Monday, November 24, 2014

The Walking Dead: Season 5 Episode 7 - Crossed


Hello everyone and welcome back to our Walking Dead discussion!  We're getting closer and closer to a Rick/Dawn showdown, and as most of us probably assumed it'll happen in the mid-season finale next week.  But, this episode certainly covered a lot of ground and once again drove home an important fact about still being alive this far into a zombie apocalypse: TRUST NO ONE!  Or, at least, be careful who you decide to trust.  While we spent the last few episodes in isolated storylines, I'll admit this was refreshing to check in on every group of survivors to get people in place for episode 8.  But, in general, I still like the isolated storyline approach as well.  Anyway, let's dive into the discussion points!

Discussion Points
Church
  • Well, I guess the writers are treating us with some respect and telling us they don't need to hand hold us from the cliffhanging scene in the woods with Daryl and showing us Daryl explain everything that went down and that he brought Noah with us.   It was pretty obvious at the end of last week's episode that this is what went down.  Basically, you could consider last week's episode exactly what Daryl told the team.  Granted, Daryl would never use more than 5 words to explain any scenario!   Maybe he just brooded it in Rick's direction.
  • No surprise, Carl wanted to go to Atlanta so Rick had to ask Michonne to stay back and watch the Grimes kids (well and maybe half of a Shane kid).  Rick fought the "I owe Carol more than you" fight with Michonne and apparently won out.   So Rick took Daryl, Noah, Sasha and Tyreese on the rescue mission.  Meanwhile, they tore the church up to create some defenses for their current shelter.  
  • Once team Rick left, Carl took it upon himself to teach Gabriel the ways of this new world asking him to choose his walker slaying weapon.  The kid clearly has no filter when it came to easing this guy into a life of slaying reanimated dead people.  Michonne tried a different approach and let him know she's there if he needs to talk.   But, he went ahead and locked himself in the other room, cut himself a hole in the floor with his machete and left.  
  • My first thought was....oh great now there's a hole in the fortified church.   But are walkers even smart enough to crawl under a church and climb in?  I guess we'll find out.  
  • Gabriel wasted no time running into trouble with a walker.  I mean, he couldn't bring the machete?  I guess the point is he's not ready to turn into a "killer" yet.  He even saw a cross around the walker's neck and couldn't bash a rock on her skull.  I'd wonder what Gabriel's motivation for escaping is, but I watched the scene for next week on Talking Dead.  I won't discuss the scene but I will say we should probably focus on the fact that he took a look at that "You'll burn for this" phrase etched into the sign of the church.  There's a chance he's dealing with some serious guilt. 

Former Team D.C.  (Team GRATEM?)
  • So, I'm not sure where that herd of walkers went that was just a few yards ahead of them, but it looks like our D.C. bound crew hasn't moved since Abraham bashed in Eugene's head.  Maggie pretty much said he needs to wake up or things aren't gonna be good.  
  • Meanwhile, Abraham hasn't said a word since his outburst.  Chances are he's reflecting on if he wants to continue living in this world.  His whole reason for continuing to live was to save the world from the Walker plague (with getting Eugene to D.C.).  I'm sure glad we had an isolated episode to build up that character depth and bring some unspoken understanding in this episode of a few short clips of brooding silence!
  • Supplies are also running low.  The fire hose is almost out of water.  Tara is coming up with funny acronyms using initials from their names to come up with their team name (see section title).  
  • Glenn takes Tara and Rosita to go find fresh water and food if they can find it.  Tara tried to bring some humor to the trip but Glenn wasn't having it.  In fact he's totally p.o.d at Eugene's lies.  Fortunately, Tara had some private time with Eugene (who also saved her life at one point), and she defended him for using his one skill to stay alive.  
  • We got some back story on Rosita who basically said she was with her own team that Abraham and Eugene came across in Texas.  Abraham liked her fighting style and brought her along for the mission.  
  • The only water they found was in a dirty stream.  No fear, Rosita learned how to filter water.  It takes awhile, but it's certainly safer.  I want to say she mentioned that Eugene told her how to do it.  So maybe this episode they were slowly building up reasons to keep this guy around.  He certainly said he was smart and smarts may help in this world.  
  • They noticed there were somehow some fish in that dirty water and they put some crazy contraptions together to catch them successfully.  I hesitate to bring this up but did anyone else sense some vibes between Glenn and Rosita?  I'm going to assume that in this day and age of television a male character and female character can talk and joke around and smile at each other without having to assume they're going to get it on.  Because, there is no need to mess with the Glenn and Maggie dynamic!  People like it, end of story!  I think the basic point of the exchange was Glenn trying to make sure Rosita would stick with their team regardless of what happens. 
  • Meanwhile, Maggie tended to Eugene and made sure Abraham didn't do anything drastic.  Earlier, he almost snapped at Rosita until Maggie held a gun to his head.  Basically, Maggie told him to get over himself.  Actually, I think that's exactly what she said if I recall.  Eventually she brought him water and she asked if he was hoping she'd shoot him.  He said that he thought that's what he wanted.  But at the end of his scene he grabbed the water, indicating that he chooses to live on.  
  • Now Glenn enjoys Tara's comedy, Rosita and Abraham are on board for new adventures and Eugene woke up!! 
  • Surely they're going to go back to the church, right? There's no way they'd know to go to Atlanta.  Of course, there's no telling what threats GRATEM will hit on their way back to the church. 

Hospital
  • Well, Talking Dead last week played a trick on us with the scene for this week.  Beth fought to keep the power on on Carol's machines to keep her alive asking the cop how much power he's using for his CD player.  Dawn needed to show strength in front of the cop and told him to shut Carol's power down indicating that Beth had just essentially killed Carol.   But, once the cop left Dawn gave her the key to the medicine and told Beth to save Carol.  OHHH NO!!  Now we have to be sympathetic to Dawn!  (I kinda figured we were heading in that direction.)   Still, Dawn's reason for helping Beth was because she has observed that she is not weak.  Score! 
  • I'll admit, I didn't understand the scene with the Doctor guy (already forget his name).  He figured out Beth had a key then talked about how he was trying to save "her".  Is he talking about Carol?  Maybe he was defending his medicinal choices because with the last patient, he tricked Beth into killing him.  Anyway, by the end of the scene he was on board with helping Beth, told her the right medicine and wished her luck.  Yeah, I'm still thinking this guy will be joining team Rick too if he survives the confrontation.  Same with Dawn.  Maybe even the new Bob guy but we'll have to talk about him.  
  • Anyway, Beth recruited some older patient dude to do some fine acting of choking on something to cause a distraction while Beth got the meds she needed.  Beth then was able to get into Carol's room and administer the meds and say hi to an unconscious Carol.  Stay tuned!

Rescue Team
  • Rick drew up a great plan of attack that would silently get them into the hospital, silently kill people and silently extract Beth and Carol with military precision. 
  • Tyreese didn't like all of the unnecessary death and proposed capturing 2 cops and doing a prisoner exchange.  Daryl supported Tyreese, which appeared to surprise Rick.  Poor guy volunteers to lead people and no one listens to him! 
  • They used Noah as bait (since Dawn has the cops looking for him) and 2 cops come after him.  Rick and crew surround them and boom, they have prisoners.  But, no one saw extra cop dude coming!  Rick, Sasha and Tyreese get their current prisoners away while Daryl dealt with extra cop guy.  There was a brutal scene amongst the melted walkers (new Walker variation of the week!) where Daryl ripped a skull off of a walker to hit this cop dude over the head with it.  Then Rick showed up with his silenced weapon.  He was fully planning to kill this cop and Daryl stopped him yet again saying that 3 prisoners is better than 2.  
  • Sasha is still coming to terms with Bob's death, upset over the fact that she had to let Tyreese "officially" de-walkerize him.  But Tyreese told her that she should be happy she got to say goodbye to Bob and should remember that the most.  
  • What are the odds that one of the "good" cops (according to Noah) would have the name Bob too?  Now, I don't think he overheard Sasha talking at any point, so maybe that was a pure coincidence that worked in his favor.  Basically, Cop Bob seems very trustworthy and has been very helpful in suggesting how to confront Dawn.  The female cop was arguing that it wouldn't work because they already want Dawn gone.  She suggested letting them go and they would get them the prisoners they need or something like that.  
  • Anyway, everyone chose to listen to Cop Bob, even Rick.  Sasha was left alone with Bob.  I think Rick was going to negotiate the trade and brought the other prisoners?  Anyway, Cop Bob  discussed how a friend of us was melting on that pavement and it should've been him.  But, it was Dawn that ordered him to stay behind.  I guess there might be truth to this story, as it might indicate why he's intent on helping Dawn.  In any case, he was using it for an opportunity to use a way too understanding Sasha (who you know, is dealing with mourning of her own) to his advantage.  While Sasha grabbed the sniper to take out Bob's "walker friend", Bob ran Sasha's head into the window and then bolted off.  
Yikes!  I'll admit it, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  All you wanted to do was trust this guy, but I certainly saw this as his opportunity if he was going to take it.  The other thing that was great was the manipulative music.  The scene kind of tied into Abraham grabbing that water bottle, Glenn and crew having a positive day, and now Sasha is going to do her good samaritan dead and end this guy's friend's walker life just as she wasn't able to do for HER Bob.  And then right when he shoved her into the window, the manipulative inspiring music just cut right off.  Hysterical!  

Everything is set up pretty well for the mid-season finale!  But, until then, we have this episode and everything that preceded it to talk about.  As always, I look forward to our discussion.  Hope you enjoyed my ramblings and I'll see you next week!

3 comments:

MJ said...

Watched the show but not Talking Dead yet. Read the EW review and agree - writers are suddenly making our characters a

little dumb lately for the convenience of putting them in harms way. LOL Happens on all shows though. Did you Sasha's

reaction to learning the guy's name is Bob ? Interesting that Lamson knew that Rick had been a cop though. Did Daryl get

bitten or scratched ? His hand/fingers went right into that walkers mouth ! Obviously they were really just putting all the

pieces in place for the midseason finale but not a bad ep. And just what is this preacher thinking he's doing ? They should have just followed Ricks plan to begin with. And why would any one follow tyreese ? LOL

My co-workers are positive Dawn is not in charge and that she answers to someone else - due to that they hardly seem to

listen to her or respect her so they think the real person in charge put Dawn in this position and they are listening to her

because of the real boss. I don't know about that though. But wouldn't it be a great twist if the doctor or Noah were the real shot callers ? LOL I figured they'd make Dawn a little sympathetic - she's not a Gareth or Governor afterall. But the doctor hinted that she did not do it out of the kindness of her heart. And Noah did tell us that owing Dawn is not a good thing.

LOl on Daryl 'brooding it at Rick'. At work we discussed the hole in the floor thing - we figure it's highly improbable a walker would slither under the church and find that hole. And if the writers have that happen it would be totally LAME. But no - I got no sense of 'vibes' from Rosita and Glenn.

Mike V. said...

All good points. lol I certainly saw Sasha's reaction to the guy being named Bob.

Good point on Daryl...that certainly was convenient that he didn't get bitten!

Interesting theory on Dawn having a boss. I don't buy it based on some of the conversations but it's entirely possible. I think people don't respect her anyway which is why there's continuous talk of a revolt. Yeah I figured they'd make Dawn sympathetic too. Good point on Doc making that comment. She's TWD's Mr. Gold. lol Everyone always owes him something!

Agreed on the hole in the floor. Yeah...I'm sure too that there were no vibes intended with Rosita and Glenn. lol

mj said...

I don't think she has a boss either but their speculation was fun