The Walking Dead - S5E2 - Strangers
Previously on The Walking Dead, ‘No Sanctuary’
Multiple Bitchwalks & Coming to Jesus
Between multiple bitchwalks (when one or more characters walk towards the camera in slow mo) we see the group stopping to rest, eat, and get water. Rick and Tara have a moment where he tells her he could tell she didn’t want to be at the prison, which is why he tried to appeal to her when the Governor was acting a fool. Then they fist bump it out. Tyreese and Carol are getting water and he assures her he’ll make sure the rest of the group accepts what she did at the prison, but he doesn’t want anyone to know what happened with Lizzie and Mika. Probably cause that shit is plain embarrassing and would you want to tell Rick a middle schooler almost cut open his baby?
Michonne steps up to kill a walker, and smiles when she reaches for the sword that isn’t there. She settles on using the butt of her machine gun. Abraham tells Rosita, “That there is why we’re waiting for our moment.” She smiles and says, “Yeah. Fair enough.”
What the hell is up with those two cryptic motherfuckers?
That night, Rick tells Carol he owes her everything. She says it was really Tyreese who saved Judith. Then she gives him back the watch he gave to Sam. He’s not completely cool with what she did. He says he sent her away to live exactly as they’re all living now and wants to know if they can join her. She agrees.
Later, before Daryl can even ask, Carol says she doesn’t want to talk about it. She just wants to forget. He hears something in the woods, tenses up, but says, “It was nothing.”
No, Daryl. It was something . You heard that it was something! This is just the first of many questionable actions in this episode.
Our Holy Church of WTF
The next morning, they’re still walking. Daryl has caught about 50-leven squirrels and tells Rick about the feeling he had that someone is following and watching them. No, dude. It was more than a feeling. You heard something! Rick tells the rest of the group to tighten up their formation and agrees with Abraham when he suggests getting back on concrete roads in search of vehicles. Bob and Sasha play a cute game where she lists all the things that are awful about their shitty existence and he finds the bright side. That brotha can find the bright side of anything.
The group come across a priest stuck atop a rock, kicking off a few walkers. They save him, and Rick delivers The Three Questions. Father Gabriel claims he hasn’t killed any walkers or any people. Rick hits him with a “Motherfucker, is you serious?” look. They follow him to his church and some of the group waits outside while others check out the inside. They find lots of empty cans of food, kids’ drawings from Sunday School, and notebooks of scripture. No walkers. No bad guys.
They decide to hold up at the church for a bit, an idea Abraham isn’t too keen on. Father Gabriel said they can take a short bus out back once they get it running. Abraham wants to do that and head for D.C. The group sides with Rick that they’ll stay long enough to get supplies. Father Gabriel tells them about a food bank nearby that he was never able to hit up because there are about a dozen walkers inside. Our group can eat a dozen walkers for lunch.
Rick, Bob, Sasha, and Michonne leave with Father Gabriel to check it out. Maggie, Glenn, and Tara are going to hit up a gun shop. And Tyreese is going to stay behind and babysit. Before they leave, Rick reminds Carl that shit is about as real as it gets. He’s never safe so act accordingly. Carl doesn’t believe that everyone is bad. He understands the need to be cautious, but he still wants to be the kind of people who help others.
Walker Soup
Carol and Daryl find a working car on their way back with jugs of water. She suggests leaving it there as a backup in case the bus doesn’t work out. Glenn finds some silencers in a gun shop after tripping over boxes and a mop. On the way to the food bank, Bob tries to convince Rick that even though he was right to want to go back and kill the Termites, they should go with Abraham to D.C.
At the food bank, the group finds a big hole in the floor, affording them a nice look at the flooded basement filled with food and walkers. They decide to climb down into the basement and use the shelves to protect them from the walkers. This works for a bit, but Father Gabriel freaks the hell out when he see a walker he clearly knew when she was alive. Rick saves him. Before they can get out, Bob is dragged under the water by a walker. They kill it and Bob insists that he’s okay.
On the way back to the church, Rick asks Michonne if she misses her sword and she says no. She misses Andrea and Hershel, but not having that sword and definitely not the time before when it was just her and the sword. These two are totally going to bone.
When they return to the church, Carl shows Rick some scratches on the windows. They’re deep, possibly made by a knife, and signal that someone was trying to get in. Someone also carved “You’ll burn in hell for this” on the side of the church. Carl points out it doesn’t mean Gabriel is a bad guy, but he’s clearly hiding something.
The Last Supper
That night, inside the church, everyone is eating and laughing, and being way too damn loud. Abraham proposes a toast and calls them all survivors, then he basically guilt trips everyone into going to D.C. Rick finally agrees and all is right with the world… except Carol keeps eyeing the damn door and Bob is getting all his Sasha kisses like it’s the last time he’ll ever get Sasha kisses. At this point, I’m convinced Bob was scratched or bitten when the walker pulled him into that nasty-ass water. He hobbles out of the church unnoticed.
Tara confesses to Maggie that she was with the Governor before she fully understood what a horrible person he was. Maggie forgives her and pulls her in for a hug, not a dap.
Rick thanks Gabriel for the hospitality, including his holy wine. I’d like to point out that it was hospitality by force, but whatever. Rick tells him he knows he’s hiding something and that’s his business, but if what he’s hiding hurts his family in any way, that’s his ass.
Daryl finds Carol about to bug out with the backup ride, which is just shitty. A car speeds past and Daryl notes it’s the car that took Beth. He busts out the tail lights in their car and the two race off after it.
Bob stands outside the church alone. He hobbles into the woods and stops to cry against a tree. Someone in a hoodie knocks him out and there’s a horizontal line carved into the tree trunk.
BobBQ, Shish-ka-Bob, Bob’s a Leg Man, Okay I’ll Stop Now
Bob awakens to find Gareth leaning over him. He’s going on about how Bob’s people took away their home. They didn’t always eat people… wait… what? He just casually mentioned that like it was no big thang. Anyway, none of this is personal. Sure, it’s cosmic justice that it happened to be Bob, but they’d have done this to anyone they came across. They’re now hunters. And Bob looks down to see one of his legs is missing. And these motherfuckers are EATING HIS LEG.
I hope it’s the leg that got bitten or scratched. Those dirty motherfuckers.
Oh, you know who else is sitting there? White Glenn! Remember him? The guy Tyreese said he killed after he put his hands around Judith’s neck. Yeah. His ass is still alive. So either Tyreese is a liar or he’s stupid.
Thoughts & Questions:
- Last week I said we’d never know if Rick would have been convinced to not go back and take care of Gareth because Carol showed up and, rightfully so, his focus was on Judith and getting her far away from Terminus. Why then are they still so damn close to Terminus? Yes, I understand that they simply hadn’t been able to walk but so far and from what we saw in the cold open, it had only been one night, but that brings me to my next point…
- Why the fuck were they splitting up? They said, “We stay together from now on….” Then they split up into way too many small groups. Yes, leave Judith and one or two capable people behind, but then you ALL go to get water, weapons, and food. You know, because you’re not that fucking far from Terminus and you know for a fact those people are still out there since you BURNED DOWN THEIR HOME. And while we’re at it…
- Why the fuck were they so loud? Is there a reason for them to be laughing and partying like it’s 1999 and not the zombie apocalypse? I mean, especially since THEY’RE NOT THAT FAR FROM TERMINUS!
- It’s pretty fucking shitty of Carol to find a working vehicle and then try to take it. Was that car working when they found it? There’s no reason for Daryl to agree to leave the car there. Just your luck someone else comes along and takes it.
- Was Father Gabriel holed up in the church, hoarding food, and not letting folks in? That doesn’t seem very Christian. Whatever he was doing, he pissed somebody off. Is the same person/people carving on the church the same one(s) leaving the markings on the trees?
- Tyreese. Tyreese. Chad Coleman gave an explanation for why White Glenn is still alive when he was on The Talking Dead. I’m not going to say it here nor will we be discussing it on the podcast Monday night. It seems the type of thing I’m not sure the actor should have said since the show clearly didn’t want us to know, by episode’s end, how or why White Glenn survived. With that in mind, I’m going to discuss this particular point based on what I know from watching the program only: Either Tyreese lied or he thought White Glenn was dead. His actions afterwards could point to either. 1. He didn’t want Carol to go in there and see that he is not capable of killing when killing needs to be done. It’s not really something you want to have to explain to the group, ESPECIALLY when a man is leaving you in charge of his daughter while he goes out and looks for supplies to feed and keep you safe. I mean, if you’re squirrelly, that’s some shit I’d want to know before I leave both of my kids with you. 2. He thought the guy was dead and just didn’t think it necessary that Carol go inside and see what he’d done. That’s just dumb. Considering all they’ve been through, considering all they’ve done, considering Carol is the person who murdered his girlfriend and burned her body, what does it matter if Carol saw White Glenn’s body? Also, again considering all they’ve been through, what kind of condition was White Glenn in that Tyreese could mistake him for dead? We are one (MAYBE two) days away from the ass whupping and White Glenn didn’t look like someone who was beaten nearly to death to the point where you’d think he was dead. He had one closed eye. Have you seen Daryl’s face? It’s a hot fucking mess from the ass whupping he caught from Joe’s boys two (MAYBE three) days ago!
