The Walking Thread

[Content Note: Violence. Spoilers are lurching around undeadly herein.]


"Let's see if there are any good decisions in here... NOPE!"
The title of this week's episode of The Walking Dead was "Indifference," and so much LOL because obviously. The writers are definitely just fucking with us now, right?

When last we left our ragtag band of doomsday survivalists, everyone had the Icky Poopoo Cough Flu; a team of Daryl, Michonne, Tyreese, and Bob had headed off to a veterinary hospital to collect antibiotics; and Carol had admitted to Grimes that she killed Karen and Rick from Accounting to stop the spread of the flu.

The Vet Team still hasn't returned, because their car got overrun by zombies, so Grimes and Carol decide to go pillage some local neighborhoods in search of drugs. Grimes isn't speaking to Carol, and she tells him, "I was trying to save lives. I had to try. Somebody had to." And Grimes is all, "Maybe," because he's still busily filtering her actions and perceptions through his Validity Prism, as if every single member of their stupid collective, including his own kid, hasn't killed a person under dubious circumstances, at best—and most of them far more dubious than Carol killing people with a flu that had just turned Patrick into a rage-zombie that tore through an entire cell block in a matter of hours.

But, ahh, ha ha, Grimes isn't exactly known for internal consistency. Or being fair to women. So, ya know: "Maybe."

Something something Vet Team tries to get a new vehicle to work. Something something zombies. Tyreese clearly has a death wish at this point, and Michonne gives him the side-eye. Something something Important Conversation about anger yawn. Daryl gets their cool new minivan working, and they take off for the veterinary hospital (which will magically not be surrounded by ten biebillion zombies this time), but not before Bob confesses to Daryl that he's an alcoholic, which will definitely be important later!

Grimes and Carol arrive in an abandoned neighborhood and find a young couple hiding in a bathroom. They are so adorable that they will certainly die instantly! Carol helps put Adorable Guy's dislocated shoulder back in place, which later leads to a conversation about how her husband abused her, but she stayed with him anyway because she was even more frightened of being alone back then. Adorable Girl tells a story about how her leg got fucked up, and it healed funny, but she doesn't care because at least she's still alive! Adorable Couple asks Grimes and Carol if they can join their group, despite Grimes' dire warning about the Icky Poopoo Cough Flu.

Eventually, Grimes relents, but tells them to wait inside the house where they found them. Adorable Couple insists on being helpful. They can gather fruit and stuff! Carol says that's a terrific idea, and Grimes is pouty, because the only thing he hates more than zombies is respecting people's agency! (Actually, it might be a tie.)

And because this is The Walking Dead, where there's nothing more deadly than agency and refusing the aggressively oppressive protection of patriarchs, a little while later, Grimes and Carol discover Adorable Girl's severed leg (really?) and a couple of zombies munching on her corpse.

It's funny how many people are Competent Survivors until they come in contact with Grimes and His Need to Protect Them, and then immediately succumb to zombies when they don't abide his patronizing attempts at control. It's almost like this show is trying to tell me that the worst thing any human being can do is fail to listen to a straight white man who asserts that he knows what's best for your life!

Meanwhile, Vet Team has to beat a hasty retreat from the veterinary hospital because the zombies are closing in. They jump out a window onto a ledge, and Bob falls (COME ON, BOB!), his bag of precious cargo dangling over the edge and into the grabbing hands of a mass of zombies. The rest of the team stop and save him, as well as the bag of which he won't let go—which is subsequently revealed to contain a bottle of booze and no medicine.

"Take one sip before those meds get in our people and I will beat your ass to the ground," Daryl snarls at him. Which only makes sense because Bob didn't get any medicine at all, a contrivance that seems completely implausible, even by The Walking Dead's garbage standards.

Because, let's face it: Is Daryl (who himself obviously makes securing cigarettes a priority during every supply run!) really gonna get pissed at someone for grabbing a bottle of booze in the middle of a zombiepocalypse? All signs point to NO! It's only because Bob ostensibly filled his entire bag (nope) with one bottle of booze (sure) that Daryl is angry, and it makes zero sense, ZERO, that Bob the former Army medic would just not also throw some meds in his bag. UGH THIS FUCKING SHOW.

Anyway. Back at the abandoned neighborhood, Grimes wants to wait for Adorable Guy, of whom there's no sign, but Carol insists that they have to go. Here is yet another instance, in a series of fully eleventy-twelve instances, in which Grimes is clearly putting concern for some stranger who is almost definitely dead ahead of getting back to his children, and please bear that shit in mind as we continue.

Grimes and Carol load up the car, and then Carol reaches to open the passenger door to get in, but it's locked. She looks at Grimes, who tells her she can't come back to the prison with him. WHUT. WHUUUUUUUUUUUUT. WHUT. Grimes tells her that Tyreese will kill her when he finds out it was she who killed Karen, and Carol quite reasonably points out that Grimes doesn't have to tell him.

Except whoooooooooops Grimes being Grimes, he promised Tyreese in a fit of patriarchique that he would find and destroy whoever did the deed. So now Grimes' ass is on the line if he fails to solve the crime. Which is not what Grimes says, of course.

What Grimes says is that he "won't have" Carol near his children anymore. FUCK YOU, BUDDY! NO ONE IS MORE OF A DANGER TO YOUR GODDAMN KIDS THAN YOU ARE! And Carol, who, at some point tells Grimes that he was a better leader than for which she gave him credit, and I barf ten million times, just sort of shruggingly acquiesces to this cruel exile. Grimes helps her pack up another car, and she drives away alone.

AND I HAVE NEVER HATED THIS SHOW MORE THAN I DO RIGHT NOW! THE END!