The Walking Dead S04E13 Review: Coincidence

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 13: Alone

Welp, while I really liked the previous episode, this one doesn't feel anywhere as good as that. It really feels like a step in the way as the show tries to get a good chunk of its scattered cast all gathering at this Terminus place. 

A good chunk of why this episode felt particularly weak is the Maggie/Sasha/Bob storyline where the three of them split up because Sasha doesn't want to go to Terminus while Maggie thinks that Glenn would've gone to Terminus. All the while, Sasha's not-boyfriend Bob (were the two of them ever shown doing anything at all before? Can't remember) is super convinced that sticking together with Maggie is the right thing to do. All well and good, but did you need to take the entire episode to do that? Did Bob need to have that opening flashback? Also the sheer amount of coincidences is just honestly dumb. So Sasha happens to shack up in a building that's right next to where Maggie was sleeping, and happens to look out of the window just as zombies arrive to assault Maggie? And the two of them just happen to stumble upon Bob? It's honestly just kind of dumb, and all that for what? Just to get them on the way to Terminus? Why not just have them not disagree in the first place? It's a weird writing decision because none of the three actually get any sort of character development beyond 'oh no we have to stick together'. Bob and Sasha are still 'nice person' ciphers and Maggie has a one-track 'find Glenn' mind. 

So yeah, despite the very strong character moments for Michonne, Carl, Beth and Daryl over the past three or four episodes, this episode fails to do anything remotely approaching that for Team Maggie.

Daryl and Beth go through more of the same thing that they did last episode, only this time we don't really get much of a payoff. Daryl gets his faith in humanity restored, only to be seemingly abandoned by Beth, and this causes him to go on another emo bend until he apparently threw his lot in after being found by the same crew of jackasses that fought Rick two episodes ago. Come on, Daryl, you know Beth's probably not alone in that car -- you guys spent like five minutes noting how there were people hanging around your hideout until very recently, are you that genre blind?

Overall, a pretty weak episode.