User Reviews

The Walking Dead - Season 5 Episode 7 - "Crossed"

Episode: Crossed

The semi-midseason finale has come upon us and I personally thought it brought back the season from its episodic arrangement of each group and their survival. What was strange about this episode was that it was calm and the characters weren't heated as much as the preparation for the Season 4 midseason finale. I loved the development in Rick as he is usually the peacemaker but when he says sentences such as "he slits his throat", it turned his character to something dark and what the audience would like to see more of from him. The cinematography weaved in and out between slow and fast paced with great tracking shots acting as the viewer of certain characters which brought this episode to life. In this episode, Daryl returns to the church and brings the rest of the group to a rescue mission in pursuit of Carol and Beth. However, when they realise the other group have other solutions, they may struggle to negotiate.

There's loads of scenes to talk about in this episode but I especially enjoyed the group taking the other officers as hostages in search for a "there's for our's" strategy. First of all, the detail of the walkers lying on the ground was amazingly realistic. It nailed the decaying of them matching the length of the disease spreading and they partly looked melted, this impressed me a lot even though it wasn't the heart of the scene. However, Rick's eyes in this scene completely scared me as he was pointing the gun at the officer who attacked Daryl, it felt as if I was knowing everything he was thinking, whether to kill him or not kill him? Assisted with a inclusive mid shot, Rick looked bloodthirsty and unforgiving whilst possessing a god like essence. The sudden conversion between calmness and action when the bullets started firing was unexpected from the audience due to the narrative containing a calm approach to this rescue mission. I for one, thoroughly enjoyed this scene and it made me rethink the future of this episode or this season.

Daryl surprised me this episode as his main purpose at this time is to save Beth and Carol whilst leaving the audience indecisive about whether he has feelings for Carol or not. I am a massive fan of his character normally but he played a vital part this episode and became the old Rick or what Rick used to be like, caring and non violent to a certain extent. When the group were planning on how to rescue Beth and Carol, their first idea is to kill everyone they come across and yet I was surprised when Daryl agreed with Tyreese's idea about an even trade as I thought he would want serious revenge. This was the beginning of a new Daryl, explaining to the audience why he's a fan favourite. He knows the idea of reasoning and doesn't want to solve everything with violence, an attribute Rick has developed. This was ongoing throughout the episode and I loved his character progression in this episode as if he has "grown up" in the apocalyptic world. Very great acting and an amazing portrayal.

This episode featured a combination of shots to show fast paced situations and tension building. When the action occurred, I loved the switch to a fast tracking shot alternating between Rick's side of the group and the officer's view of them. It promoted the dangers of people in this world and it was all quick to take in but somehow effective. Once again, the amazing attention to detail with the different buildings and the decrepit style of them really added to the atmosphere as if it was strictly between Rick's group, Dawn's group and the walkers. Finally, the ending shot of Sasha passed out on the floor and the officer sprinting in the distance was an inventive cliffhanger, we as an audience have so many things to worry about with this mid shot, is Sasha alive? What's going to happen to the officer? Most importantly, will Rick's group survive? Thoroughly enjoyable to watch with this sequence.

"Crossed" is a great set up for the midseason finale as the audience's interpretation is that nothing good is going to happen but they're left a week to ponder over their questions. Character development was shown in their approaches to how to handle things with Tyreese and Daryl being the peacemakers and solving things without violence. The cinematography was ongoing as if it was all filmed in one shot in certain scenes and the camera is moving for ages, a technique I love and is very hard to do in modern filmmaking. The buildings were decrepit and it makes the audience really involved in the world they live in and doesn't leave it for them to imagine what it would look like. You can see that the directors really put in the effort to set up the scene, especially with a city location. We're approaching the midseason finale and it has really left the audience puzzled to what is going to happen between the two groups. Along with this, I love the representation of different dangers as if walkers aren't the only threat in this world and "people are worse" as Daryl said in the season premiere. A good episode to view and I am excited for the midseason finale.

...."I'm Rick Grimes, you have two of my people..."

The last three episode were bottle episodes, so we need it more characters and more things happening. In this episode we have it but the last two were better.

Crossed it is a typical slow episode, like a set up for the mid season finally. The plots are beth in the hospital, maggie, glenn, tara, eugene, rosita and abraham, gabriel escaping, and rick and the others in Atlanta.

The plot of beth is very simple, she is helping carol to wake up, but dawn want to stop the treatment, because they are waiting medical supplise. We learn more about dawn past and what happened to here.

The plot of greamt is interesting and fun. I love the part of glenn, rosita and tara, the interaction between them is really good and the dialoge is great. Maggie takes care of eugene, and later he wakes up.

Carl tries to help gabriel using weapons, really nice from him, but gabriel takes a machete and makes a hole in the floor and escape. A dumbass.

The most important part is rick and the others in atlanta. Sasha is very bad for the death if bob, a really hard moment for her. I love the part of rick and the others looking for the police men, daryl fighting really badass. The other part is a bit slowly but there are good dialoge. The cliffhanger is not really dramatic.

Crossed is a slowly and solide episode, the progress of the season is good and the development of the characters is good.

A lot of people have commented on how nothing really happens in this episode. In linear terms, this is very true, but there's actually quite a lot happening. As a summary: Beth personally takes care of Carol; Rick and company attempt to take police hostage in order to save Carol; Sasha tries to deal with losing Bob; Abraham slowly recovers, whilst Glenn persuades Rosita to go wherever they go; Father Stokes struggles with his faith and to pick up arms against the dead!

To be absolutely honest though, this episode resorted to the routine of Season 4; taking it slow, stretching out a storyline to last more than one episode. It can be a little annoying at times, considering how long we have to wait until a resolution, but on the other hand, I'm now fully psyched for the mid-season finale!

There was a lot to enjoy in this one. Personally, I enjoyed Glenn, Tara and Rosita's detour and Sasha's big mistake in the final moments. These policemen are becoming more and more dangerous by the second!

On the downside, there wasn't a lot of Beth this time around, and she hasn't changed from her "fourth episode character". In addition, scenes at the Church seemed negligible amongst the rest of the content, there was almost no need for it be there if only just to include Carl, Michonne and Father Stokes.

Overall, a nice setup, but let's hope the mid-season finale can take it a step further just like the premiere!

7.9/10

This episode of The Walking Dead brings us back to a similar tempo to what we had at the beginning of the season, as opposed to the three previous (and mostly filler) episodes. This episode focuses on all three (now four) groups of survivors, and while each of their stories progress only slightly, it creates the perfect blend of everything we've grown to love and hate from this show. There is action and plan-making from Rick's group. There is the self centered and paranoid Father Gabriel, whom I love to hate. On top of that, I didn't even mind the very little time that the episode spent on Beth at the hospital, because it that storyline had been in an episode like Slabtown, that would have taken up half of the episode! If there was anything disappointing or uneventful, it was the stalemate Abraham's group that gave Rosita very little back-story, showed Glenn fishing, and had Abraham staring into the distance the entire time. My verdict is that this episode definitely got me ready for the mid-season finale with a reoccurring false sense of hope looming over my shoulder throughout. Now that we're all caught up with these characters, I can't wait to see how the hospital battle goes down, who turns on who, and what exactly Father Gabriel will do to mess up everything for the group. *One side note...where the hell is Morgan?* 8.75/10

-The only exciting part was when Rick and the group ambush the cops. This salvaged what was left of this dull episode. Everything else was filler.

-So much filler that in fact I could wipe myself with it for days and have more on the roll to spare; anyone need toilet paper? I could have written a better script.

-Abraham on his knees the whole episode is meant to symbolize his hopeless state, yeah, whatever; showing him like this for the whole episode felt like a waste of screen time to me. I got the point the last episode; yeah, he's depressed and has nothing to live for, move on. I don't need to see him like this the whole episode. Filler. Don't even get me started on Eugene who did nothing in the episode. What a waste of the character's potential.

-Glen and Maggie go Fishing? Sounds like the start to a bad joke to me. Boring. I don't care. Nobody else does either. Waste of screen time.

-I would have preferred to see the conversations between Eugene and the group this episode; instead the writers chose to show Eugene asleep and Abraham doing nothing on his knees. Move this thing along, please, and stop repeating the mistakes of season 2 with these fillers.

-Bad dialogue between Abraham's group throughout. Boring and dull. Who wrote this script? At least have something exciting happen to the group besides let's go fishing 2.0.

-Gabriel leaves the church? Interesting. So the whole time after the massacre he's been plotting to leave. Could have been made more interesting by having something more significant happen to him than a Christian zombie attacking him, but okay, what do I know. Yeah, yeah, symbolism.

-Quit with all the water metaphors, too. Everyone's drinking water; Abraham, Glenn, Maggie, the cop, Sasha. I get it, water and similar necessities and resources symbolize a lot in the zombie apocalypse. However, nobody cares about symbolic episodes; we want zombies, action, and more zombies.

-Real machine gun bullets would have killed every police officer in that hospital car 5 times over. I'm just supposed to ignore this for the purpose of the show, I know, whatever, so not a big deal. I just like more believable scenes in my shows is all. Reminds me of the silliness of the van somehow magically landing on its wheels on the last episode even though physics would clearly have preferred the van hit the ground face first or upside-down.

-Maybe I'm just mad because I expect so much more from one of my favourite shows. I just hope the show gets better and stops with all these filler episodes.

-Oooooh, I saw the ending coming a mile away, not exciting to me at all. Not a good cliffhanger.

Producers: USE YOUR AIR TIME WISELY. EVERY MINUTE OF THE SHOW SHOULD FREAKING COUNT. THE SHOW FEELS SO SHORT WITH ALL THE LONG ASS COMMERCIALS IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY ANYMORE. I WANT AT LEAST 50 MINUTE LENGTH; 35-40 MINUTES DOESN'T CUT IT ANYMORE.

I don't want to wait every week for filler episodes. Let's hope for a killer mid-season finale that actually gets somewhere.

6/10.

Let me explain.

Every television show has an episode that happens right before a big event. Usually the second-to-last episode in a season or mid-season, but there are exceptions to that rule. I call those Chess Episodes, because it's less about the climax and more about simply moving chess pieces to prepare for one.

"Crossed" was one of those episodes. The three episodes before it focused exclusively on a certain group, none of which was Rick's. They helped build an understanding of the show. "Slabtown" may have been terrible, but it was necessary.

Now "Crossed" is not a bad episode of television; that's why I gave it eight stars. But it features no resolution. It simply moves chess pieces around the board, and leaves you craving the mid-season finale, which is always good on AMC.

If AMC knows how to do one thing right, it's how to end an episode. "Crossed" features one of the best ends to an episode I've ever seen.

The acting was (mostly) good, the directing was predictable but effective, and the writing was, well, it wasn't all that great, but it wasn't bad.

The storyline is empty, dialogs were weak and some really non logical scenes. Rick and his friend set a trap on ex-police from hospital. Although they had some time to put someone on the roof with a sniper, surround them from different directions and take cover, no they jump on them in front. OK, then when third cop came with a car we see that first one cop jump inside through open door and then how he opens it again!? After shooting the car stops and two cuffed cops ran? Again nobody takes cover making them easy target, but gun heavy loaded cop choose to wrestle with Daryl!!?? Maggie put away knife which she didn't take in previous scene!!?? Whole episode seems like a trailer...

I love this episode. It has a lot of side-plots and is entertaining throughout. The best moments are the ones with Tara. She is a hilarious character and I liked her from her first appearance in season 4 on. She and Beth are the "shining suns" in this TV series and I like that.

Rick's side-plot is very thrilling and it's cool to see how they planned the whole operation.

Beth's story really grabbed me and I got so furious when Dawn allowed the douche-bag of a police officer to switch off Carol's devices. Props to Beth for handling the situation so well and like a pro. I enjoyed this episode very much!