TV Review: Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 3 “Four walls and a roof”

Tainted meat.

FULL SPOILERS to follow for the Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 3 “Four walls and a roof.”

Bob is at the mercy of the Terminus survivors… or so he thought.

After losing his leg to our favorite family of cannibals, Bob reveals that he’s been bitten. A move that should have surprised no one, and for comic fans, this one was coming a mile away. Despite knowing the parallels of Bob’s story it was still fun to watch unfold, especially as the weight of the situation fell on the Terminus crew.

Note to self: Always check for bites before eating someone in a zombie apocalypse

In what seemed like the longest monologue ever by Gareth, a continued explanation of Terminus’ and their motivations had a chance to get explored. The arrogance laced discussion was particularly brutal and sickening at points, as the the finer points of eating men vs. women got a chance to play out. While it wasn’t necessarily bad acting, it just felt like too much information.

It’s a lot more obvious than this

We get it, the Terminus crew ate people.

This time however they ate the wrong guy, and it felt good to see the entire camp freak out because of the consequences. That part makes sense, since the fever associated with the onset of becoming a bullet sponge strikes quickly and is pretty unforgiving. That makes the glossy nature of saying “we cooked it, we’re good” by Gareth feel like pretty lazy writing, since there’s absolutely nothing to prove his claim.

Regardless, the determination is that Bob would be better used as a fishing lure for Rick & crew instead of feeding a family of five.

It’ll be on special in a few days

Meanwhile, Gabriel’s church becomes the setting of unrest once Bob, Carol and Daryl all go missing in one night. Due to the nature of them disappearing immediately after setting up camp there, Sasha decides it has to be somehow related to the priest, who clearly is guilty of something. A credit to Seth Gilliam here, as the revelations surrounding his guilt are delivered in pretty dramatic fashion.

Good acting isn’t necessarily a strong point of the Walking Dead series, and Gilliam delivers a pretty convincing accord of what went down. As the newly promoted Detective Carl Grimes pointed out, events unfolded leading to someone carving a naughty message on the outside of the church. The windows also showed signs of forced entry, and as the apocalypse unfolded, Gabriel kept his behavior of always locking the church doors at night.

Ok seriously, who does his ironing?

That would have been fine if it weren’t for several parishioners trying to get in as they were chowed on by walkers. Once again, for comic readers this wasn’t much of a shock, but still made for a few good moments of actual drama. Gabriel’s actions gave him unbelievable amounts of guilt, and for a moment he believes that Rick’s crew is there to punish him for his sins.

Since it becomes quickly accepted that Gabriel isn’t out abducting master bowmen and silver haired women, attention then shifts to Abraham. So far in the TV series Abraham isn’t really that big of a character… yet. What I like the most about his involvement in this episode revolves around his relationship with Rick, or rather the lack of one to begin with.

As Bob is delivered to the church by the Terminus express, Abraham decides that keeping Eugene safe is still the #1 priority.

The future of the world’s mullets depends on it

After the fall of the prison, Abraham, Rosita and Eugene are on a desperate mission to get to Washington D.C. to finally cure the walker crisis. With Terminus delivering amputated packages, Abraham decides the time to leave is now regardless of what Rick thinks.

Abraham decides to keep his team there one more night at the insistence of Glenn. If the Terminus cannibals decide to attack, having Abraham around is a must, and Glenn & Maggie agree to go with them if they’ll stick around long enough to fight off the threat. Rick realizes he doesn’t have much say in the matter, and instead focuses on eliminating Terminus once and for all.

Rick and a small detachment decide to go after Gareth & friends (not a morning news program) and wipe out whatever is left of their group. Gareth however had different plans, and watching the church for any movement decides to approach as soon as the killing party leaves.

One problem… Rick isn’t that stupid.

Rick is such a rascal

With the cannibals now trapped inside the church and a minimum of 5 guns focused on the Terminus group, surrendering to Rick is the only option. What struck me as odd was Gareth’s plea for Rick to leave them alive, something that clearly wasn’t possible after all the shit these two parties just went through. What I don’t understand is how Gareth’s attitude could be so defiant and arrogant at every step up to this point, yet with his life on the line see him revert to a more cowardly form.

Regardless, the plea means nothing and before any additional Gareth exposition can happen, Rick’s machete puts an end to any further acts against humanity.

At least at the hands of Terminus.

Rick does some pretty metal shit

PARTING THOUGHTS:

“4 Walls and a roof” continued the trend of Season 5 being one of the more solid ones in terms of content. The biggest drawback to this episode however involved the massive amounts of meaningless exposition, particularly with Gareth and Bob as he inched ever closer to his last moments. Yes, Bob didn’t survive being bitten, nor could he survive losing a leg or finally getting a more prominent role after being almost exclusively in the background since being introduced.

Sounds about right…

The tactic is getting old, and hopefully viewers at this point people are noticing that there can’t be more than one prominent black character on this show at a time. I’m not accusing the showrunner’s of being racist, but if this hadn’t already happened multiple times throughout the show’s history then I wouldn’t be mentioning it again today.

There has to be a better way to send off characters on this show, and hopefully in time that can happen. For now however, if you see a character that hasn’t talked much all of a sudden start behaving like they’re in a Tarantino movie… you better start counting down.

Just like “Strangers” however, “4 Walls” left us with just as many questions, and now we’re faced with several major developments. The survivors are splitting up once again, with Abraham’s team (with Glenn and Maggie) are heading for D.C. Meanwhile, Daryl returns (sans Carol) and had someone else in his company, however before we could find out who that was, the episode ended.

With season 5 having been true to the comics with much of the plot ripped straight from the pages, we’re starting to enter uncharted territory as the groups split up and Daryl’s return being covered in mystery.

FINAL RATING: 3.5/5.0

“4 Walls and a roof” finally gave us some answers, but gave us just as many questions as each entry into Season 5 has so far. We sent off Bob in a story very similar to Dale’s from the comic series, and Gabriel’s origins and back-story followed the same path. The brutal killing of Terminus proved that Rick & company are just as metal as ever, but with 3 episodes down in season 5 we’re already seeing heavy doses of exposition take over like they have before in the past.

In all honesty, “4 Walls” had some decent action and the send-off for Terminus that was fitting of their lack of humanity. If the past is any indicator though, once the Walking Dead deviates into original content, we don’t always get favorable results.

Based on 3 episodes however, they’ve built more momentum for season 5 than some seasons have had throughout their prospective runs.

Thanks for reading, and as always be careful who you bed with. Comment, like and subscribe! If you didn’t like it, feel free to share your thoughts!

Review: Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 1 “No Sanctuary”

Finally the Walking Dead that comic fans have waited to see for 4 years.

WARNING: Full Spoilers for “No Sanctuary” follow below

The Walking Dead series started off on a high note all the way back to Season 1, Episode 1 “All that remains.” An episode directed by now the now jettisoned Frank Darabont, faithfully followed the spirit of the original first few issues of Robert Kirkman’s now legendary comic run. While the tone of the show has always been somewhat bleak and occasionally dark, it always lacked a major aspect that’s prevalent in the black & white comic series of the same name.

Institutional evil.

Probably a little more evil…

Season 4 spent the majority of its time building up to Terminus, the last bastion of hope after Rick Grimes and company lose their occasionally safe prison outpost. So long as the group (which split up into three smaller groups) followed the train tracks post-Governor Part 2 attack, they’d find their way to another safe-haven. It’s no surprise that all of them wound up there, except for Beth.

You remember Beth right?

Well all wrapped up in one little bow, Season 4’s finale finally brought the crew back together into a very welcoming abandoned train car within Terminus. Which prompted one of the most legendary lines from the series to this point… at least in the DVD/Blu-ray extras. Instead we got an edited line that just didn’t quite sound all that impressive.

“They’re farkin with the wrong people. Teehee.”

So back to that whole institutional evil thing, Season 5 starts us off with a trough, a relatively sterile warehouse operation, and 7-8 gentlemen, who are finally shown that the Terminus crew indeed are cannibals. In what was no surprise for comic readers (and anyone with a pulse watching the TV show) that the introduction of cannibalism was going to inevitably happen. We knew something was “off” about Terminus having large quantities of “special mystery meat,” and honestly I was expecting a little bit more build up, but the nonchalant brutality of slitting human throats like they were animals definitely set the tone early here.

The only thing that bothered me about show-runner Scott Gimple’s direction (other than making it seem like Glen was going to die in all Season 5 trailers … he didn’t) was the story-telling of how exactly Terminus became what it was. TWD routinely uses flashbacks, and it was an early staple of the first season, but for some reason here they decided to use them as blatant book-ends for the beginning and end of the episode. As a viewer I thought it was pretty lazy, as obvious slides say “THEN” and “NOW” as if the more than 17.3 million people watching it didn’t know what a flashback was. Now these flashbacks were essential in telling us why Terminus became what it was, simply a safe-haven at one point but its inhabitants were invaded and driven postal by “Mad-Max era” raiders.

Ironically enough, being a Raiders fan makes one equally as crazy

However it shouldn’t take you long to assume cannibals don’t just spring up overnight like a new Starbucks. Regardless, these bits of information were good to have and made Gareth’s (leader of Terminus) question about inventory counts appear lax in comparison to throat slitting. The individuals running terminus were so used to killing people for food that these kinds of interactions on the shop floor of death resembled more of an inter-office discussion on TPS reports.

Just in time to save Rick & co. however was the reappearance of Tyrese and the recently exiled Carol. After finding a scout for Terminus and narrowly avoiding a herd, Carol sets off to see exactly what was happening to her friends. In what was one of the silliest displays of explosions, Carol manages to hit a propane tank with a rifle from a few hundred yards away, then sets half of Terminus ablaze with a bottle rocket.

Somehow between seasons, Carol became a John Rambo/MacGuyver hybrid all while wearing a poncho.

Stallone just wore it better…

Borrowing the blood & guts shield Rick used in season 1, Carol infiltrates Terminus with the herd, just in time to see the entire compound compromised. The effects were well done, and just like the entire series, producer and make-up artist Greg Nicotero made the walkers look authentic as ever. Many were sporting patches of fire on them as we got a first person view of the mess Carol had caused. In that regard, the notoriously slow-paced program got a shot of adrenaline between this sequence and the previously mentioned slit throats.

While Carol makes the rounds through Terminus (finding some of the group’s essential items) Tyrese is left as babysitter with Judith. His part of the season opener was relatively silly, as he’s lost his brute killing edge after losing two young girls from their group in season 4. His role in the episode was brief, but predictable, as he refuses to kill again until he’s ultimately forced to when Judith’s life is put in clear danger. The “hide Tyrese and make you think he’s dead” trick was used just like it was in season 4, and he emerges victorious as he rediscovers his Hulk rage. It seemed like an odd thing to only utilize for one episode, but ultimately it provided a few moments of action in a premiere full of plenty.

Spoiler: It didn’t actually go down this way.

Eventually the entire crew makes it out alive due to a perfectly placed blanket over the barb-wired fence on the outskirts of Terminus. Once they reclaim the weapons cache Rick had left behind in the Season 4 finale, Carol shows up to reunite with the group that had cast her out only a handful of episodes earlier. Up until the last 10 minutes of the episode no one really had much “acting” to do, and to see Daryl & Rick’s reaction to Carol (particularly Daryl’s) was a pretty heartfelt moment despite few words being spoken.

It seems that to be forgiven, one only has to murder the majority of a small town.

This used to be a peaceful town, until Carol happened.

All in all, Season 5 of Walking Dead began with the highest point it has since episode 1. We were quickly reminded that brutality does indeed live in the post-apocalyptic world, and more importantly, Rick’s entire crew showed how battle tested they continue to be. There were a few moments that didn’t need to happen, mostly “the cure” that Eugene was forced to tell involving cringe-worthy dialogue that was hard to get through (which to explain in full detail would ruin his story.) In the broad scheme of the episode however, this was a moment easily glossed over by explosions, muzzle fire, and all of Terminus becoming a pile of ashes.

A few things to keep in mind however involve the survivors that the group decided not to go back and kill. Even though many of Terminus’ group came to unsightly ends, many of them are still shown interacting with Rick’s group around a camp-fire later on. So to expect that this season is completely done with Terminus simply isn’t true, and the future of this season proves to be treacherous. The crew is once again out in the open, and after all the things Rick himself has had to deal with, proves to be the most brutal season so far.

FINAL VERDICT: 3.75/5.0

“No Sanctuary” was the start that The Walking Dead season 5 desperately needed to have happen. While Season 4 had plenty of action, the lulls could put a coked out red bull addict to sleep. Certain elements of the episode weren’t that impressive, but the overall action and progression of this episode makes the Season 5 opener one of the more memorable episodes in the show’s history.

Thanks for reading, and as always, be careful who you bed with.