Aaron and Deanna are the People We Have Been Waiting For (The Walking Dead Season 5 Second Half)

It's been a while since I have posted about the Walking Dead.  The first two episodes of the second half of season five were basically filler.  First they gave up on one of the best characters in the company by building an entire episode around Tyrsese dying during a digression that barely advance the narrative at all. The episode after that was even less relevant to the main plot.  We spent an hour learning that Ricks group were hungry and tired. I'm pretty sure we knew that since about the 3rd episode of season one, but they spent an hour hammering it home.

And then we met Aaron. The great challenge before the writers of this show is to take a show that has been about survival and zombie kills and elevate into a show about rebuilding civilization. The prison season had moments of this, and those remain the best episodes we've seen.  But mostly the show has been content to put our friends in danger and expect us to be satisfied with the fact that it sometimes lets them die.  But this approach is losing its power as the remaining characters seem to be easily identifiable as Untouchable (Rick, Darryl and Michonne) or Biding Their Time (Everyone else.)

Aaron is the first character with the skill set to make the show about something more than the endless cycle of being chased by zombies and killing incompetent bad guys.  He worked in the Niger delta for an NGO.  He knows how to negotiate with hostile clans and he knows what really matters in building bridges.  The writing on his first full episode was of course uneven.  (The bit about not wanting to eat apple sauce because his mean mommy made him eat apples to make him more manly? Is that a thing? And  I can't for a minute believe they couldn't find a less insulting way to let us know that the new good guy was also our first gay guy on the show.) But there was good stuff too.  He showed that he knows how to negotiate and how to empathize with desperate people.  There is great potential in him.

Last week we met Deanna the putative boss of the Alexandria Safe Zone.  The best characters on this how bring something to the Zombie Apocalypse that was also meaningful in their old life. Deanna was a Congresswoman. For all our national ambivalence about the current congress, the fact is that the House of Representatives is still the best collection of former High School Class Presidents in the world.  You don't get there by accident and you don't stay there without some people skills.  I think Deanna has great promise, although I suspect her run on the show might be short in order to make Rick the unquestioned leader again.  This story is still a hero's quest and Rick is our hero.

It was great to see Rick back in uniform last week.  Andrew Lincoln is a pretty good actor but the show has demonstrated the limits of his range at times.  Rick isn't very convincing when he's overly anxious or bordering with insanity.  Rick is still a cop and a great one.  I think these next few episodes will give us a chance to see him revert to his basic humanity. That doesn't sound especially exciting but this gets me back to the challenge of the show in the first place.  Can they make this horror show a compelling story about how to rebuild a civilization?  It's a tall task but the Aleandria Safe Zone seems like as good a stand in for the Garden of Eden as anything we're going to get.

Predictions.

There are two kinds of Walking Dead fans.  Those who enjoy the zombie kills and can take the story as it comes and those who really want to see where the story goes.  I'm in the latter group and that makes the somewhat pointless art of predictions necessary.

1. Episode 5 will be relatively calm.  I think we get one more hour of the Group getting acquainted with Alexandrians.  There will be an obligatory action scene, most likely involving Aaron and Darryl teaming up to kill some Walkers outside the walls.

2. The next bad guys will be the people that Deanna exiled.  (But not Negan).  I think the last 3 episodes will involve a now familiar pattern of meet a threat, suffer a setback, beat the threat.

3. Morgan will return in Epsiode 7 and bail out Rick's group in the finale.

4. Deanna will die during this confrontation with the bad guys.

5. Of course someone major will die in the finale.  My hunch is Carol because I don't think Deanna buys her Suzy homemaker act for a second.  If there was any doubt about this, her line to Rick about being a great poker player is a less than subtle tip off.  (Tell, if you prefer.) This either leads to her proving invaluable in an unlikely way (for the 10th time) or she will be mistrusted by Deanna and somehow that will go to shit.  The other contenders for a serious death are Glenn and Maggie but they have not built that up at all.

6. We could get a bonus death of a group member, but it won't be anyone we care about. It strikes me that Abraham might not be very useful in Alexandria but I think he will be very useful once Negan shows up and the group truly finds itself fighting wars.  (Season six could be great!) So I don't think it will be him but between Tara, Rosita, Gabriel and Noah, there are some spare people taking up oxygen in the group.

7. The season will end with relative calm and we'll have a time jump before season six.  I expect that Season 6 will find the group having lived a couple years of relative peace. At some point they have to explain Carl going from nine years old to a teenager in such a short time.  And it would be helpful if Judith were out of infancy.

8. I saved this for last because it's the most specific.  Rick will start a relationship with Michonne by season's end.  Of course I have been wrong before.  But I think this is the love story we have been waiting for.  If you think about the group as currently constituted, you essentially have  four adult couples: Glenn & Maggie, Abraham and Rosita, Darryl and Carol, Rick and Michonne.  Only two of these couples are actually having sex but I think that will change soon.  Alexandria should give them the chance to enjoy life a little.  Come to think of it, I think Darry will finally bone Carol...and then she will die.  His many fans of the distaff gender will finally see him have sex with a woman and then he will be the sexiest thing of all: a widower.

The rest of the group are probably not going to pair up anytime soon. In the comic books Eugene ends up with Rosita after Abraham gets killed but that doesn't feel believable on screen.  Father Gabriel is an Episcopal priest but I don't think he's still wrecked with grief about what he did.  Sasha is still mourning Bob and Carl has made the mistake of falling for a feral Emo girl. (We've all been there kid.)  I don't see that working out well which leads me to my last prediction.

9. Enid is a spy.  No one that young survives on the outside for very long.  I think she is a spy for the next group of baddies.  She's probably the person we saw watching the group as they headed towards Alexandria a few weeks back. And she seemed a little too nonchalant about hopping that wall.  I think she was going with a purpose.  I think she was reporting to her old friends, probably the people that Deanna exiled.  She will deliver the trouble to Alexandria and break Carl's little heart in the process.

Walking Dead Season 5 Preview (one episode late)

Last week's season 5 premiere of The Walking Dead was definitely the most action-packed premier in the history of the show.  I was very satisfied with the action and with the character development.  One thing that stuck out to me is how little dialogue our main characters had in the episode.

The most obvious difference between this and the previous seasons is that it (apparently) won't be be focused on a single location.  Season one took place primarily in the Quarry, two on the farm, three in the jail.  Season four was split between the first half in the prison and the 2nd half on the road to Terminus. Season five will apparently also be spent primarily on the road but it's not clear where they will head.  (Presumably they will eventually try to make it to D.C. in pursuit of Eugene's cure.)

The trap that the show has painted itself into is that the survivors seem destined to bounce from one horrible place to the next for as long as this show lasts.  (Which is going to be quite awhile, given it enormous ratings success.)  The only things I can say for sure is that they will encounter some new survivors (including Detective Carver from the Wire) and that they will again cross paths with Gareth again.  I think Gareth has great potential as a character.  It will be fun to see how he interacts with the survivors when they meet up again.  Most importantly, we know that we'll find out what's going on with Beth and with Morgan!  Lots to look forward to.

I like I that the story is unpredictable, at least for now. So rather than make a long list of predictions for the season, I'll focus on the perennial topic of the show: who is going to die and who is going to live.  I have ranked the significant characters below by how much I want them to survive. The number in parenthesis is my estimate of how likely they are to die this season.

1. Rick (0%)  To me, the show is still about him.  I know he's not always the most compelling character and there are some better actors in the ensemble, but I think the show is still centered on his journey through this apocalypse.  I want him to survive to a cure more than anyone else.

2. Darryl (0%). The best actor in the cast and the baddest character among the survivors.  Norman Reedus actually makes more money per episode than Andrew Lincoln, and for good reason.  Fans really would riot if he left the show.  The only way that happens is if gets sick of doing the show.

3. Judith (25%).  Obviously I have no investment in her as an individual but her birth and recent rescue by Tyrese are the only good thing to happen to this group in 4 seasons.

4. Carl (50%).  Similar to the above characters. He represents some semblance of hope for the future and has become a better actor as the seasons go by.  His age limits the story telling in some ways, because it's getting awkward that Carl has gone from 10 to 15 in the roughly 2 years since the apocalypse happened.  (Consider that Laurie must have gotten pregnant at about the same time as the apocalypse and Judith is only right about one year old.) So there must be some temptation to kill him off. But I don't want to see that happen.

5. Michonne (0%).  I still want to know how this woman got to be an expert at wielding a kitana, but I do see infinite possibilities for her in the future.  And she's way too popular to kill off.

6. Maggie (20%).  She's a good actor and very, very, very easy on the eyes.  Now that Hershel is gone, either she or Tyrese will emerge as the conscience of the group.

7. Glenn (70%).  Well, someone important has to die this season and Glenn seems most likely.  His death will be a lost to the cast, but I think he's well positioned to do other things in Hollywood.  And his passing could set up a deep story line for Maggie.

8. Tyrese (40%).  I still think of him as Cutty and I loved the scene last week when he beat that douchebag to death.  But they have clearly established that he is willing to take risks to do the right thing and that's not a recipe for long term survival.

9. Gareth (60%).  I found the Governor's story line deeply disappointing because I don't think the character was well written.  I think that Gareth has potential to be much better and I think the actor has the chops to elevate the story.

10. Morgan (20%).  He's such an integral part of the show, despite only being on 3 episodes.  I think that he's in for the long haul, but it's hard to say for sure.

11. Rosita. (25%) Any woman who makes the effort to keep shaving her legs in the zombie apocolypse deserves to live.

12. Bob (49%)  Ranked ahead of Sash solely because of the Wire.

13. Sasha (51%) Bob ans Sasha are now a couple, which makes me think one of them is doomed. I think Sasha is more likely to die, but I will switch that if Tyrese dies.  The show likes to have people around to mourn the dead.

14. Beth (10%) I think they are trying to open some new doors through her story, which probably means it will carry on for awhile.

15. Father Gabriel I haven't even seen him yet, but he's a Wire alumni so he can't be at the very bottom.

16. Carol (55%).  She's a good actress and her character has become a big part of the group but I just don't see a great arc for her. And if she does hook up with Darryl, she's doomed.  A season of brooding Darryl will be very good for the ratings.

17. Abraham (10%) He has potential in the story but I think that Darryl (who does not exist in the comic book) fills a lot of the space that this guy filled in the comic book.  But Michael Cudlitz is a good actor and I like the fact that he has a clear motivation.

18. Tara. (60%)  Not exactly sure why she's still alive.  I don't have anything against the character but I'm not really sure what she adds to the group, other than being the only gay character still alive.

19. Eugene.  (50%)  I've been waiting for an intellectual to join the group since season one.  And this is the doofus we get?  Oi vey.

20. Morales. (?) Remember him?  Season one. Left with his family for Birmingham.  As far as we know, he's still alive.  I doubt we'll see him again but 20 is a nice round number.