"After" Thoughts

When it comes to television series, I think The Walking Dead has earned the right to say "I win." I don't know how other people felt about the episode last week, but in my personal opinion I thought it was a freaking work of art! I have to admit that back in seasons 2 and 3 I was a little worried that the writers were just spinning their gears at times. They just wanted to "sit back and farm" and  the show just dragged on. However, after seeing the first half of season four and now the mid-season premiere these guys are really turning things around! Also, as someone who recently began reading the comics, you can really see how hard they've been working in this past season to get back to the essence of the story as written in the comics. Until reading, I wasn't able to truly appreciate how much more dynamic the characters and story have become as the series has become more paralleled to the comic. This focus on character development was really showcased in After through Michonne and Carl.

I know there are a lot of people who share the opinion that last night's episode wasn't very good, more than likely due to the absence of Norman Reedus; however, the depth given to Michonne's character is what really made the episode great. Before last night, we were often left filling in the blanks with Michonne. She was very reserved to the Prison group, and more often than not was absent from the prison altogether. She shows up with a katana and pet walkers and we're just left to wonder, "Who the hell is this badass?" Well last night finally gave a lot of the answers I wanted to know. After first seeing Michonne's dream, I honestly have to say that I didn't know what the hell was going on! Once I went back and watched it again though, my mind was totally blown! First off, Michonne was looking pretty sexy wiping down that knife....errrr katana! After I got over that and realized that there were shifts of time happening within the dream so much was revealed about Michonne's past, like the fact that she lived with her boyfriend/husband?, their son, and who I presumed to be his brother. When the three of them begin talking about staying at the refugee camps after the fall, Michonne's lover ends their conversation on staying or leaving by simply asking Michonne, "Why?" I didn't really understand what this meant, but in context with the rest of the conversation I think he was essentially asking why they should keep living. Next the scene cut to a picture of the two men with their arms cut off but they're still living and the baby disappears? At this point my jaw literally smacked against my second chin in amazement! What the fuck was going on? Looking at the conversation before everyone's arms get cut off, Michonne's lover talks a lot about how this world wasn't a world worth living in and how his son didn't deserve this and shouldn't have to live in that world. Also, when Michonne is "speaking" to her boyfriend in Joe's she mentions that "it wasn't you (her boyfriend) that did those things to him (the baby)." For these reasons, I think that Michonne's lover and brother were not killed by biters but by Michonne. The way I see it this went down 1 of 2 ways

1. Michonne's boyfriend gives up on hope for humanity and decides to take his own life so that he doesn't have to suffer through this hell any longer. However, this was before it was known that everyone was already infected with the virus; so naturally, or unnaturally I should say, the boyfriend comes back to live and eats the baby and his brother. Michonne comes home and cuts the arms off the two guys and keeps them around for some company!
2. Michonne comes into a room where her boyfriend and his brother are standing over her dead child that they just suffocated. She whips out her sword, kills them both and they come back unexpectedly so she decides to keep them with her because she can't stand the idea of being alone.

Either way, this just goes to show why Michonne could be so closed off to everyone else, but more importantly it shows just how fucking nuts Michonne is. Within the comics, the state of Michonne's mental health is a lot less stable than is shown in the series. She often is found talking to herself and she is even seen to adopt the personality of her former lover. So all in all I thought this episode did a really amazing job of showing the extent of emotional instability Michonne is facing. Through all this though Michonne is seen in last night's episode as prevailing despite her breakdown as she is finally able to answer the question posed years before. When walking alongside the herd of walkers, Michonne realized that she couldn't go back to the way things were before the Prison, being alone all that time after losing her loved ones; without her friends, people who cared about whether she was alive or dead, she just felt like the corpses walking next to her trudging through their existence. By killing the herd, Michonne essentially killed the lone walker inside herself, setting off to find any group she could track from the prison.

The rest of the scenes in the show depicted a phenomenal adaptation from the comic story line. Robert Kirkman did make mention over the split-season hiatus that we would have an episode that was nearly verbatim of the comics.... We got just that. 

We see a badly beat Rick being led by Carl who has a look of what seems to be a crossover of disgust and determination. Rick, continually falling behind, constantly yells for Carl to "Slow down!" in which Carl just stops and waits and then resumes his self-entitled leadership over his father. They managed to make it to a local biker bar. At this point we finally get to start witnessing what has come of the aftermath of the War of the Prison. Rick and Carl begin an argument of who should open the door and how they should go about clearing the bar out. Once inside, the pair notice a barricade and a note. The note reading "Please do what I couldn't" -Joe Jr. A walker appears on the other side of the barricade and as Carl gets ready to shoot it, Rick exclaims that "Every bullet counts" now. Rick finds an axe and tears down the barricade to release the walker, Joe Sr. Rick being weak after the war has gotten himself into quite a mess. As Rick slashes down at the zombie, the axe doesn't go deep enough to kill it prompting a struggle between the two where Carl just takes over and shoots it dead. Infuriated with the disobedience of his son, Rick yells at Carl in which Carl states that he saved Rick. This is where I was able catch a good grip on the dynamic of how the father/son relationship has shifted. Carl sees his father as more of a liability and blames him for what has happened (ie. Not killing The Gov., losing Judith (who is assumed to be dead and probably isn't), and Hershel's death). This resentment is all made blatantly obvious in Carl's monologue later in the episode when Rick is laying comatose recovering from the damage done to him by the Governor. However, Carl's monologue wasn't there just to show his growing resentment for Rick. I think that monologue showcases that Carl thinks of Rick not as a bad father, but more importantly he thinks of him as a bad leader. When you tie this in to the note that Joe Jr. wrote about doing what he could not, an idea is presented that a character in the show needs to step up and demonstrate that they can make the hard decisions and lead. This episode definitely showed that Carl could be that potential leader. He's learned so much following in the shadow of his father about leadership and what it should and shouldn't look like. He's learned patience from farming, snap decision making, and putting the people you care about first. I'm of the opinion that Carl would make a fantastic leader; however, an empty 112 oz can of pudding is proof that Carl still has some growing to do. He may be growing up in a world of monsters and nightmares, but he still remembers what it's like to be a kid and live a normal life. Because of this, he is unable to kill his father when he thinks Rick has turned accepting death instead. Ultimately, I think this shows that to truly take his father's place as leader, Carl needs to make the decision to take another man's life, possibly Rick's, to be stripped of his innocence and come into his role as the stories next great protagonist.

These are just some of my initial thoughts on last weeks episode that I wanted to get hashed out before the airing of the new episode tonight. I'd love to hear what other's opinions are especially regarding the roles of Rick, Michonne, and Carl! So please comment and share your thoughts!