The Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 15: Us
Honestly, this kinda feels like a retread of last season. The first half started slow and uneven to end with a pretty awesome mid-season climax, then for the second half to alternate between poor plot development and very character-centric episodes, building up to a season finale that doesn't quite deliver. Only instead of a big Woodsbury-vs-Prison shootout, this doesn't even promise anything remotely resembling that unless we get like a huge revelation about Eugene's mission or about Terminus. By the end of the episode not even all our characters have reached Terminus (a.k.a. Woodbury Mark Two), and none of the new groups of characters -- Abraham's more likable friends, and Daryl's asshole squad -- really felt engaging enough to watch.
We reach Terminus at the end of the episode and, I dunno, my gut instinct tells me to immediately suspect something sinister from the very problem-less surroundings and the overtly friendly Mary... or maybe it's all really a nice paradise and it's Daryl's jackass new friends that will bring hell to paradise. Other than the cast that we already know, I honestly am not invested enough in any of these characters to really care.
Daryl's story is the weakest of this episode's stuff, mostly because it's setup for a bunch of asshole villains. Yeah, sure, we get to see their code of honour, that they are governed by the Sacred Rules of Dibs (or 'claimed', as it were) which I think my brother and I outgrew when we were like six. There was a bit where the leader beats up and kills one particular jackass that's trying to frame Daryl for stealing his rabbit. But Daryl really is shown to not be fully attached to any of these characters, wanting to leave multiple times and only sticking around out of necessity, and when push comes to shove there really isn't the slightest hint of a doubt that Daryl won't side with Rick. Who these guys are hunting, because what are the odds that the same marauding looters that Rick encountered in that house they're shacking up in are the same looters that found and decided to adopt Daryl?
Carl and Michonne have a little game on train tracks over chocolate. That's the extent of their appearance.
The meat of this episode ends up hanging around Glenn and Tara, and Glenn's obstinate and he just wants to follow all the blood-spattered signs from Maggie to get to Terminus, whereas Abraham, Eugene and Rosita just want to get on with their very vague world-saving mission. I honestly don't understand why they don't just let Glenn go on his own a lot earlier -- the dude clearly gives no shits about helping out the military trio, and I guess it's just niceties? Eugene talking like a thesaurus, being a bit of a pervert to Tara and being a condescending twat to Rosita doesn't earn him brownie points, but apparently he's the one who really wants to wait and go rescue Glenn and Tara... just because?
And Tara's undying loyalty to Glenn instead of going with the far more secure (and potentially world saving! Are we going to ignore that?) soldier trio is also... because? Really, as much as I bitch about slower-paced episodes, none of these side-characters, not Tara, not Eugene, not Abraham and definitely not Rosita, really have enough character to them for me to really care if, like Tara, they get their feet trapped in rubble. Tara casually tells us that her girlfriend and sister are most definitely dead -- something I don't think we were definitely shown during the mid-season finale, and you know what? I don't care. It doesn't affect me emotionally, because they honestly don't matter. I don't want entire episodes devoted to Eugene or one of Daryl's asshole buddies, god no, but at least give them time to really be built up slightly instead of just parroting the same one or two character traits in every scene.
And that sounds absolutely mean, but without spending time to build up these characters -- like the excellent work Lizzie and Mika got last episode (at least what they mean to Carol and Tyreese is established well) -- I honestly just don't care. At the end of the episode Glenn's group, Maggie's group and Abraham's group all end up hanging out together and they go to Terminus. Whoop-de-doo. It's convoluted, I honestly don't understand why Eugene really wants to deviate from his world-saving mission other than he really likes staring at Tara's ass, so... yeah. Glenn and Maggie's reunion isn't even super-important, I just felt like, oh, it's a thing that happens. While their romance was a huge, huge turning point and something exploited by the Governor last season, here it's literally their only trait. Glenn just wants to find Maggie. Maggie just wants to find Glenn.
Oh, and Eugene's totally talking out of his ass, right? I really get the impression that the whole cure in Washington thing is bullshit, but somehow Abe and Rosita buy into him. Despite the fact that he speaks like freakin' Perceptor from Transformers. Honestly the group just feels so weirdly removed from the more grounded backgrounds that the Walking Dead characters have (zombie apocalypse aside) that I feel they stumbled out of a more actionized zombie genre into this series.
Dunno. I just feel like the finale is going to be something we've already seen before, and I neither care nor find the Soldier Trio, Terminus itself nor Daryl's Douche-Squad to really care all that much.
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