Review of Them

I will be honest, I started out hating this week's episode of The Walking Dead before it had even started. Last week was such a car crash I have been in a state melancholy for the last seven days. My rage only grew in the pre-credits scene as well. As we fade in we see Maggie sitting under a tree attempting to be deep and emotional with a zombie slowly advancing on her rear. I was honestly rooting for the zombies to finally get a win and take her out of the game… Alas this was not meant to be. Also Daryl ate a worm, no idea why, a packet of crisps does not even feel most people up, that worm was a waste for everyone… especially the viewer, I'd like those 30 seconds of my life back. There were also numerous dead frogs, I assumed they'd honoured a suicide pact because they thought 'I can't handle watching another episode' and left their bodies in plain view as a message to the director. I also liked the little 'how much longer have we got?' question that was banded about. I checked and there were 39 long, worm eating, frog murdering, soul killing minutes left, cheers for the reminder Maggie… Sheamus (the big pasty ginger fella who resembles the WWE wrestler) found some booze and drank it even though he, like everyone else, was suffering dehydration. Nice one pal, that will definitely help your rapidly declining health. The group ate some dogs, which was fairly amusing and they were almost certainly sent to the group for that purpose by the mystery man who creeps up on the ladies in the closing minutes. The dog meat made the vicar lose his faith and he threw his collar in the fire, which I assume was meant to be incredibly symbolic, but I just do not care enough about his character to find this turn of events evenly slightly interesting. Daryl is apparently a cheeky smoker, often searching for 'water' so he can have a quick nicotine fix. And I have a problem with that. Non-smokers smell the smoke on a smoker as soon as they are within arms length, how was no-one questioning him about this? And let's be honest, everyone in that group is a non-smoker now, I doubt Marlboro are still churning out their cancer sticks when humanity is basically in ruin. Daryl cried as well, but not tears of sadness, one of the show runners had just told him he was a fan favourite and he was incredibly touched, it's all in the Behind The scenes video... Honest. Rick also finally dropped the bomb 'We are the walking dead' and although it was cool to hear a character finally say it, we are in the midst of season 5 and the only people who had not realised The Walking Dead actually referred to the survivors, were also the same people who thought the doors in episode one said 'Don't Dead Open Inside'. And those people are idiots, so forget those guys. Not much really happened in this episode, it was all about the logistical problems of existing in a post-apocalyptic world, but strangely it was not that bad and despite the few issues I have with it, I quite enjoyed it. I think The Walking Dead works best when there is a main baddie who we all love to hate and these issues take the backdrop. Shane and The Guvnor are perfect examples, their bad deeds took the limelight and the inter-personal and survival issues of the group seemed much more intense because the whole situation could explode at any moment. The Terminus freaks would have been a brilliant addition to the bad guy rota, but their leader had his head smashed in with a red handled machete a bit prematurely. I appreciate AMC have been mixing with the formula of the show, but I have prayed they never do it again; the old formula worked incredibly well and made the show the success it is. I have a strong feeling the man who played out with the creepy music box at the end will be the next vindictive genius to create havoc amongst the group and give that whole 'everything is on a knife edge' feeling back to the show.