What I Saw: The Walking Dead

I have fallen behind once again on posts and even on my TV watching! It took me until last Wednesday to watch The Walking Dead due to a boring thing like life getting in the way. This week I’m working some overtime shifts so I’m not even going to be able to enjoy my usual mini-binges. I wrote this post last week, but with all the overtime I haven’t had a chance to edit and post it until now. I watched a new superhero comedy show Powerless that came out about one month ago that is alright, but has some actors I am a fan of. I will post on that show eventually. For now, on to the depressing drama that reminds us of our mortality!

What I watched:

The Walking Dead S7.E12&13 “Say Yes” and “Bury Me Here.”

What I Saw:

I have to say I found the pacing of “Say Yes” to be really well done. Other episodes will seem like they drag out the plot, especially switching from one storyline to the other. But this episode had a couple storylines that fit really well together. The theme of that episode was a reminder of our mortality, along with what we’re willing to live and die for.

The reminder of our mortality came with Rick and Michonne’s storyline. The couple go on a little scavenging vacation, going through one building after another gathering supplies and making with the love. They are in a better mood now that they have a plan and allies to help them even the odds against the Saviors. Rick pushes for them to scavenge one more day to keep looking for guns now that he’s back to being leader of the survivors. They come across a carnival that was used as a staging area for refugees, with supplies guarded by undead armed soldiers. With that they will have weapons and plenty of supplies to keep them afloat during the war. Meanwhile back in Alexandria, Rosita is still acting all pissy towards everyone and blames Gabriel for talking her out of her suicide run against Negan. She told him that if she had died then other people would have been alive.

Now what Rosita is experiencing is called survivor’s guilt, which is what some people experience after surviving a life threatening ordeal while others did not. For Rosita, it was the fact that her failed attempt to shoot Negan led to the death of someone else along with Eugene being taken by the enemy. Gabriel was actually pretty spot on with his observations of the situation, and with how life works.

He told her that he knew if Rosita carried out her plan, she definitely would not have survived and there was no guarantee she would have been successful in her attempt. There would have been one less fighter in the group with nothing to show for it. He did what everyone else does in life: he did what he thought was right. He told her he made a choice to intervene and he has to live with whatever consequences that comes as a result, as does Rosita. He then throws responsibility back to her and reminds her she makes her own choices, and she has to decide what she wants to do with her life since she is the one that is stuck living it. Classic existential ideas of choices, consequences, and responsibility for one’s own life.

The other major lesson came with Rick and Michonne trying to kill all the walkers in order to collect all the weapons and supplies. They split up to take them all out on opposite ends. Rick gets distracted by a deer and is overrun by walkers. Michonne comes to help him but is stunned when she sees the walkers feasting one what she thinks is Rick, and she just drops her sword and loses all hope. Of course they are not going to kill the main character of the show off camera like that, and Rick pops out of a crate he was hiding in and snaps Michonne back into the fight. Rick then talks to her about what happened.

Rick reminds her that there is no guarantee that any one of them will live to see the next day. They could get injured or killed any number of ways without warning, and if it were to happen the community would need to keep living on. Michonne at first doubts her ability to keep living in Alexandria without Rick if something were to happen to him; but he tells her she can and she has to in order to make sure their community will start to fall apart.

I think many of us in Western society take our lives for granted at any given moment. We assume there is going to be a tomorrow and everything is going to work out one way or another. But just like in the world full of zombies, our own lives are anything but guaranteed; the only difference is what is likely to kill us. Being reminded of our mortality focuses our attention on what brings meaning and importance to our lives. If we only have so much time to live our lives, we better make sure we’re using it on things that we feel are important; or else we will be left with regret when our time on this Earth comes to an end (if you want to know what that looks like, read The Death of Ivan Ilyich).

Things get crazy in “Bury Me Here,” especially towards the end of the episode. Carol starts to connect some dots from her reunion with Daryl, and realizes he was probably sugar coating how things were going in Alexandria. She asks Morgan if anything else happened but he dodges the question and tells her she should ask Daryl if she wants to know; which only confirms her suspicions that something else happened. Ezekiel takes everyone out for another delivery run to the Saviors, and they come across a road block which draws their attention towards a grave with the sign saying “bury me here.” They brush it off as the machinations of a mad man (and they aren’t wrong) and go to the drop and discover their offering is short by one melon. The Savior crew punishes the less than smooth operations recently by shooting one of them. Richard was front and center and was provoking the Saviors during the drop, like always; only Benjamin, the young man who is so eager to learn and believes wholeheartedly in the Kingdom, was the one who got shot instead.

Richard later explains he set up the delay and hid the melon in order to provoke the Saviors into killing him and forcing Ezekiel to go to war. While he never meant for anyone else to get killed in his mission (which may have been inspired by Daryl who told him he should die for the Kingdom if he believes in it so much), he asks Morgan to help continue his conspiracy along.

Richard also tells a story from the beginning of the zompocalypse where he left the authorities to act on the behalf of others instead of acting and contributing on his own. A fight that he could have easily broken up led to a fire at the refugee camp and he lost his wife, and while on the run afterwards he lost his daughter.

The theme of the episode was the dangers of inaction. Ezekiel was reluctant to act against the Saviors and make the alliance with Rick. Richard was right when he pointed out it was only a matter of time before one little thing would set the Saviors off and someone would get killed even without war. Richard’s story also revolved around inaction and the high price he paid for not taking responsibility for his own family or the community at large. The lesson: sometimes the worse decision someone can make is making no decision at all.

Now crazy part came after Benjamin’s death, when Morgan literally goes crazy. He flashes back to when he Rick found him again in season 3 and he was “clearing” (*cough* killing *cough*) everything in sight. He then kills Richard in front of the Saviors to show that the Kingdom understands they need to fall in line, which was the next part of Richard’s plan (except the part where he gets killed). Morgan has officially lost it, and he tells Carol the hard truth of everyone that died while she was off on her own ciesta. Carol surprisingly keeps her cool despite, or maybe because of, Morgan having gone crazy. She just decides to rejoin the community at the Kingdom and prepare for war. Overall, really good storytelling with the twist of crazy Morgan that I didn’t see coming.

In conclusion, the show is starting to pick up it’s pacing again, which is good. I was worried they were going to drag out the preparations and add some filler, but the last couple of episodes picked it up. I like how the writers are bringing everything back to the original lessons of the early seasons: not everyone is going to make it out okay so you better get used to it. The world is a messed up place, and is smudged in grey.

Time to wrap things up. What did you guys think about Crazy Morgan coming back? And do you think the war will start before the end of the season or at the beginning of the next? Let me know in the comments!