*Spoilers Ahead*
Ever since Rick and his group made it to Alexandria The Walking Dead has slowly been building up the tension between the townspeople and our main cast and tonight it all starts to come to a boil.
Things have been complicated by the death of Deanna’s son last week and it isn’t helped by Nicholas lying to Deanna about the situation. Thankfully, she doesn’t take him at face value and promises to look into the situation. Regardless, things aren’t looking great for Rick’s group currently. Something that the current situation with Pete doesn’t help.
Rick has discovered, through Carol, that Pete is abusing his wife, Jessie, and possibly their kids. When he brings this issue to Deanna she admits to already knowing about it and that they need his expertise in surgery. She states that exile is the option she would consider if things got out of hand but Rick wants to kill him and end it. Watching this scene it became apparent what the real disconnect between Rick and Deanna is. One wants nothing more than to bring back civilization to how it was prior to the outbreak and the other believes it isn’t something that can be done anymore, too much has changed. In a way, Rick makes sense, even if it becomes increasingly clear throughout this episode that he has become unhinged from reality.
Elsewhere, Michonne and Rosita, who is finally given something to do, even if she doesn’t really need to be there, notice that Sasha has left her post at the clock tower and they follow a trail of dead zombies to her. Sasha has had a rough go of things and, next to Rick, she has had the hardest time adjusting to life in Alexandria. The trio of ladies get to kick some zombie ass together but Sasha didn’t want the help. She blames herself for Noah’s death, adding it to the list of people she has lost. In a way, I enjoy that Sasha is being given stuff to do and I like the idea of this story but I just don’t know how this could end in any way that turns out well for her.
Carl also gets to spend some time with the girl he caught sneaking out of the town a few episodes ago. It’s not particularly interesting but it’s nice to see Carl mature, after all, hormones stay the same even in the zombie apocalypse. Glenn also gets to call out Nicholas on his behavior and I’m glad that Glenn has stepped up and proven that not everyone in Rick’s group is horrible.
Speaking of Rick, he talks with Jessie about the situation and she says she can handle it. Rick isn’t convinced and he tells her that her son asked for a gun to protect them from Pete. She breaks down and asks Rick if he would do this for anybody or if he is doing this because of his feelings for her. He confirms the latter but Pete shows up.
What happens next is a partially ridiculous partially brutal fight scene between the two. The fight is intense and many people try to intervene but Rick finally takes Pete down, in front of a crowd of horrified onlookers, including his own group. My main problem with this skirmish isn’t the way it happens so much as some of the direction choices. There’s a shot of a window that the two, predictably, go crashing through and during the fight we cut to a shot of a red balloon flying into the air which, I can only assume, came out of the same “Metaphors 101” class that the huge storm from earlier this season came from. Regardless, the show redeems this with the ending.
Deanna orders Rick to stand down but instead he pulls out a gun and waves it around at the crowd and gives a speech calling them all weak and out of touch with what the world has become. I don’t do a lot of praising for the acting in this show, mainly because the show rarely gets those “big acting moments” right. Andrew Lincoln, however, manages to do a great job with Rick’s speech here. He manages to have Rick speak mostly truth while coming across as legitimately out of it, it might be my favorite moment of his on this show. In the end, Michonne puts a stop to Rick’s actions by knocking him out.
The show has been building to this moment of Rick Grime’s breakdown for most of this season and when it finally comes it manages to deliver. In a way, it makes sense that Michonne would do this, she needs to distance Rick from the group so that he doesn’t get them all kicked out.
We’re heading into the season finale next week and with relations between the Alexandrians and Rick’s group at an all-time low I get the feeling that bad things are on the horizon.
Bits ‘n Pieces
- Daryl and Aaron encounter more zombies with W’s carved on their heads this week. I imagine that will come into play next week.
- Another thing that will come into play next week, turns out Nicholas was the one who took the gun Rick hid before entering Alexandria.
- Tara is said to be in stable condition, thank god.
- Is there a reason Deanna decided not to ask Eugene about what happened?
- Zombie of the Week: The poor zombie lady who was tied, alive, to a tree and eaten by walkers. She also had a “W” on her head, because otherwise it wouldn’t be as creepy. Okay, it would still be pretty creepy.
- “It’s their world. We’re just living in it.”
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