You kill or you die. Or you die and you kill.

OK, so the finale kind of won my heart. Did it make me promise to show up for another date next season? Not so sure. But I most certainly let it buy me dinner last night. I actually sat on the edge of my seat and felt fear and exhilaration, at least for moments. And that is saying something, since my expectations were so low I was watching the episode on my Kindle in an Upper East Side Whole Foods. If kale salad has ever accompanied true suspense, it did today.

I loved the opening visual. We have focused on zombie eyes off and on throughout the series and they feature in this season’s credits in a new way. The sure fire proof of someone turned zombie (before they lunge at you to eat your flesh) is in the eyes. So when we started in the deep abyss of an eye, in a haggard, sunken socket, I was expecting a zoom out to some new zombie terror. Except for the persistent human heartbeat that overlaid the shot. So then I thought maybe we were getting some absolutely terrifying suggestion that the zombies could reanimate – that in some way Milton was right and the original human is still inside. When we zoomed out to the Governor in full-on torture sadism mode, ah ha! Maybe it is not the zombies who possess the kernel of their old humanity; maybe it is the humans who have always possessed the kernel of their future zombie?

I’m a damn mystery to me

I never thought I’d say this, but damn am I going to miss Merle! In a world populated by characters so thinly sketched I can see my own hands, bored and twiddling thumbs, through their half-baked motivations, at least Merle had something like coherence. My favorite line in the episode (chosen for the title of this post) was Merle’s quote to Rick: I don’t know why I do what I do. I’m a damn mystery to me. This should be a motto for most of these characters, since why any of them does what they do is beyond me at this point, but at least Merle embodied this mystery. I’m not saying he was a fully fleshed out character either, but watching him oscillate between being a racist bastard and caring brother, angry outsider and betrayed friend gave some kind of depth to his motives.

That is a Slaughter

Hi friends,

So it comes down to this: two white men presuming the right to trade a black woman as their property to settle their own disputes. The racial politics of this show have been so messy and messed up that I can’t quite tell if this image is intentional with its racial charge. If this moment is finally digging into the race themes of the show, then it has the potential to be quite brilliant. My hope would be that Michonne would upend the whole thing somehow, revealing the hubris of these guys for what it is. But my sense is that she will remain little more than a pawn in the game playing out between the Governor and Rick. My sense is that we are now supposed to have picked our sides – Gov.=evil because he’s setting a trap and Rick=good because he wants Herschel to talk him out of giving Michonne over. My sense is that the deeper question of why these men think they even have the right to trade in and offer gifts of black bodies to save white bodies to each other will go unanswered.

My prediction –

The weak shall inherit the earth

I am so hesitant to say this, but I liked this week’s episode. Or at least, I found more promise in where the show might be going, despite (because of?) the reprieve from the prison/Woodbury showdown. The moment the “previously on” started, I pumped my fist in the air: we are going back, in some small way, to those explosive first episodes and to the genuine shock and potential the series represented when Rick was stumbling around this new world with no other guides than Morgan and Duane and substantially less heroic angst to weigh down his stunningly heroic actions!

Aside from the obvious ways in which Morgan was just a cipher for Rick’s madness – “I have to believe you can come back from this” meaning “I have to believe *I* can come back from this” – it was also fascinating to see how another person is “surviving” the apocalypse.

I didn’t know the Messiah complex was contagious

OK gang, here we are again. I have given up deciding if I like this show and I’m just going to track the themes that we’ve been discussing the last few weeks: namely, the retrogressive and disturbing gender politics and the ethics of post-apocalyptic fantasy land:

1) After weeks of almost complete reticence, Michonne offers us the most prescient take-down of Andrea’s problematic fascination with the Governor by calling her on her preposterous assumption that somehow she will save all the humans from their own worst instincts, despite the fact that she doesn’t seem aware in anyway of what people are really up to.

2) That said, Rick, Shane, Herschel, the Governor, and even Glen to a certain degree have all been offered as Messiah figures and no one has given them the same smack-down, so there is something gross about the fact that Andrea is denied this possibility (even though I think Michonne is totally right to call her on her delusions).

Noise Pollution

Hi friends,

Well, I just can’t imagine that Daryl is actually gone. But what will be the circumstances of his return? Will Merle be admitted to the group at a later date, or will the bonds of blood prove insufficient in a post-apocalypse? Will chosen family surpass family of birth? Does this world really need a man with a code, as Carol puts it? Or have men with codes gone the way of the constant buzz of sound that plagues our modern, pre-apocalyptic world? The idea of a code seems so quaint, a nostalgic reference not only to certain forms of loyalty, but to the patriarchal structure that held those forms in place. More importantly, is TWD finally becoming a bit more self-aware of the social structures that always seem to hang in the background but never surface in any meaningful – or rather, perhaps, intentional – way? I noted three explicit references to race – Merle’s comment about the ‘irony’ of Michonne’s shackled walkers, and the short exchange between Tyrese and the creepy (but increasingly endearing) white prisoner…the one trying to get into prison, the other not trying to get out. I’m not enthusiastic about the change-up in showrunners in general for this show – but this episode made me hopeful that some of the more implicit themes that we’ve talked about together might become more explicit.

The Screaming Pits

Hi all,

Well, as soon as the episode opened on those two new black characters, I figured the helpful, black inmate, Oscar was not long for this world. Following up on our conversation from last week, I can’t say this episode helped all that much with our concerns about a white heteropatriarchy, then – especially given the strange scene between Carol and Axel in which he assumes she’s a lesbian because of her short hair. That scene seemed to be playing for a very rare laugh by deploying too many stereotypes at once for my liking. That being said, Maggie did seem to me to become solidified as a genuine leader of the group as she led the charges, kept everyone covered during shoot outs, killed an actual human (was Merle’s buddy her first human kill?), was the one to give the necessary head-shot to Oscar, and pretty much led the close to the battle after Rick’s delusional state had him see Shane dressed like x-man, Wolverine, come striding through the smoke. I guess when I asked last week if we’d see more about Rick and the strange phone call, that’s a little something of what I was wondering…will we see the psychic break permeate other aspects of his life? Will it just be voices and visions of the departed? Or will madness start creeping into him elsewhere too? A few questions and thoughts to get our conversation going this week:

It’s Over Now

Hi all,

Mid-season finale next week – oh no! Well, that’s testimony to how much I’m actually enjoying this season. As that musical heartbeat pound finished out this episode, and the Gov. pulled a willing Andrea into the type of embrace Maggie had resisted just moments ago, I found myself getting excited not only for what is to come, but for all the twists, turns and stories we’ve had so far too. We’ve got so much hanging – who are all those other names on the Gov’s creepy diary list, and just what’s up with the pen strokes ///////. Where’s he hiding his zombie kid? Just who was on the phone to Rick – um, ok, that one’s a little Lost-style annoying alterna-universe, but I’m hopeful it will end up as something more interesting (Rick unraveling, perhaps, or…?). And how touching was that scene with Carol’s return – I didn’t realize I cared that much…even as it kind of felt like it was for Michonne’s benefit. Nevertheless, I found myself misting up a little. A few thoughts on this episode:

I believe that children are our future

Well, team, I am very curious to see if Martin and Shelly came around on this episode. I continue to find this season totally fascinating and gripping as suspenseful, post-apocalyptic horror. I was actually clenching my fists and swatting the air with anxiety as Michonne honed in on the Governor’s live zombie doll collection, which is a kind of suspense I haven’t felt for this series in a long time – not to mention I felt it without the on-screen presence of a single zombie. That feeling alone was enough to keep the flame of hope alive that the series has indeed found new footing.

But even more than ploys to get my heart racing, the juxtapositions between the prison and Woodbury allow the show to explore many of the themes that they probably would have just talked to death last season. I keep thinking about your comment from last week, Martin, that part of what we are exploring are new notions of time: what does it mean to live without a full sense (any sense?) of the future and an overly poignant sense of the past? This hit me hard when the camera panned out on the festival scene: it was so suburbanly cheerful I actually wondered for a split-second if it was a Lost-like flashback to The Time Before. The people of Woodbury aren’t planning for the future; they are clinging with nostalgia to the past, which, as Andrea points out, requires a dangerous de-fanging of the present.

The killer within

Friends,

At one level, this is a really difficult episode to write about. The new and improved The Walking Dead (2.0) continues to demonstrate excitement, creativity, and the ability to raise the stakes. Somehow, we’ve gone from dramatic stasis to genuinely terrifying, gripping peril and the brutal deaths of major characters; and not only does “The Killer Within” not feel manipulative, like it’s going for cheap shocks by killing off dispensable cast members, but it pulls off this week’s deaths after three episodes’ work in reinventing two poorly written characters by making them resemble something like actual people. I don’t mean to sound cold. This week’s episode was visceral (no pun intended), unendurably tense, and revoltingly bloody. It leaves you shaken and winded. I’m just impressed with the discipline the writers have shown in recognizing the weaknesses of their show, and systematically addressing them one by one. Taking the time to craft your cannon fodder well – that takes a lot of care. I’m impressed.