By RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com, originally filed Sunday, February 15, 2015
While trauma and sadness permeate the core of "The Walking Dead," tonight is all about grief as Rick's tribe grapples with the reality of their ever bleak situation. The Governor, the cannibals and their trek to D.C. is a quixotic long-shot hope at best. And for the very first time, the phrase "Walking Dead" is uttered by someone on the show: Rick, of course.
Some folks are in better mental shape than others. Surprisingly, Glenn and Abraham are this week's cheerleaders for living.
Not so surprisingly, Sasha, Daryl and Maggie have been hit hard by all the recent deaths and are in pure Morrissey land. Heaven knows they're miserable now.
Sasha has the double hit of losing her new boyfriend Bob and her brother Tyreese. Maggie lost her dad not too long ago and is now grappling with her sister Beth's tragic demise. And Daryl? He had really become close to Beth and bottles up his feelings like only Daryl can.
The writing in this episode isn't exactly inspired. There are only so many ways these survivors can ponder their existential fate. The writers are probably running out of different ways to say the same thing now that we're in season five. In his efforts to lift people's spirits, Glenn is especially cliched - like a beleaguered football coach at halftime with the team down by five touchdowns.
"We fought to be here," Glenn tells Maggie. "We have to keep fighting."
"We can make it together," Glenn says to Rick. "We can only make it together."
They are trudging a path up to D.C., though I'm not clear what road they're on. They are not taking I-95, that's for sure. They are short on food, sleep, shelter and water. It's hot. The sun beats down. Walkers keep harassing them. They dispatch a few with minimal energy - except for Sasha, who is on the verge of a breakdown. Michonne keeps trying to keep Sasha in check, to minimal avail. And she is hardly herself either. ("I barely have anything left," she says at one point.)
Gabriel, the man nobody can believe is still alive, tries to give Maggie a spiritual pep talk. That fails miserably because she bites back, noting how he abandoned his flock, what weight does he have to say anything to her? He later throws clerical collar into the fire. Symbolism!
Carol attempts to mollify Daryl's feelings of grief. Referencing Beth, she notes that Maggie's sis saved her - and saved him too. "You have to let yourself feel it," she says softly while he broods, Clint Eastwood style. "You will."
Indeed, he later takes some time off the road for a cigarette and a good ol' fashioned cry.
Soon, they see a bunch of water bottles who leaves a note saying "from a friend." But who is this friend? Understandably, most of them think this is this another trap, another Terminus? Then the skies release the rain and many in the crew (not Daryl, Sasha or Maggie) are momentarily happy.
Daryl leads them to a nearby barn to dry out. Maggie kills a walker who clearly has been there a long time and is barely moving. "She has a gun. She could have killed herself," Maggie muses.
"Some people can't give up," Carol says with a straight face. "Like us."
Rick gets all philosophical because he is the leader. He says he used to feel sorry for kids in this world but they care more adaptable. "Growing up is getting used to the world," he says. "This is easier for them."
He says "this is what we have to live with." Then he tells a tale of his grandfather who had to wake up every morning in enemy territory during World War II expecting to die. Then he survived.
Rick has to utter these painfully trite words - in conclusion: "We do what we need to do. We have to live. No matter what we find in D.C., we'll be okay. This is how we survive. We tell ourselves that we are the walking dead."
Thunder for some reason draws walkers. (They can smell humans even in the rain?)
There are dozens of them who push up against the barn entrance. First Daryl, then the others join in to keep the barn door closed. It's a team effort. It proves the point earlier noted by Glenn that they can only survive together by working together. Subtle?
No.
The next morning, Maggie and Sasha exit the barn and sees most of the walkers hurt by fallen trees and the storm itself. Amazingly, the barn holds up just fine.
"Why are we here?" Maggie says, gazing at a beautiful sunrise.
"I see it," Sasha says. But she says Noah told her he isn't sure he can make it. She isn't sure either.
Maggie has woken up a little happier. "You're going to make it. We both will."
Then there's this music box that Daryl fixed and gave to Maggie. She opens it up. It still doesn't work. She chuckles.
A man named Aaron then pops up, hands up, looking clean cut, innocuous and kind. Maggie and Sasha point guns at them. "I know. Stranger danger," he says. "But I'm a friend. I'd like to talk to the person in charge. Rick, right?"
"How do you know?" Maggie says.
"I have good news," Aaron says.
Good news? Just maybe.
And the ballerina music box starts working because that signals a ray of sunshine has broken through the clouds.
Subtle? Not this week.
RATINGS
Overnight ratings last week were 15.64 million viewers. That's comparable to the 9th episode of season four: 15.76 million.
TALKING DEAD
Lauren Cohan, who played Maggie, said she believed the ballerina in the music box symbolized Beth. She also saw that hostage walker and thought of Beth as well. That's why after she closed the trunk again, she wanted to get back in there again.
Seth Gilliam, who plays the cowardly priest, said he deliberately stayed distant from the other actors because that's kind of how Gabriel was acting.
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