’t feel like I’m writing in Seussian verse, not at all!) as they take off in hot pursuit of the car that took Beth. The car we know ended up at the hospital in Atlanta and put Beth in the long arms of the law.
Despite my mild annoyance with the group’s separation, it is so good to see Daryl and Carol back together again. There’s a depth to their relationship that doesn’t really exist between any of the other characters, and their connection beginning in season 3 was one of the things missed the most when Carol left the prison. They easily slip back into the rhythm that they had established back then. Whether it be their quiet conversations as they try to sleep or the ease with which they work together to hunt walkers, they are one of the strongest companion teams among our group of survivors.
There’s a lot of talk in this episode, without ever actually talking, about what Carol did, why she left the prison. It’s not even that, though, it’s several talks about the kind of people they are now. Carol makes it a point to say she’s not the same person she was anymore, that she doesn’t even know if she still believes in God, or in Heaven. “But,” she says, “If I’m going to hell, I’m going to make damn sure to put it off as long as possible.” The lengths that Carol is willing to go to in order to protect the people she has come to care about were the most extreme we’ve seen. She turned to straight-up murder, not killing in self defense, but killing two people who were ill because they might infect others with their illness. Carol has no qualms about that, and doesn’t feel like anyone else should either. Even when she apologized to Tyreese, it was clear that the only remorse she felt was over the pain she caused him, not the actions she had taken.
It’s Daryl who sees something better in the world. When Noah turns up and steals their weapons, she raises her spare to shoot him and Daryl knocks her aim off. “He’s just a kid!” he says, admonishing her for even trying to wound him. Carol sees this as a very black and white situation; he may be a kid, but he’s a kid who stole their weapons, he’s a kid that’s now put them in danger, that’s put Beth in danger. If they’d talked a little louder, maybe Noah would have stopped and turned around, let them know where Beth was, but he was a little busy running for his life at that point.
Once again, The Walking Dead takes the time in between scenes of gratuitous violence and gore to do some hard-hitting character work. The questions may not change all that often, but the way the answers come are always different. Carol has turned into such a hardened survivor compared to her beginnings as a victim of an abusive husband and a mother to a zombie daughter. On the flip side of the coin, Daryl had his beginnings firmly placed in the hardened survivor category, but as time has gone and he’s grown close to the people around him, his loner attitude has changed.
In the end, my earlier hope and prediction of it being Noah who was following Daryl in the woods was proven right, which was met by rauceous, sleeping-dog-rousing cheering by me when I realized it. Carol got his by one of the hospital cars and taken, and Noah tells Daryl that they can get both of them, Beth and Carol back, but that it is going to take a lot. “They’ve got guns… People…” Noah says. “Yea? So do we.” Daryl replies. Only two episodes left in 2014 in what has become Walking Dead’s strongest, most visceral season yet. I can’t wait until next week.
Stuff And Things
– I seriously can’t tell you how good it is to see the dynamic back between Daryl and Carol. I know there was a lot of debate over Daryl’s sexuality over the break, and it’s inconsequential honestly because he loves Carol regardless.
– The lighting transition from night to day was very cool
– Walker camping doesn’t sound like a good time
– I want Daryl to visit an art museum and give us his personal take on everything there.
– I may have audibly freaked out when Noah showed up again. I really like that kid, even if he is robbing two of our people and being terrible.
– Some big insight into Daryl’s evolution as a character tonight when a book called “Treating Survivor’s Of Child Abuse” falls out of his bag.
– The van teetering on the edge was the most nail biting sequence Walking Dead has had in quite a while.
– ZOMBIE KILL OF THE WEEK: Machete through the face, courtesy of Daryl
– I really like Noah. I don’t know why I like him so much, maybe it’s because it’s so strange to meet a decent person this far into to Apocalypse-land, but I’m so happy that he met up with Daryl and Carol and seems like he’s going to become part of the group. Please don’t break my heart, Robert Kirkman
