“You didn’t threaten me, or the people I loved, when I was trying to get away before.”
“That’s because I knew you couldn’t.”
“So what’s changed?”
“You two together? You can do anything.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Well, all the pieces are finally in place, and now the true plot of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live can finally get going. Yes, it’s been fun and all catching up with how Rick and Michonne got back together, and we’ve had the setup of the Civic Republic and its totalitarian military. But what we really want to know is: how are Rick and Michonne going to win?
I said before that four episodes isn’t a lot of time to tell the story of two people, however unbeatable Jadis may think they are, toppling a well-equipped, thousands-strong fascist military. And as of this episode, Rick isn’t helping. Yes, we, the viewers, know he’s playing the long game, waiting to put Lt Okafor’s rather nebulous plan into action. But it might have helped if he’d bothered to tell Michonne that.
As expected, the ever-fiery Michonne doesn’t know what to make of this new, seemingly-cowed Rick. His ducking out on an intricately planned escape attempt didn’t help. And really, did any of us ever think she was going to leave without him? No, it was no surprise to see her back at that Post Office wall, gorily slaying Walkers, the next morning.
The character conflict is expected, and works well dramatically. But really, as in so much other genre TV, the plot could move along so much quicker if the characters actually told each other what was going on. I get that Rick doesn’t want Michonne involved, and his secrecy is an attempt to prevent her getting dragged into whatever nefarious schemes he’s planning. But she’s made it pretty clear now that she’s not going to leave without him. Maybe now is the time to tell her what’s really going on?
At least Jadis is now properly involved in the story. Pollyanna McIntosh was as fun as ever, in a tricksy non-linear narrative that economically explained the “arrangement” between Jadis and Rick. She actually conned the Civic Republic to get herself in; despite her description of him as a ‘B’, Rick’s definitely an ‘A’ – one of the ‘leader’ types they normally kill on sight. If they twig that she’s lied, the very best that could happen is that she’d be out on her ear. So the arrangement is, that if Rick keeps quiet about her lie, she’ll keep quiet about the location of Alexandria, which otherwise would be in a world of trouble.
You’d think Rick would have borne this in mind when he came up with his plan to pass Michonne off as ‘Dana Bethune’, a lone survivor who didn’t know him at all, honestly. But Rick’s never been very good at making long term plans. Andrew Lincoln effectively conveyed his increasing sense of desperation in some nicely tense scenes with Jadis. Pollyanna McIntosh made the most of the character’s trademark smug smile, but Rick got one up on her by saying something the audience must have thought since we first met her many moons ago: “You’re a ‘hero’. With a shit haircut.”
Still, she might have been onto something when needling Rick about his perhaps having… other reasons to stay. The implication being that the main one was Sgt-Major Thorne, again properly involved in the action after barely appearing last week. Lesley-Ann Brandt was excellent, commanding the screen effortlessly every time she appeared. Now promoted to “Commanding Sergeant-Major” (whatever that is), she’s basically Rick’s CO. And it’s far from clear whether she’s fully on board with Okafor’s original plan to ‘reform’ the Civic Republic Military along gentler lines.
Consequently, there was some real tension in the scene where she and Rick were testing Michonne for involvement in their scheme. We, the viewers, saw Thorne’s hand creeping closer to that machete behind her back as she waited, seemingly interminably, for Michonne’s answer; while all the time, Rick’s hand was inching closer to the gun at his belt.
Of course, there was never any real doubt in this viewer’s mind that the two would survive; after all, they’re the stars of the show. But it felt like real jeopardy for Thorne, who wasn’t in the commanding position that she thought. Or wasn’t she? The reveal that she knew perfectly well that Rick was going for his gun was followed by the implication that Michonne actually knew what both of them were doing. We still don’t know which of them believes which others’ lies. It was a tense scene, well-played by all three actors.
But what of Michonne herself? Danai Gurira was mostly in taciturn mode this week, the character largely silent and expressing herself with the surly facial expressions Gurira is so good at. Back when I used to review the original show, I had a feature each post called “Gore of the week”, given that zombie stories are always incredibly gory, and the show had to keep coming up with new and inventive ways to demonstrate this.
Sadly, we became inured to the standard weekly head-squelching of Walkers long ago. But this ep seemed to go the extra mile with Michonne’s ‘all-business’ slayings, as her pike repeatedly ground out Walkers’ faces in wince-making detail. Particularly notable was her effort on the mission with the ‘RDIM’, as the device´s ´cowcatcher´squelched Walker after Walker. Well played, director Michael Slovis, a veteran of TWD along with Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad.
While that was undoubtedly a well-directed action scene, it did seem like a lot of effort to go to just to blow up a couple of dozen Walkers. But it served to underline that Michonne isn’t just going to play ball as a ‘new recruit’; and that when the chips are down, Rick will always be there to help her. Much to the by-the-book Thorne’s frustration.
It also showed how seriously the CRM is taking security at their new ‘Cascadia Base’, which seems to be (logically enough) somewhere in the Cascade mountains, in the Pacific Northwest. That’s a long way from Philadelphia – all the way across the US, in fact. It illustrates just how powerful the CRM must be, if they’re concerned about security 3000 miles away from their home base. They may have wiped out Omaha (and possibly Portland; I’m surprised that hasn’t been followed up on yet), but plainly they have other settlements all across the US.
Plus, it occurred to me, they can’t be all that short of resources. They have the fuel to run all those helicopters and military vehicles, not to mention the time and paint to respray them all black and stencil their nifty logo onto them. And a seemingly endless supply of ammunition, when our original characters were having Eugene Porter make bullets individually by hand.
Implausible that may be, but it serves to show what an impossible task defeating the CRM would be, even for an army. And yet, this week sowed the seeds of how that might be accomplished, just by Rick, Michonne and Thorne (and presumably a few other conspirators). There was talk of a summit at the newly established base; apparently “all the top brass” of the CRM will be there. What better opportunity to cut the head off the fascist snake?
As I said before, this is inescapably reminiscent of Col Claus von Stauffenberg’s 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. That didn’t end well for Stauffenberg. As if to underline this, the show’s own Hitler put in an appearance, as Terry O’Quinn’s deceptively genial Maj-Gen Beale addressed his troops while waving around a sword from the Revolutionary War. The implication was that the US, having thrown off the shackles of their British oppressors, had manufactured autocrats of their own to replace them – a timely message right now from scripters Gabriel Llanas and Matthew Negrete. Beale hasn’t, as yet, done anything overtly horrible; but the subservience of his army, along with Terry O’Quinn’s talent for well-suppressed menace, work well to show that this is not a dictator to be trifled with.
So the stakes are high – not only the fate of Alexandria, the Commonwealth and Portland, but a large amount of the former United States. This tense episode served well to raise the stakes, and also to get our characters where they need to be. The sticking point, obviously, is going to be the currently uninformed Michonne, and the ep gave us a doozy of a cliffhanger as she finally Had Enough of subservient Rick and dragged him bodily out of a helicopter thousands of feet above a rainy forest.
Well, they’re going to have parachutes, of course – does anyone really believe the two main characters are in serious jeopardy three episodes in? But after this episode, and especially that cliffhanger, I’m waiting with bated breath to see what next week brings.
Simon’s Incoherent Blog 