The Walking Dead, Season 6, Episode 3: Thank You
Shit, man, this episode. I have to admit that there is a sizable time gap between watching episode 2 and episode 3 of this season (my reviews aren't necessarily published on the same day that I watch the episode) but I was able to follow this episode relatively well. Basically we return to the 'away' team panicking over the gigantic clusterfuck they have found themselves in after the season premiere. They have to get back to Alexandria (how the hell did Morgan get back so fast, though? Ninja monk skills apparently allows for fast travel) but there's the problem that the huge swarm of zombies that they were leading has to, y'know, be led away from Alexandria, tying up Abraham, Sasha and Glenn's hands, and forces Rick to continue with the plan. Because while the whole assault on Alexandria is happening, the walking hive of zombies isn't going to patiently wait.
And the main focus is on the group with Michnone and Glenn. And the body count is massive. The show goes through literally almost every single background Alexandrian through the events of this episode, and even in the first five minutes of the episode, the obligatory doubter-of-Rick gets turned into zombie chow. That bit was actually legitimately hilarious. Over the episode, all of the characters not named Michonne and Heath get fucked up, a good part thanks to the darkly hilarious montage of stupidity that the heroes go through at the beginning. One of the Alexandrian shoots another in the leg and runs away, and a third background character gets her leg sprained.
A good chunk of the episode is Michonne insisting that no one is going to get left behind, arguing with Heath that she's not going to obey Rick's order of leaving the crippled Alexandrians behind. Like, yeah, we the watchers know that these nameless people (okay, they probably have names but I didn't pay that much attention to literal walking-dead characters) are doomed and trying to save the cripple that's being dogpiled by zombies is foolish, but shit, they're still decent people.
Oh, and also, Nicholas (a.k.a. that nitwit douchebag moron that tries to kill Glenn because he calls his incompetence out from season five) manages to kind of make himself somewhat useful as a Glenn fanboy throughout the episode... before the two of them are trapped atop a dumpster by a sea of zombies, and Nicholas, like the utter nincompoop that he is, shoots himself in the head. It's not enough that he pussies out and kind of renders Glenn's trust and sparing of him moot, he literally drags Glenn down into the sea of zombies and may have actually fucking killed Glenn. We did see a zombie seemingly take a bite out of what's possibly Glenn's stomach or Nicholas's body, but the show doesn't make it super explicit.
If they actually killed off Glenn, though, mother fucker I would be pissed. Especially if Glenn's death is caused by this jerk-off Nicholas. Really should've shot him in the head, Glenn. It's not that it's an undignified death, either -- we've had main characters die in undignified ways before, but because it invalidates Glenn's big true-to-my-morals choice that he's gone through in season five, and the fact that the death wasn't the final scene of the episode. I'm kind of grasping at straws, I know, but fuck, man, this kind of death isn't one that Glenn deserves. The combination of him looking at Hershel's pocketwatch and a call-back to the first episode by calling Rick 'dumbass' over the walkie-talkie seems to lean towards a death, though.
Also, man, the Alexandrians suck. Quite literally everyone other than Heath and his one buddy die. Nicholas pussies out and shoots himself in the head. Mr. Misfire gets himself eaten by zombies off-screen. Mr. Doubter gets himself eaten by zombies two seconds after he's prominent. Ankle Sprain gets herself dogpiled pretty quickly, and Mr. Tragic 'please get my letter back to my wife' is subjected to another brutal dogpile.
Basically, Michonne tells everyone else to 'GIT GOOD, NOOBS'. She's a better person than Rick is, and she will do her best to save every single person in her team, but sometimes, well, these people are literal dead weight, and both Michonne and Glenn are punished for trying to play with inferior allies. Even Morgan is punished somewhat for his naivete, because the blonde Wolf he spared last episode shows up to menace and almost murder Rick, and disables his vehicle and puts him in the mercies of part of the zombie swarm.
Even new character Heath quickly gets put through the ringer. After confronting Michonne (and getting told to piss off in one of the best lines Michonne has ever delivered in this show, calling him out on his naivete) about the idea of even leaving one of them behind, Heath ends up being the one that screams to leave Mr. Doomed-Husband behind, and we get the very obvious 'look at my bloodsoaked reflection' scene.
And honestly, this episode is just annoyingly depressing. Not in the way that was tugging at the heartstrings like Tyreese's death or Rick's insanity during last season's climax, either. It's obvious that the show's hammering home that no one other than Rick's team is equipped with the badassery and figurative balls to handle the harshness of this world, and attempting to show any shred of kindness is brutally punished -- whether by having your escort-mission crippled charges killed brutally in front of you, or to have the dude you spared turn out to be so abysmally incompetent that he kills you accidentally.
I'm also not sold on the very weird subplot of Daryl pulling away from Abraham and Sasha before deciding that the mission is the more important bit. That felt like it added nothing to the story beyond giving Daryl fans some nice shots to look at.
I dunno. In theory it's a pretty fine episode by itself, but on the other hand the added double whammy of Glenn's apparent death (granted, he's been uneven in how 'main' he is compared to Rick, Carol and Daryl) and the general depressing tone of the episode ends up making me not enjoy this episode as much. Not to mention that it's another in a series is "Rick's warped view of the world is the only right point of view", which feels ridiculously convoluted in how intent it is in stroking Rick's ultra-paranoid wang. And honestly, with the show being super-ambiguous about Glenn's fate (and we've had several close calls with regards to a death scene that cuts out immediately afterwards, least of all Glenn-vs-Nicholas last season) I'm holding back a rant about how stupid the Nicholas Arc is until next episode, if someone discovers Glenn's half-eaten body.
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