The Walking Dead S05 E10: Them

Them! Who are we talking about? Is it the friends that were lost this season? Is it our tired and weary ragtag group of survivors? Is it the walkers that hungrily follow them? Or is it a new enemy hiding over the next hill? In last week’s episode of “The Walking Dead,” Rick and Michonne wondered about the diced and sliced walkers in back of Noah’s home. Who killed them? An army marches on its stomach. Napoleon Bonaparte was well aware of this. Without food and water Team Rick is in big trouble. Will they survive?

Search

When you’re hungry and thirsty, you need to conserve fluids; tears can’t be shed and insects suddenly become a feast. The soldiers that are part of the Special Forces are trained to survive under dire conditions. You’d be surprise what you can eat when there is no food left. I was surprised the Abraham didn’t have a few tricks up his sleeve. Daryl and Rick are worried about Judith. Babies don’t do well in an apocalypse. Their little bodies need nourishment to grow. They can hope for rain, but there isn’t a cloud in the sky.

When Daryl goes searching for food, Carol goes with him. Things aren’t right between these two. Is he blaming himself for Beth’s death? Carol tells Daryl that he has to allow himself to grieve. Carol gives Daryl Beth’s knife. I don’t think Daryl is able to grieve. Not yet. The wall he’s built around himself is too thick. Carol does sneak in a kiss even though it’s only on his forehead. I so want these two to get together. It would be like Batman and Wonder Woman getting it on.

Did you ever notice how snappy and angry you get when you’re hungry? When blood sugar levels begin to drop, everyone in the group deals with their hunger by snapping at each other, unfortunately, there’s no Snicker bars to snap them out of it. An army marches on its stomach.

Maggie

Maggie and Sasha are both dealing with their loss in different ways. We all asked ourselves why Maggie never went looking for Beth or even acted like she cared that Beth was missing. I thought it strange and I’m sure many fans did too. Tonight, she deals with Beth’s loss. Carl gives her a music box. The one with the little ballerina. It reminds her of Beth. One telling scene of Maggie’s guilt over Beth’s death is when the group comes upon abandoned cars. Maggie was searching for water and food, but finds a walker in the trunk. The horror with this scene is that this woman was kidnapped while alive and died in that trunk. Maggie slams the trunk shut. What the hell? She didn’t know how to deal with this reminder of Beth. Glenn gets the trunk opened and puts the walker out of her misery.

Sasha

Sasha, on the other hand, is not dealing with Tyreese’s death at all. She wants to kill every single walker in sight even if it means endangering others. Michonne tries to talk sense into her and so does Maggie. Rick’s plan to just toss the walkers over the bridge is working until Sasha decides to go bat shit crazy on one of them. I don’t blame Sasha. Tyreese’s death was unexpected and we are still reeling from this. I would probably want to do some serious damage to a few walkers, too.

Gabriel

I think we’ll find that when things get really bad, people handle religion and God differently. Gabriel is not trustworthy. How do you trust someone who let his parishioners die just so he would stay alive? He is a coward. Maggie knows it. She doesn’t want to talk religion with him. Right now, she’s not thinking to kindly of God or the pastor. Gabriel will have to prove himself to this group and that means that he will have to put them first. I don’t think he can, but Eugene does by volunteering to be the guinea pig when they find bottles of water on the road. Luckily Abe stops him.

Relief

During an apocalypse, you take the good days when you can. Feral dogs become a meal and rain brings the needed water. But a thunder storm forces the team to seek shelter in an old barn that Daryl found while looking for food. While in this barn, Rick opens up about his kids and where he feels the group is going.

Conclusion

This season has proven one thing. The team should listen to Rick (Andrew Lincoln). They need to do what he says because if they would have listened to him, Beth would still be alive. If Beth was alive maybe they wouldn’t have gone to Virginia and that means Tyreese wouldn’t have died. Rick knows that the team is at its lowest point and that they are giving up. Rick wonders if it’s better to be a child in an apocalypse because you grow up learning how to protect yourself. I say yes. What’s your opinion?

Rick’s story about his grandfather and World War II says it all. When you’re in enemy territory, you consider yourself dead. You do what you have to do, then you live. Rick tells his team, “We are the walking dead.” Daryl didn’t understand, that self-inflicted burn from his cigarette didn’t fully allow him to grieve, to understand what Rick was trying to say. “We ain’t them,” Daryl counters. The herd of walkers trying to get inside the barn wakes everyone from their stupor and they pull together as a team once more.

Maggie’s music box is fixed and she wakes Sasha. Maggie is the only one who understands what Sasha is going through. The two of them walk past the storm ravaged walkers to watch the sun rise. They are helping each other find closure over losing their loved ones. The music box doesn’t play its tune until a stranger approaches them. We have a new character, Aaron (Ross Marquand) but how does he know about Rick?

How did you feel about Rick calling the team the walking dead? I thought it was the only way to describe their situation. Let me know what you think and we’ll meet again next week.