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THE WALKING DEAD: Adair, Smith (& Harvey) REMEMBER

Timothy Harvey 914 Views 0 Comments ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

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Season 5, Episode 12 “Remember ”

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Curtis: Tim is sick.

Dustin: Yeah…

Curtis: So it’s just us tonight….

Dustin: Yeah….

Curtis: ….

Dustin: What?

Curtis: It’s a little weird.

Dustin: We’ve hung out before.

Curtis: Yes, but never when we had a THING to do.

Dustin: We can do a thing without Tim here.

Curtis: But who will keep us on task?

Dustin: …. We can… ?

Curtis: WE CAN’T AND YOU KNOW WE CAN’T!!

Dustin: We can try.

Curtis: Hells yeah we can.

Dustin: ….

Curtis: ….

….

Dustin: Last Man on Earth is on tonight.

((The phone rings.))

Dustin: Hello?

Timothy: FOCUS, YOU IDIOTS!!

((click))

Dustin: Geez.

Timothy: Yes, tis true, I am sick, so tonight’s review of AMC’s The Walking Dead is less the usual social event, and more the Dustin and Curtis hanging out whilst Timothy sneezes, coughs, murders a box of Kleenex, and watches the episode on his own. It ain’t pretty over here, folks.

Still, since these mad ramblings of ours do require assembly and editing – if nothing else to fix Dustin’s spelling –

Hey! Wait. I shouldn’t be able to hear this should I? Since you’re writing it after the fact. I’ll just… head back to my part of the review then? Probably best.

I wouldn’t recommend looking too closely at how we put these together… that way lies madness. Still, not sharing my germs with my co-conspirators doesn’t keep me from throwing in an editorial comment in the edit portion of our program, now does it? Anyways, as always, there be SPOILERS here, behavior that is questionable at best, and a general abundance of snark. You have been warned.

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RECAP!!!

The gates open. Everyone enters the Alexandria Safe Zone. Carl sees a teenaged girl. Do I smell wedding bells?

Oh God. Carl dating. Whatever will The Hat do?

Daryl shoots an opossum, “We brought dinner.” HA!!

And delivered perfectly. When was the last time we started this show off with humor?

Into the Alexandria Safe Zone we go.

Some dude asks for Team Zombie’s guns. You can basically HEAR Sasha’s eye roll. Rick is like… nahhhh.

Aaron vouches for the Team and they are allowed to keep their guns for now.

You know, I’ve been thinking about this. This is the default request of every post-apocalypse settlement, and they always ask it of the people who are not in any way going to be inclined to hand over their weapons, so it’s surely passed into trope category by now, right? But here… isn’t the whole reason that Aaron decided that Team Zombie would be a good addition to Alexandria was that they were survivors? So why ask them to do the thing you know they won’t do?

They are sent to talk to Deanna. Rick tells Sasha to kill a walker through the gates.

I’m not sure what it says about me, that Rick’s casual attitude to the undead at this point amuses the hell out of me.

So Rick sits down with Deanna and a camera. She asks who he used to be and he’s like: That doesn’t matter. All I have is PAIN.

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It’s kind of jarring, Rick sitting in this model home environment. He looks really out of place at this point. That’s probably a bad thing.

He asks what the hell Alexandria is anyway. She tells him that Alexandria was going to be a Model Environmentally Sustainable community; all the units were sold when the Apocalypse hit. Deanna wanted to go back to her district to help manage the crisis, but she was diverted to Alexandria, and she has been there, behind the walls her husband built, ever since.

Deanna basically runs everything. She’s the best, I love her already. Please don’t be crazy, Deanna.

Well, the odds are against her, given this show’s track record, but I so want this to be what it seems to be, instead of the usual Walking Dead Everyone-But-Team-Zombie-Is-A-Lying-Monster routine.

She tells him they need people who have been out in world if they want to survive. Rick’s group is the first they have wanted to bring in in a long time.

So they’ve survived all this time without being attacked by crazy post-Zombpocolypse raider types? Hmmm. They must all have been in Georgia.

Rick basically tells her not to let them in. Out in the world it’s hard and people are jerks.

Deanna’s like: That’s why you’re in.

Thus vastly increasing the odds that Alexandria will be attacked by crazy post-Zombpocolypse raider types.

Deanna and I are married, you guys.

She tells Rick that Virginia has been evacuated but they have still lost people. Deanna has done stuff she’s not proud of, too; she exiled 3 men, and that’s basically a death sentence.

Is it, though? Or are they going to come back as our next villains? Foreshadowing, maybe?

Rick: What do you want?

Deanna: We need a safe environment. She wants to make the world safe and she thinks Rick and Team Zombie will help with that.

Rick: How?

Deanna: I know how to read people. I play cards. She tells him what time it is and Rick winds his watch. He tells her he was a sheriff and she’s like: Yeah, I figured.

Deanna makes the Team Zombie give up their guns, and no one is very happy about it. Carol has a little trouble getting out of her SNIPER RIFLE. HA!!

And now physical humor? I am loving this. But seriously, in what story ever has giving up your guns because “It’s Safe In Here” ever been a good idea?

Aaron brings Rick to a couple of houses house and tells them they now belong to Team Zombie. Deanna has told everyone to back off the Team while they are getting settled. Aaron tells them to get him if they need him. Please don’t fall to @#$%, Alexandria Safe Zone.

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I don’t know… I’m reminded of the pleasant beauty of the Farm, and we remember how that worked out. More walls here, ’tis true, but still.

Rick and Carl enter a house… without Lil Ass Kicker… maybe she has her own place?

And they enter the house like it’s a trap, hands on their knives, which, by the way, is clear evidence that Alexandria’s residents don’t know the definition of “disarmed”.

Rick showers, then he looks in the mirror… and… CUTS OFF THE ANGER BEARD!!

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And so ends the Saga of Rick’s Beard.

How many ticks do you think were living in that thing?

Aaaand thanks for that. I had cheerfully managed to not think about things like that up until now.

Hey, remember when Rick was hot? I do now.

There is a blonde lady.

She brought food and @#$%. They cute talk. It’s cute, she’s Jessie. You’re horribly doomed. Sorry ‘bout it.

Potential spoiler there, for all you kids at home. I’m thinking we’re going to get some pretty big deviations from the comic here, though.

She offers to cut Rick’s hair, and Rick’s like, slow your roll lady!! We just met!! But then she does.

Rick. You slut.

Hey, remember when Rick was hot? Jessie do.

There is… a surprising amount of sexual tension here so quick… maybe we will get some of the comic storyline. Hmmm. Poor Jessie.

Rick already has stubble.

Deanna interviews Daryl then he guts the opossum.

Judith magically reappears. Rick sends Carol and Carl to look scout out the other house. Carol takes some paper. Everyone is so paranoid that they decide to all sleep in the same house for now.

Paranoid with reasons, though, you have to give them that, especially since Terminus and its Fine Young Cannibals.

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In the other house, Carl hears a thump upstairs. He goes to check it out. He has a big honkin’ knife. He opens a door and finds a teen hangout room.

Later Maggie smells a blanket. Everyone has showered and such. Carol is writing… something? Secret plans? Strange machinations? Doodles? I want to live in your brain hole, Carol.

Michonne loves brushing her teeth. She sees Rick’s amazing face and is like… ((ovaries))

She has a good feeling. You and me both, Michonne…. Oh, about Alexandria, not Rick’s amazing shaved face.

Everyone hopes she is right.

Deanna stops by and is like: Rick! Your face is beautiful!

Then she sees Team Zombie bunking down in the living room.

She seems to get that they don’t trust this and that’s OK, and man I want this to be what it appears to be. I so would like there to be a sense of hope for a change on this show.

Deanna is all: I’m a politician. She assigned everyone jobs, except Rick, Michonne, Sasha and Daryl.

She’s decided what Rick and Michonne’s jobs will be, but she is waiting to tell them. Hmmm. She’s working on something for Sasha, and that’s another Hmmm. She’s still trying to figure Daryl out, and considering Daryl hasn’t figured Daryl out… I wish her luck.

Everyone sleeps. Well, sort of. Rick never sleeps. He gets a knife.

Now it’s Michonne’s turn to interview with Deanna. She tells Deanna they are ready.

Team Zombie take a stroll, but Daryl wants to stay at home and hide on the front porch like a scared old dog. There is a lady walking a dog. Rick tells him a dumb story about when Lori used to force him to go house hunting in neighborhoods like this. We’re all glad you’re dead, Lori.

There are kids in the streets. Rick runs. He’s having a PTSD meltdown because Carl and Lil Ass Kicker got away from him. Judith will be fine, because she’s a Lil Ass Kicker.

PTSD is pretty close to the truth, yeah. Something of a shortage of therapists in this world, but Rick needs one. And I wouldn’t worry too much about Carl. He does have The Hat.

He runs into a dumb looking thing in someone’s back yard. Oh, it’s Jessie’s dumb back yard. Rick apologizes for breaking her dumb thing. They try and force a connection. You’re so dead, Jessie.

You know, it doesn’t feel forced to me, as much as Jessie just isn’t Michonne, and we’ve apparently become fans of her and Rick becoming a thing.

Jessie invites Carl to meet her son. Who is a dork. In a dumb shirt. There are other teens. Some dumb kid and Enid. Enid used to live out in the world before Alexandria took her in.

They are full on dumb teens. They want to play video games and pool and Carl is like: You guys know there are LITERAL @#$%ING MONSTERS out there, right?

Enid is a bitch, you guys.

“Pull it together, sport”, she says. “Sport”? “Sport”? What teenager says “sport”? Pretty sure Enid isn’t what she says she is.

Carl agrees to play some video games.

In his interview with Deanna he tells her about killing Lori.

Then he goes to be surly in his new room. Rick and Carl talk about how nice everyone in Alexandria is. But then Carl says he thinks they are weak and he doesn’t want to become weak like them.

And this is that thing I have a problem with. This show keeps equating peaceful with weakness, and then you end up with Tyreese, or Rick’s farmer indecision problems. Yes, the Alexandria folks are naive, and a bit pampered, and they’ve been safe behind the walls all this time in a way that sort of screams impossible, considering how easily heavy weapons seem to come by. Plus there’s Team Zombie’s track record for encountering unfriendly survivors.

You kind of have to wonder how they made it this long, even with the walls, because, yes, by the standards of the world they are weak, but does anyone really think that Carl or Rick or Daryl or Carol is going to become like them?

That night Michonne wakes up and sees Rick on watch.

KISS!

Not yet. They have to drag out the tension.

They stand at the window and talk about jobs. Rick isn’t ready to take a job; Michonne is. He’s not exactly ready to take that step. Rick goes for a walk.

The moon is full.

Rick walks.

He meets a guy.

Its Jessie’s husband. He a goner, you guys.

He’s also basically threatening Rick here, by making it clear that Jessie is his wife. So yeah, he’s toast.

Back at the house. Rick tries to sleep but he can’t.

Carol is interviewed by Deanna she makes herself sound like a happy homemaker, and not like she’s the biggest threat Alexandria has ever seen. She offers to join the junior league.

Carol puts on a costume and becomes a spy. It’s amazing.

Yeeeeaaahhhh. Kinda got chills here, especially when she described her horrible monster of a husband as “that stupid, wonderful man”. Carol is so inside these walls in a way that Alexandria isn’t going to see coming.

Glenn tells Deanna they have almost been out in the world for too long.

Rick heads out of the gates to inspect the walls.

From his house, Carl sees Enid. Carl is DFT. Enid climbs the wall and goes out into the world. Carl is in sex love with her.

Glenn, Tara and Noah are assigned to go on supply runs. They go to meet their new boss Aidan. And he’s… a total ass. They are given some hand guns. Even Noah. DO NOT GIVE A GUN TO NOAH. Great, everyone is gonna die.

Aiden is Deanna’s son, by the way, and he clearly thinks that makes him something, but congrats to the costume department, because wow. They picked just the right clothes to show he’s a self-important @#$%. That he automatically assumes that they don’t actually know anything is going to get him killed.

And then there’s the look on Glenn’s face when they hand him the “sweet” gun. Heh.

Enid. In the woods. Carl. In the woods. Enid. Running. Carl. Running. He loses her.

Yeah, she’s so not what she claims to be.

Rick finds a walker. He does not kill it. He heads back to the house where he hid the gun and… IT’S GONE!!! Rick sense is tingling!! STOP BEING PARANOID, RICK!!

Really? So let’s review, shall we? Rick doesn’t trust this new place, so he hides a gun. New place seems to be too good to be true, so Rick goes to retrieve the hidden gun. The hidden gun is no longer where he hid it.

Nope. No reason for paranoia here. Not a bit of it. Uh huh.

On the plus side, they really did give him back his gun to go outside the walls, and he didn’t shoot the walker, because he realized he didn’t need to, so… progress?

Carl finds him. They knife murder the walkers together. It’s a bonding moment.

Of course Carl finds him. Because… writers.

Out on the supply run, Aidan tells Glenn, Tara and Noah that they just recently lost some guys from the supply run a couple of weeks ago, but they caught the walker that killed them and have it chained up…. Except.. they don’t? The Walker Has Escaped.

Wait, what? This was a plan that these idiots thought was a good plan? No wonder they lost people, but it begs the bigger question how any of these idiots survived these runs.

Aidan and his buddy make all sorts of noise to attract the walker back and Glenn, Tara, and Noah are all like: WHAT THE @#$% ARE YOU IDIOTS DOING!?!

Oh! Oh! I know! Trying to get themselves killed!

The walker comes back. It’s supes gross. They try to catch it, but its skin is basically falling off. And it gets away. It falls on Tara and nearly bites her before she and Glenn are able to kill it dead.

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Aidan is pissed because he’s an idiot.

He brings them back to Alexandria and tells them they are fired from going on runs and Glenn is like, you can’t fire me!! I fire you!! They yell at each other. A crowd gathers. Glenn basically tells him that he needs to step the @#$% off or he will be on the ground.

Hey, um, Aiden?

Aidan does not step the @#$% off. Glenn puts him on the ground.

Yeah.

The other guy tries to intervene, but Daryl attacks him like he’s a rabid dog. Rick has to pull him off.

Thinking Daryl is having a rough time here… anybody else?

Deanna arrives and she’s like: What happened?

Glenn’s like: I put a bitch on the ground.

And Deanna’s like: Fair point, hey Rick, wanna be the sheriff again?

And Rick’s like: Sure, why not.

And she offers the job to Michonne too, so clearly, Deanna is as smart as she seems to be.

She also has Aiden and Guard Guy sent to her office… Ooooooohhhhh, someboddyyy’s in troubbblllleeee.

That night, Rick puts on his new cop uniform.

Hey, remember when Rick was hot? Yup.

And they play Rick’s video for Deanna, where he’s talking about everyone out in the world being monsters who take and use people, so that’s… disturbing. Considering who just came in from out in the world.

Daryl is all like: You’re not my real dad!! And runs out onto the porch.

Yeah, that didn’t happen. Daryl was already out on the porch. Drama Queen.

Rick and Carol follow him out there. They talk about how they are going to stay in Alexandria. Carol doesn’t want to become weak like the people there. Rick says they are not weak. Because they are all ballers. And if the Alexandria people can’t hack it with Team Zombie…

Team Zombie will just take Alexandria from them.

I’m into it.

Hey, is it weird that now that Rick has shaved off his beard, I’m totally okay with it?
Am I totally shallow?

Yup.

Heh. OK, I laughed as I read this, but to echo Mr. Adair from a previous review: Did Rick just become the villain?

Because he’s talking like a villain here.

So other than that little problem, a really good episode I think, and based on Dustin’s notes, hard as they are to read…

Hey!

Wha.. what are you doing here?

My notes are perfectly readable, I’ll have you know.

Really. Really?

Really. Are there some typos? Sure. Some language that you “needed” to sanitize? Damn skippy. But you know I give you something you can read.

I… stand corrected. This time.

I have no memory of giving you anything in the past that might inspire you to think otherwise.

I’m sure you don’t. We’ll see you next week, folks!

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Timothy Harvey

Timothy Harvey is a Kansas City based writer, director, actor and editor, with something of a passion for film noir movies. He was the art director for the horror films American Maniacs, Blood of Me, and the pilot for the science fiction series Paradox City. His own short films include the Noir Trilogy, 9 1/2 Years, The Statement of Randolph Carter - adapted for the screen by Jason Hunt - and the music video for IAMEVE’s Temptress. He’s a former President and board member for the Independent Filmmakers Coalition of Kansas City, and has served on the board of Film Society KC.

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