This weeks The
Walking Dead smelled of moonshine and disappointment. Since the prison fell the director has taken
a stance that we will follow the differing groups as they travel to what is
foreshadowing to be the next safe point or “zone.” Sunday night got us all caught up on our
favorite little team of backwoods Georgia and farm girl jukebox known as Daryl
and Beth. Normally I am one to be giddy
when they put Mr. Dixon on the screen for an hour, his muscle and grizzle
delight the fan girl in me as much as his cross bows skill and determination;
this episode was quite the flop.
Let’s start as we do at the beginning with the two
digging through an abandoned car, why are there so many supplies still left in
these cars? You’d think by now they’d have been more than over raided by
survivors. Not important, what is
important is the two horrible things that creep up on them unexpectedly. As always the walkers seem to show up when
you’re trying to get stuff done, but even worse is the thunderstorm that looms
in the distance. All through the long walker
filled night the two hold up in the trunk as lightning and rain bash down on
the abandoned car. Beth clinging to her
knife, Daryl with grip on the cross bow… sleep.
Seriously guys? There is an unnatural amount of hell out side! Still the walkers move on and the two scrape
junk into sacks and keep moving as we fade into opening credits.
The next scene is a lovely bit of hunting for a back
woods delicacy, rattle snake.
Disgusting, well not as disgusting as watching Daryl gnaw away at the carcass. The duo have built a somewhat suitable camp,
and it would seem our grizzled hero has taken it upon himself to revert back to
his knuckle dragging, I just need to survive ways. Beth is pretty much acting like a college
teen on a camping trip. All she wants is
her first drink. This little endeavor turns
into the entire episode. Let’s find Beth
a drink, because that’s what’s important in this barren waste of an existence.
Beth explains that the search for booze is more or less
just to try to feel normal. She doesn’t
want to live in the “suck-ass” camp anymore.
Where does she want to go? A
country club, because “golfers like to booze it up.” Well, it is no lie they do enjoy a cocktail,
let us stop and think for a moment before we enter. They also retreat to their clubs in states of
panic so I would say it’s safe to assume there is going to be people in
there. Nothing could possibly prepare
you, however for the hell they bust in on.
They find rows and rows of the dead-dead, all of the bodies wrapped in
fashion and draped in excess, the truly horrifying thing? Three of the walkers are hanging, literally
dangling from the ceiling. What does
Daryl decide to take? Money… Not useful at all pal.
The two are rushed further into the club by a pack of
walkers trying to get inside, when Beth still on a mission finds a bottle in
the walk in freezer. Hurray! Only one stupid problem, it’s perched high up
and in an attempt to collect it Beth is attacked and is forced to use the wine
bottle as a weapon. Crap. The next part of the journey requires lifting
a grandfather clock upright, which in my mind would scream “dinner bell” but,
Daryl doesn’t seem to agree.
Inside the pro shop Beth picks out a lovely yellow shirt
and white cardi ensemble before trying to take down a mocked body. Daryl prefers to cover the body with a sheet
and move on when the dinner bell rings.
Hey look who was right?! So now
it’s up to Daryl and the golf clubs to take a swing at the undead. Along with the walkers we must say good bye
to Beth’s lovely cardi. Really? Did you expect that to last your club of
death?
Finally the bar, and what does Beth find so that she can fulfill
the mission? Peach Shnopes, I don’t know what’s worse the booze of choice, or
the glasses she considers drinking it out of.
Resigning herself to the bottle, she has a mini breakdown and it’s up to
her grunting friend to right this situation.
Daryl destroys the bottle and leads her out to get a taste of something
real. Now, I know what you are thinking,
liquor store, right? Nope, we are going
to a still to get some good old fashion moonshine. As someone who has tried my share of shine,
this is not a good idea, unless you are looking to make sure she never wants to
drink again.
Daryl explains that his father had a shack like the still
so it was easy to identify. All of the
revolting, hillbilly couture decorations seem to awaken long ago memories of
who Daryl has been trying to shut out, and yet somehow seems to be tripping
back into. This is bad news for Beth who
entices him to drink as well with a question oriented drinking game. What she gets is an irate Daryl. Now when I say mad, I mean on the verge of
violence. He goes so far as to drag Beth
from the house to torture a walker as she cries. The whole scene went from silly teen angst to
violent frat party mistake is seconds.
From this horrid display comes a weird sense of revelation. Who was Daryl? What made him so angry?
The truth is, he wasn’t anyone. All he did was blindly follow Merl around and
never seemed to want to go anywhere.
Truth be told, this world ending crap might have saved his soul, the
soul that Beth desperately tries to awaken in him as he spits in her face. In the end Beth knows Daryl is going to be
the last man standing and she’s probably right, cryptically telling him that he
is going to miss her when she’s gone.
As the episode into the feels closes, the two decide in a
cathartic rush to burn down the still. I
get it, let’s torch your awful past and feel better, blah blah blah… Um guys…
did you notice that now we lit a walker beacon?
What the fuck?!
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