8x04 Some Guy

[8.6/10] Impostor syndrome. Fake it till you make it. False confidence. There are a thousand phrases and a thousand permutations that if we just project enough strength, if we just put a mask on over our doubts and insecurities, we can become, or at least embody, the things that we want to be. Inspiration can come from within, and flow out to those we’re trying to lead or impress or simply comfort.

But what if you have imposter syndrome because you are, in fact, an imposter? What if you fake it with all your might, but the odds are too stacked against you for you to “make it? What if your false confidence just gets your friends and allies killed.

That’s the reality Ezekiel grapples with in “Some Guy.” His brand, his ethos, since we met him last season, is founded on the idea that with the right inspiration, the right idea, the right star to steer it all by, you can go anywhere. As he confides to Carol in a flashback, he made a choice at a particularly fraught moment in his life, about what kind of person he wanted to be. And since then, he’s used that choice to spur on others, to build something greater than himself, and hopefully lead his people into a better life.

But what do you do when that dream falls apart? The opening seven minutes or so of “Some Guy” is some of the best, most brutal work that The Walking Dead has ever done. We see Ezekiel making that choice once more, in miniature. We see the tired, plain-clothed man getting into character, going from a regular man into a King, using that weekend matinee experience to craft this inspirational figure.

And he rallies his troops. He promises them victory. He fills their hearts and minds with hope and confidence, with the idea that this act will help bring them about. It leads to a performance, a Shakespearean halftime speech that puts Rick’s earlier attempt at the same thing to shame. And it leads to the denizens of The Kingdom rallying around their king.

Then, just as quickly, the episode match cuts to a pile of corpses on the ground.

It’s a brutal, brutal cut. The image of Ezekiel emerging from that pile of dead bodies, gazing at the fallen comrades he walked into this fate, and then looking on as they slowly but surely rise from their decimated states and begin to walk and stalk as is the grim fashion of the age, bores into you. This is what has become of Ezekiel’s well-meaning bravado, of his pie-in-the-sky promises meant to ensure the opposite result. And the grisly scene understandably shakes him, and devastates him.

That’s the thematic pull of the episode. Where do you go, who do you become, when the fantasy you’ve created is punctured and spills blood on your hands. And it’s a compelling one. But “Some Guy” also works on a nuts and bolts storytelling level. In contrast to the first three episodes of the season, it zeroes in on two plots: Ezekiel escaping that lurching horde full of his own men outside the compound, and Carol escaping the lingering Saviors within it, until those stories collide. It creates a throughline for the episode that helps support the headier themes at play.

In the process, The Walking Dead gives us some damn good set pieces, with some well-crafted action movie moments. Ezekiel’s broken leg creates a notable obstacle to the challenges from Savior and Walker alike. The moments where he seems likely to be done in by a captor, only to be saved at the last minute by Jerry, where Carol gets into firefights with the latest crop of Negan goons, where Shiva springs into action to save them, have the right blend of thrilling action and thematic resonance.

Amid these slowly dovetailing stories, “Some Guy” even drops in a pretty badass car chase with Rick and Daryl vs. the Saviors from that same compound. The attempt to prevent those Saviors from getting their weaponry to The Sanctuary creates a clear goal, and between near misses with Daryl, shootouts with Rick, and car-hopping, truck-crashing mayhem, the episode crafts a setpiece that keeps your heart pumping even if it feels a bit tangential to the broader material of the episode.

But what’s so great about the other set pieces is how well the fit into the essential question that the episode is asking. Ezekiel believes himself a failure because his attempts at inspiration led to the deaths of scores of his followers. But while it’s yet to sink in, he’s given example after example of the ways in which what he exemplified, more than what he represented, still made him worthy of being followed.

That first comes in Jerry’s last minute save. Ezekiel, as he does throughout the episode, tells his friends to simply run, to leave him behind, because his injured leg will only slow them down. Instead, they stay and help and fight over his protestations. And despite Ezekiel’s attempts to push back, to say that he doesn’t deserve to be called their king, Jerry remains steadfast, not because of some elegant image Ezekiel has crafted for himself, but because he’s simply a “good dude,” a terminology that cuts through the King’s grandiose presentation and reaches the heart of what he was trying to do.

It also comes in Carol making a choice that parallels the one Ezekiel made with Shiva. After finding a sharp way to outsmart the Saviors she’s embroiled in a standoff, Carol faces a dilemma of her own. Either she can take out the remaining pair of antagonists and ensure that their powerful guns don’t make it back to Negan, or she can let them go in order to save Ezekiel. The Carol we know might tend toward the former choice, reasoning that two lives, even the lives of friends, are not worth the lives that those guns in the hand of The Saviors could cost. But instead she chooses to save the man who helped give her a lifeline in a time of crisis, who’s helped her to internalize that sense of altruism over her effective but brutal (and often fistpump-worthy) pragmatism.

And it comes with Shiva, who offers the last save of the episode. As Ezekiel, Carol, and Jerry attempt to cross a muddy brook, riddled with walkers, Shiva comes out of nowhere at the last second to fight and ultimately sacrifice herself that they may live. It is a hard moment for Ezekiel, almost as hard as returning to The Kingdom and having to look into the eyes of a child whose father he just saw reduced to a pile of fetid flesh.

But therein lies the cinch of “Some Guy.” Ezekiel will, as is the spirit du jour of The Walking Dead, no doubt be haunted by what happened here, no doubt blame himself for using his stories and speeches to send these men and women into battle and ultimately to their deaths. He will likely hold himself responsible, and argue that his embellishments only convinced good people to follow a lie.

And yet, what “Some Guy” reveals is that this theatricality, this impostorhood, this lie, was founded on a truth, a truth about who Ezekiel is and what he stood for, that overcomes any sense that Ezekiel filled his followers’ heads with nothing. He gave them hope; he gave them a reason to go on, and with their help, built a community to sustain them. The choices he made come back to him -- not as much the choice to put tokens in your hair or armor beneath your jacket, but the ones to rescue wounded animals, to be a just and kind leader, to show the same kindness and understanding to strangers. Those are what truly made Ezekiel a king, regardless of what he wears, or how he speaks, or who’s left to follow.

I wrote a long review about my viewing of this episode. It was funny, it was witty, suspenseful to read even... unlike this show this season. But then upon pressing 'submit' the damn thing decided to error and crash and now it's gone for the ages and I can't be arsed to re-enact it again. Kinda like this show: the creators can't be arsed to write intelligent and emotional scenes, the director can't be arsed to film decent action, it's all gone to shit in that world so why bother.

Also: Really? Did you really need to kill off the tiger. It was coming from the start of the episode, much like that half-assed montage of "people saying goodbye to other people who are gonna die (kudu's to the man who gave the most awkward hug and then decided to look at the camera-team to see if it was any good though), but did you really have to? "Oh hey boys, whose still popular and costs too much? People like Game of Thrones right? They kill everyone there right? Man this is gonna be such a shocker! Hahah, how clever are we?! The tiger man, the tiger" Shame!

And yet I still watch.
Shame on me.

Finally a decent episode. Part of the reason this episode works better than previous episodes is because it focuses on one arc (Ezekiel and Carol story). It makes the episode less jumbled and give the characters some breathing space.

The beginning starts out rather unconvincingly, but as the episode progresses they finally show some stakes at the life of character (Ezekiel). No more tricks: life could actually mean something. However, in contrast to this, bunch of lives of The Kingdom fighters hardly mean anything in this episode. They got slaughtered, and there was a brief flashback about them with their families, but they were really faceless. It feels like they're just a plot point for the main character (Ezekiel). The only meaningful death here might be Shiva, the pet tiger. Her death proves well not just because it's the closest to one of the main character, but because they have enough screentime and not just jumbled in the beginning of the episode.

But both The Kingdom fighters and her death is an important plot point to get to the most important point of this episode: the arc of Ezekiel. It shows that it only takes a front stage, a speech, and confidence to make "some guy" to be a thing he is now: a leader. The intro with him, starting as a just your ordinary Joe going to dressing room, to be a king complete with attributes, play a lot with the idea of dramaturgy - what matters is your front stage, not back stage.

That aside, in the action department they really need some better directing and plotting. The car chase doesn't look convincing at all with Rick and Daryl able to avoid a light machine gun shots and the absence of tense/feeling of being pursuit in the chase. There is also some stupidly inconvenient action that the characters should have thought up, like Carol shooting that damn car's tire if she doesn't want the car to go.

It's still okay-ish though, especially compared to previous disastrous episodes.