10x04 Silence the Whisperers

[7.4/10] Man, there’s a lot to unpack here. But the upshot is this. This show still defaults to extended, overblown conversations between two characters, and it is just not good at them. But what it is (at least sometimes) good at is coming up with thorny moral conundrums and setting faux-meaningful montages to stirring indie pop songs, and I am here for it.

So let’s go with my favorite part of the episode -- the whole situation with Negan trying to save Lydia from a beating and accidentally killing one of the Highwaymen in the process. There’s so many great wrinkles to a pretty simple incident.

You have Lydia in between her two surrogate dads, trying to figure out how to get by in a very tricky situation. The fact that she wants to blend in, but is still treated like an outsider makes her gravitate toward Negan, who knows a thing or two about that. He tells her not to take the bullying lying down. It’s an effort to help her, but it’s almost the spark that lights up this whole conflagration. And on the other hand, you have Daryl, who’s the good dad, who wants her to striaghten up and fly right and do things the right way, while being a little naive to the realities of her situation. The devil and angel situation between them is a really interesting one, and as much as I’m come-see-come-saw about Lydia, I like this exploration of the position she’s in (even if her bullies are a bit over the top.)

But I also like the dynamic between Daryl and Negan. There’s a subtle suggestion that Daryl sees a bit of himself in Negan, wondering if the old dog has reformed and if, in that way, it means there’s something on the other side of this for Daryl himself. The scene between the two of them is tense, in the best way, and it’s one of the few one-on-one conversations that works.

It works because, as in the last episode, it calls on our heroes to balance the practical and the pragmatic. Negan was already on thin ice, and tempers have flared given the renewed threat of the Whisperers, so the community is hungry for blood and ready to take out their frustrations on an old enemy. Daryl has to balance his own appetite for justice for someone he’d probably rather see dead, with the need for law and order in the community, with the reality of an angry mob that might exact its justice one way or another, and an overarching need to protect Lydia herself.

That’s the small complication I love in this one -- Michonne’s idea that it might be Lydia’s existence within their group that’s kept the Whisperers from destroying them, making it all the more important that they protect her. It complicates the motivations and realities for everyone involved. That’s particularly potent in a situation like this one, where folks already want Negan’s head, but it’d be punishing him for his former deeds, not for the act of valor he did here in trying to save Lydia from being hurt or worse due to the actions of her mother and not herself. There’s so many worthwhile tangles to that, and I love it.

What I don’t love is making Ezekiel suicidal, giving him a long, overwritten conversation (not to mention kiss) with Michonne, and the doldrums this episode falls into in the mean time. I like the choice to explore how Ezekiel would react to losing his kingdom and losing Carol, and I like even better him commiserating with Michonne over having lost a lot and feeling the weight fall only on your own shoulders. But the kiss thing comes out of nowhere, and the dramatization of Ezekiel’s feelings are incredibly rushed, and it all falls apart and gets fixed likety split.

I have mixed feelings about Michonne’s bits in the episode apart from Ezekiel. Her conversation with Judith is a little too artificial-sounding (though Danai Gurira makes it work) and a little too neat with “L’il Asskicker” figuring out the Whisperers’ plan. But I do like the idea of Michonne being heartened despite her occasional sense of lostness by the next generation, and the joy of living and fighting with her daughter by her side.

The show tries to channel that idea, expressed by Ezekiel and Michonne, about being so lost that you’re almost ready to give up, for Magna, to pretty middling results. I’ll admit, I just don’t care about Magna, and the show hasn’t given me much of a reason to. She continues to feel like the Poochie of the newbies, but maybe they’re cooking something up interesting here with her and her partner. (I’ll admit, I did find it interesting that they had a lawyer-client relationship.)

And the fallen tree at the Hilltop is a good plot obstacle for people to have to hop over. The way it motivates Ezekiel’s mental paralysis and the newbie quintet to have to go fight walkers is solid construction, even if the show doesn't do much with either.

Overall, this episode’s a mixed bag, one that has a lot of good material involving Negan, Lydia, and Daryl in particular, untying the knot of how a new society and the threat of war and the integration of outsiders gets all jumbled together. That’s outstanding stuff which buoys the proceedings, even if it’s dragged down by out-of-nowhere stuff for Michonne and Ezekiel (two characters who haven’t interacted much), and some over the top stuff elsewhere.