The Walking Dead, Season 5, Episode 12: Remember
The whole nature of Walking Dead being a serialized TV show is that, well, you gotta keep things exciting. You have to introduce villains, or at least a threat, to keep things interesting. This has the side-effect that every episode we tune in to, our group of main characters are always facing some threat. It might be actual villains like the Governor or Gareth's cannibals or the looters. It might be more abstract threats like separation, childbirth, or a member of their group going mad, or the disease in the prison. Whatever the case, the nature of the medium -- as well as the absolutely reviled second season due to it being nothing but 'people hanging out near the farm' until it picks up to the splendid climax -- tends to cause conflict. Sure, there are lulls in-between, but those tend to be left to the imagination of the watchers because they take place off-screen (like the time between seasons 2-3, or 3-4).
So when the show runs into a screeching halt, as they enter this community of Alexandria, it's marvelous how none of the people there actually act suspicious. Their leaders and people are all as nice as Aaron was from the previous episode, very earnest and very intent on making them feel welcome. Their leader, Diana, is strict but also understanding. She's a pretty fun character, where she's idealistic, but not at all stupid. Her interviews with members of Team Rick is a nice stylistic choice (and Carl's very deadpan 'I killed my mother' line was hilarious) to break up the episode as well. Team Rick is given two houses straight off, and the people in the community even give them some space as Diana assigns them positions in the community if they so choose to stay. And it's a wonderful contrast from the post-apocalyptic settings of most of Walking Dead that they're wandering around this well-furnished town with pretty houses and working water and electricity.
Of course, for our heroes, they have survival so drilled in that even members that have only recently been inducted to the group (especially Father Gabriel and Tara, the latter never even venturing to fight walkers before the Governor showed up at her house) that they're immediately distrustful and jumpy, and none of them really question the decision of the group's leadership figures -- Rick, mostly, but also Carol, Michonne and Daryl -- to be at least a little paranoid. They stay together bunched up in a single house. Daryl doesn't try to fit in and stand guard on the porch, and as someone who claims that he never fit in before the zombie apocalypse, it's an entirely believable reaction from him. Daryl's just lurking near their little base, giving his brief input whenever Rick is talking to Michonne or Carol about whether to trust these people, only exploding near the end when one of his pack gets attacked, putting the swaggering Aidan on the ground almost immediately.
There are some very great highlights, like Rick rediscovering running water for the first time since, shit, the uber-sciency science facility at the end of season one, Carl absolutely freezing in shock when the other kids ask him to join him in playing video games (a nice callback to 'After'), the music and tension running up when Rick just goes action hero and charges in desperation when Judith and Carl disappear out of his sight, Carl taking a knife and going into action survivor mode when he hears a thump on the upper floors, acting just like how he does any time the group clears out a house. Most of the focus is on Rick, Carl, Michonne and Carol, though we also see a bit of Glenn, Tara and Daryl... but I'm assuming the rest of the group feels more or less the same, and the group's cohesiveness as a single family is really well-sold.
Of course, there are a fair amount of characters in the group that are a lot less well-developed than the others. Gabriel didn't get a lot of lines or focus since his mini-arc. Rosita and Tara are ciphers and I actually forgot Tara existed until she shows up to hang out with Glenn. Abraham and Eugene are also rather undeveloped. But it's nice that the show manages to play them up as being part of the group as a cohesive whole.
The town survives by being a secluded community ever since the beginning of the apocalypse, and the fact that it's a self-sustaining facility means that they've seen little to no action at all. The behaviour of Rick's group is contrasted very well against everyone in Alexandria. The Alexandrians are nice, welcoming, giving out haircuts and organizing daily school and soup kitchens for the elderly. Their version of a gathering party is the asshole Aidan, who swaggers over tiny piddly handguns to a comically unimpressed Glenn, and pulls off some stupid bullshit about hanging a walker as a 'ritual', and getting pissed off at a still unimpressed Glenn for killing said walker, and punching him, only to get whacked down in record time by Daryl. However, it's clear that Aidan in his cockiness isn't really hiding anything, and he is that naive. Or maybe in Alexandria, you can afford to be naive?
And that's the question that Team Rick has, even as Rick shaves the impressive beard that's been synonymous with the character. Can they afford to trust Alexandria? Carol definitely doesn't, making a show of being such a clumsy aw-shucks with her gigantic rifle, claiming that she's the mother hen who's missing her sweet sweet husband during her interview with Diana, claiming that the group rescued her and allowed them to stay... little does Diana know that Carol is a one-woman army capable of bringing down Terminus single-handedly, and one of the original members of Rick's group (and alongside Carl, Rick, Daryl and Glenn, one of the five survivors from the original group). Carol's even given the job of cooking, a stark contrast to Rick or Michonne or Glenn, who are given more badass jobs as constables and gatherers.
And, well, it's clear that they're still more comfortable with their old lives as survivors, as much as this new heaven appeals to them, it's going to take some time to settle in. In the past, the slightest moment of inattention means death, as Tyreese discovers. Here? Well, they're really ill-equipped and paranoid. Everyone's impression about the group, from Daryl to Carl to Carl, is that they're nice people but weak. Rick even posits coldly at the end of the episode that if things didn't work out, they can just take over, which is interesting because our group of heroes might just actually be so corrupted by the ugly world out there that they've grown to be the opposite of their more idealistic worldviews at the beginning of this all. Definitely an interesting shakeup to the status quo than just another evil community they have to take down, that's for sure, with Diana and the Alexandria community being an actual reasonable place instead of 'it's nice but there's definitely something sinister' vibe that we got from Woodsbury.
Of course, there are hints of something else going on, like the girl that Carl tries to befriend, Enid, being someone that the Alexandria community rescued several weeks ago, and Carl sees her climb up the walls and away -- though an attempt to track her ends up bringing Carl to Rick instead for some father-son zombie-slaying bonding.
Overall it's a slow episode that certainly works due to the impact of what it's trying to do.
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