Another great episode in this season. I know some people complain that there isn't enough action but I feel like the story doesn't always need the blood and gore to maintain a strong story, in fact, these in depth episodes make me bond with characters more and they make them more relatable. I think a lot of people (including myself) suspected that Dante wasn't a good guy. He appeared somewhat out of the blue in this season and they focused a lot on him, now finally we have confirmation and I gotta say, it makes him cooler in my opinion. At first he was just an annoying character that got too much screentime but now we know he is there for a reason. Poor Siddiq, I believe he could've gotten out of there alive if he had kept him cool, he didn't. I like that Dante felt somewhat bad for killing him. He kind of lulled him to sleep. I like that they went full circle with this episode. From 'open your eyes' to 'close your eyes'.
Even though I suspected Dante to be a whisperer spy, the clicking of the tongue followed by Siddiq's flashbacks still got to me. I actually think the way his story was told, the trauma, him dealing with it and his ultimate death was told very beautifully. tragic of course but again without the gore. They could have shown a lot there, with all the head chopping being done in that shed, but they didn't. Good choice.
It was kinda nice episode... I think. As I wrote before, people seems to get annoyed by what they're reffing to as "filler" episode, but I think "fillers" are someway important for the vibe of this kind of story. It's about routine survival now. They're living in the same place for 7 years. They have known hunting grounds. Agriculture schedule. Jobs. Borders. Nothing like the beginning of the show.
Saying that, here are couple of things seems wrong this one:
• Aaron. Dude, what are your intentions?
• Rosita. Dude, what are your intentions?
• Gabriel.
• How come the water flows one way and water wheels spin the same way? I mean, if the stream runs :arrow_right: than the wheel should turn:arrows_counterclockwise:, not like this:arrows_clockwise:.
• A sign for pointing out that there are non drinkable water but there's no way to know if the handle is in the right configuration. Eugene, you lazy.
• Lydia didn't recognized Dante, who must be really trustable to Alpha if she sent him to spy, but knowing who the old walker guard is? Suspicious.
• Carol got a cheap shot from Lydia? Spec Ops Carol? Double suspicious.
And for what Lydia got so upset about. I smell a secret plan.
Pretty good stuff:
• The old walker guard (guard of guardians?) fooled me for a moment with those sandwich tears. To the point I asked myself if I feel sorry for him. Spit second later, I was proven wrong.
• Dog is getting older. He has buts of white fur on his face. Nice touch.
Just WOW. After a couple of not so good episodes we get THIS. The highlight of the season so far. My only complains are the ones that made me laugh the most.
So, everyone goes to Croatia to try and get a hold of Crawford. So far, so good. But, Crawford knows who they are so that's disguise time. Jane's blond wig caught me off guard. I had no idea it was her until I look closely. Zapata's was also great but Kurt? Glasses don't do the trick, man. Before seeing him I told my sister, can you imagine Weller now is wearing a wig? And I laughed, but his disguise was just ridiculous. I liked seeing Avery in the field and she was good at it.
Until now, I thought Blake was not as innocent as she seems. I thought she was playing Roman and her dad, and after that bathroom scene with Zapata, I don't know, I get the feeling that she's not that innocent after all. What a coincidence that the comms didn't work exactly at that time. I bet Keaton put Zapata up to it and wanted to keep that conversation out of the FBI. So, what's she hiding? Or is Zapata and thus, Keaton, trying to collect information of her to use it later against Roman?
Man, I don't care about many things in this show but I love Roman. I don't care whether he's trying to kill everyone in the room. I just love him so damn much. After last episode I wonder whether he'd change sides or not, but awwww, he'd in love. Poor, sweet Roman. That's the closest to a family he's ever had. Everyone in his life betrayed him and Blake feels like family. That ending, though. That was a good cliffhanger. Here's to hoping the rest if the season is as good as this episode.
[7.1/10] This one’s pretty slow as TWD episodes go, and I have to admit, I’m almost as tired of Maggie as I was of Rick before he was spirited away. But there’s a strong central idea here, which is basically whether you’ll go along with something that seems wrong or which you can’t trust because it’s for the greater good. How much any of them will go along to get along is a big question, and Maggie, Ezekiel, and Eugene are all presented with choices to where they wonder if it’s worth swallowing their pride and their principles and just “going with the flow.”
Maggie’s is the biggest decision. You can see why she’d be compelled to enter some kind of pact with the Commonwealth. Hilltop has fallen on hard times, even for the zombie apocalypse. Daryl, who’s always been something of a lone wolf, sees the merit in joining up with them, even if he doesn’t fully trust them yet. And Pamela Milton makes a good case that a place like the Commonwealth having your back isn’t that different than a mutual defense agreement with Alexandria and Oceanside, especially when the added resources seem not only welcome, but sorely necessary.
And yet, Maggie’s reluctant to get into bed with the wrong people, not just because of Pamela’s semi-chilling “natural order of things” speech and the lack of equality in the Commonwealth, but because she’s worried about what the costs will be down the line. It’s nice to have more food in a day than they’ve had in a week, and soldiers who can slaughter a swarm of walkers in a half-second that it would take an hour for the Hiltoppers to slay with their melee weapons. Still, Maggie knows that these favors come with a cost and doesn’t want to agree to pay it without knowing what it might be.
It’s an interesting decision point. Candidly, i don’t know if I’d do the same, but considering how many communities the TWD survivors have come across that turn out to be secretly evil, maybe it’s not a bad idea to be hesitant to put in with yet another. You can see the logic on both sides of the argument, which is the sign of a good dilemma and good big picture writing.
I also appreciate the glimpse we get of a little more internal politics within the Commonwealth. You can practically smell how much Hornsby needs this, how he’s pushing every button and pulling every lever to make it work. His dream of not only restoring the regional and maybe even national community to what it was is intriguing, with the caveat that he seems to want his own fiefdom to govern in the process. His anger beneath his empty smiling visage is compelling, including some well-shot business as he blows off steam with a walker shooting gallery.
This is also the most we’ve seen of Pamela so far, and she’s an interesting character. You can see the difference between who she is in public and who she is in private. She’s onto Lance’s ploy -- game recognize game, even in politics -- and she’s pretty good at working Maggie even if she comes up short. The reveal that she knew the woman who founded Alexandria (whom, frankly, I’d kind of forgotten about) is a nice detail, and I appreciate that they’re giving her more shading than just the “corrupt leader archetype” we’ve seen so many times before.
I think my favorite of the stories here though is Ezekiel, who’s smart enough to figure out that Carol mucked about behind the scenes to get him to the front of the line for surgery. Here too, there’s reasonable justifications on both sides. I’m inclined to side with Ezekiel, who feels guilty for getting special treatment when there are so many others suffering whose need is no less than his own. He feels the unfairness of this and isn’t sure if he can live with it. But Carol has a few compelling rejoinders, basically that the system is fucked anyway, that Governor Milton would put her asshole son to the front of the line, and that lesser men than Ezekiel have gotten much more in terms of unjust benefits.
It speaks to Carol’s almost mercenary pragmatism and desire to protect her own, in the same way Ezekiel’s reaction speaks to his nobility and steadfastness. There’s meat to the conflict, even as Ezekiel eventually acquiesces, and god help me, it’s just nice to see the two of them together again.
But arguably the most interesting dilemma is Eugene’s. He’s been freighted with a terrible truth about everything he thought he knew and trusted coming to the Commonwealth. At the same time, we learn a little bit more about the real Stephanie, how she was off the books when she made contact with him, and how letting Hornsby commandeer her connection (though a little bit of wheel-greasing from her brother, Mercer) was the only way she could stay out of trouble.
Their scenes check a few important boxes for the storyline. For one thing, Eugene himself addresses the fact that he’s not the best person to throw stones here, given how he lied his way into Abraham and Rosita’s crew, something which Rosita gives him absolution for. For another, Stephanie’s right to point out that after all the time they spent talking on the radio, Eugene should have known the fake wasn’t the real her. Eugene’s response is plausible and a little heartbreaking -- that he’d been rejected so many times, and that he’s neurotypical in a way that makes him miss certain cues -- to where he basically believed what he wanted to believe: that someone had actually accepted him.
You can understand the heartache on both sides, Eugene from having what he thought was love ripped away from him, and Stephanie watching what she thought was love torn from her and repackaged with someone else with her supposed soulmate not being able to tell the difference. It’s a tough road for both of them from there, but the wisps of hope we get over shared ideation over Eugene’s Tom Clancy homage are encouraging. Eugene seems torn up over whether to stay quiet and not rock the boat after everything he knows, but finding the person who he made a genuine connection with is a reason to preserve what they have in the here and now.
Overall, this is still a lesser light for season 11b, but there’s also some strong practical, ethical, and personal questions at the heart of the episode that I find very interesting.
I only started because those who finished season 2 confirmed that both seasons are one story, and they're right. It's really best seen as one 12-episode season rather than two separate 6-episode ones, especially with season 1 ending on a big cliffhanger. Season 2 also has an ending tease, but that comes during the "epilogue" after the main central story wraps up, and is just for seeding interest for the next storyline (with that cameo! Although I don't know how many westerners will recognize that person).
Anyway, the show is good genre fun, with broad but lively characterizations to make it involving beyond the intense action and light politics; I like that they even throw in a few characters with broadly grey shades on both sides of hero/villain lines to make the groups interesting, like the bumbling magistrate). I actually prefer season 2 better, as it feels like a season-long Act II, with rising actions and story turns plenty. And the show has some of the genre's great, creative zombie action scenes. Doona Bae escaping a room full of zombies by lighting a robe on fire, putting it over her, and then sprint out is pure badassery, without breaking her character's type. All the while holding a baby no less!
