Wednesday, March 23, 2016

What I’m Watching: The Walking Dead


The Walking Dead: Season 6, Episode 13 “The Same Boat” (B+)

This show is doing some serious self-exploration, and it’s both fascinating and deeply disturbing. This episode introduced a few new characters, none of whom survived the hour. Most prominent among them were Paula, played by Alicia Witt from “Justified” and other series, and Rus Blackwell from “Banshee” as Donnie. They took Carol and Maggie hostage and Paula negotiated with Rick, suspicious that he wasn’t going to stick to their prearranged deal. Paula told her story about starting out as a secretary reading inspirational e-mails and then killing her boss because he was weak, later stopping her count of people she killed when she got to double digits. What was crazy about this hour was the way that it framed our group, since they did sneak into this camp and kill everyone in it without negotiating or talking to them. “You’re not the good guys; you should know that” was the most haunting quote from the other side. Maggie was determined not to leave anyone alive while Carol seemed to be taking Morgan’s advice to heart as Paula taunted her and dared her to pull the trigger. When Maggie’s stomach nearly got sliced by Michelle, Carol had no trouble shooting her in the head. They said they were all Negan, which means they have a strange cult mentality, but that doesn’t change the fact that Rick promptly executed Primo after he told him that no one was coming from him. These people may have been bad news, but it’s our people who went around on a killing spree after another group told them to without asking too many questions. That’s a lot to ponder.

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