‘The Walking Dead’ Recap: Ladies First
By now, Walking Dead fans (Dead-heads?) are hip to Carol‘s “golly gee whiz” routine, and in this week’s episode — “The Same Boat” — our heroine is being held by a group of Saviors in a zombie-infested “safe house.” When she reaches for a rosary, she’ mocked by her captors for being pathetic — which is an illusion she encourages, because it gives her a strategic advantage. Really, she’s surreptitiously sharpening up the cross to cut herself free. We knew that all along. And yet, there’s something different in her eyes this time, even though she’s clearly faking everybody out. When she played the Resident Happy Homemaker last season, she did it with a detectable note of scorn. Here, with the Saviors, it’s more like she really wants to be a sap.
The past two installments have formed a kind of mini-arc, designed to answer the question: “What has Carol Peletier become?” After spending the better part of six seasons turning an abused housewife and mother into a remorseless killing machine, the show’s writers have abruptly pulled back, suggesting that maybe — just maybe — the darkest of their heroes is starting to realize that she’s moved too far into the shadow. In the opening scenes of last week’s episode, she seemed shaken when saw herself through the eyes of Tobin, a man she admires. And now she’s rattled again when she realizes that her sweet, hopeful Maggie is taking a turn toward the terrible. How can she lecture anyone about the importance of kindness, when for months she’s been demanding that all of her friends harden-up?
Both these women are forced to do a little heat-of-the-moment soul-searching, as they stare into the face of someone who’s their living mirror. “The Same Boat” introduces Alicia Witt as Paula, the Savior we heard on Rick‘s walkie-talkie, demanding that the raiding party drop their weapons; she gets to deliver a classic Walking Dead monologue about what boiling water does to a carrot, egg, and coffee beans. But don’t get too used to her. By the end of the hour, Paula’s dead, killed during a daring escape plan that culminates in every Savior the group has met so far being slaughtered — in some cases gruesomely. After all that, a distraught Maggie mutters, “I can’t any more” … and Carol finally seems to be on the same page.
This hour doesn’t exactly fix the problems that have been plaguing the series lately, but it does figure out a better way to handle the balance between “let’s talk about our feelings” and “let’s splatter some zombie-brains.” The bulk of the episode takes place in a few dark rooms and corridors, with just a handful of characters. Yet it never feels as excessively chatty or navel-gazing as some recent stretches have been. Writer Angela Kang and director Billy Gierhart open with a jittery long-distance standoff between Paula’s Saviors and Rick’s raiders, and end the episode in a flurry of bloody mayhem. That’s all it really takes to add tension to the quieter scenes in the middle, where women posture and threaten each other in a dank basement.
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