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 –

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).

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. 

Welcome to Woodbury

Hi all,

What a shame that the  surprise reveal of Merle was given away during the “previously on” – but the Governor’s arrival so overshadowed everything else that I can’t complain! I don’t know about you guys, but to me it was a relief to get into some new stories! Funnily enough, before we even reached the linguistic battles mid-episode, I was already taking notes to write this post on docile bodies – between the last two weeks being set in the prison, the zombie pack-mules, and Woodbury’s rigid forms of lockdown, we have a season shaping up that is ripe for some Foucauldian interpretation.