Episode Title: Always Accountable
Original Airdate: 11-15-15
Sorry this is a day late, and I skipped my iZombie review last week, but I’ve been living it up in Las Vegas, with no thoughts of the undead apocalypse on my brain. Actually that’s not entirely true: I did envision the madness on The Strip if a sudden zombie outbreak occurred, because of course I did. Now on to the show.
It’s time to catch up with Daryl, Sasha and Abraham, because this leading-a-thousand-Walkers-out-of-a-pit plan can’t go perfectly smoothly with the ones doing the actual leading. Alas, it’s not the horde of Walkers on their heals, but completely random trigger-happy humans that derail the trio. Near the end of their long trek, the three are suddenly fired upon and barely manage to escape with only a few scratches. Unfortunately in the process, they become separated.
Abraham and Sasha take cover in a nearby office building, making sure to leave plenty of tracks for their tracker friend to eventually find them. Abraham is obviously going through some sort of bizarre mental crisis. It’s hard to pinpoint when it started exactly (the revelation of Eugene’s lies? the move to Alexandria?) but it’s been happening for awhile now. Sasha wants no part of it, and isn’t afraid to call Abraham out. He goes through some strange moments of taunting a Walker impaled on a fence, smoking some cigars and putting on a dead military man’s uniform, before possibly gaining some clarity and more or less telling Sasha he likes her and wants to get to know her better. She simply states that he has some “stuff to take care of,” to which he agrees.
More action happens with Daryl, who hides from the attackers in the surrounding woods. Upon hearing a noise, he encounters two women spouting nonsense about earning what they took. Then he gets knocked out from behind. He wakes up with his hands tied and a guy holding a gun in his face, saying something about a trade. Obviously a case of mistaken identity. Eventually Daryl escapes, grabbing a dufflebag holding his bow. After retrieving his weapon, he sees a cooler labeled “Insulin.” Being the good guy he is, he takes the medicine back to his former captors, who are all soon attacked by the group they originally thought Daryl was with. He leads them to safety, but one of them gets bitten. After burying her, Daryl believes the two remaining are decent people at heart, and were caught in a bad situation, so he brings up Alexandria. They start following him, only to pull a gun on him, then take his bike and weapons. He miraculously finds a truck and gets back to the highway, where he tracks Sasha and Abraham to their hideout. As the three are headed back to Alexandria, they try making contact with Rick on the Walkie-Talkies, but are answered with a mysterious male voice simply saying “help.”
I was not impressed. It’s not the story that bothered me this week, but the insane amount of ambiguity. I could not follow at least half the dialogue in this episode. I’m still not entirely sure what the backstory was for Daryl’s captors. And I’m merely guessing at what transpired between Sasha and Abraham. The problem is I feel like I got the gist of what was being said, but also like nearly everyone was talking in code.
Daryl’s captors were all over the verbal map, talking about burning a bunch of Walkers, some place that used to be home, wondering about a woman named Patty, and mourning over some Walkers they use to babysit. Um…okay. Frankly, I wanted all three of them to be eaten so I wouldn’t have to hear them talk anymore. I’ve read that the group they were running from has an intense story arc in the comic, but this was an obnoxious way to introduce it.
Sadly Abraham and Sasha were no better. After his moment of (assumed) clarity he mumbles this nonsense:
“We got beers…and air conditioning…and walls. The table is set for the rest of our lives, and I hope those years to be long and fruitful. I see that time before me…and I’ve been feeling the urge to make some plays…before the great cosmic Pete comes to cut my throat unceremoniously and I gurgle my last breath. Well, things are gonna go on a while before that, and that hadn’t occurred to me before. I’ve been kind of living check-to-check on that point.”
Um…okay. And what “stuff” does Sasha insist he take care of? I want to say ending his relationship with Rosita, but maybe she wants his head on straight first. I’m not someone who needs everything spelled out, but this episode was very weak with the words. So let’s get some more concrete dialogue, please and thank you.
However, the big talking point this week is the much debated final moment of the episode. I’ll just say it: I don’t think it was Glenn saying “help.” And it’s not just because Norman Reedus quashed that theory the following day. It didn’t even sound like Glenn. I’m guessing fans are just to wound up for any resolution that they just jumped to what might be a hopeful conclusion, but maybe that’s the only one they’re willing to see.
Let’s just hope the final two episodes of the year are more interesting and informative. This one was a bit of a waste.
Channel: Superhero 