directed by Jennifer Lynch
written by Matthew Negrete
THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER-FILLED FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. ANYONE WISHING TO AVOID SPOILERS IS ADVISED TO AVOID READING IT
The rottenness of Alexandria is slowly exposed to Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his group as it is revealed exactly what their secret to survival is: the willingness to abandon their own people in the name of self-preservation. This occurs on two separate occasions. In one, Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) is assigned by Alexandria's community leader Deanna Monroe (Tovah Feldshuh) to work on construction of the expansion of Alexandria's walls. During construction, the group are attacked by walkers, and in the ensuing firefight, their lookout, Francine (Dahlia Legault), is knocked from her perch by a stray bullet. To Abraham's surprise, the foreman, Tobin (Jason Douglas) orders his men to stand down instead of trying to save Francine. Abraham intervenes and inspires the other construction workers to help, to Tobin's embarrassment. It is later on Tobin's recommendation to Deanna that Abraham gets the job of foreman.
The second instance, however, is much more gruesome as Glenn (Steven Yeun) goes on a supply run with Noah (Tyler James Williams), Tara (Alanna Masterson), Eugene (Josh McDermitt), Aiden (Daniel Bonjour) and Nicholas (Michael Traynor). In particular, they require replacement parts for their solar panels to keep the power grid running, so they head to a fairly large warehouse. There is an abundance of walkers in several areas in and around the warehouse, but the group is well-armed and reasonably careful, until Aiden, in dispatching a walker that was once a soldier, accidentally shoots a grenade on his body, causing an explosion in the warehouse, as a result of which all hell breaks loose. Tara is gravely wounded, Aiden is impaled and eventually eaten by the walkers, and in their efforts to escape, Glenn and Noah are abandoned by Nicholas, resulting in Noah's grisly death, which Glenn witnesses, horrified, from behind a revolving glass door. Eugene finds the courage his character has not had since he was introduced, and saves both Tara and the remainder of the group by running to get the van and distracting the walkers.
Meanwhile, Rick investigates the destruction of Jessie's (Alexandra Breckenridge) owl statue, while Carol (Melissa McBride) has an unexpected visitor in Sam (Major Dodson), Jessie's son, who caught Carol stealing guns from Alexandria's storage and whom Carol threatened to feed to walkers if he told. From her snippets of conversation with Sam, and a brief visit to his house in which Jessie's husband Pete (Corey Brill), refuses Carol's request to talk to Jessie, Carol deduces that Pete is beating Jessie and possibly Sam, and tells Rick he must kill him.
Meanwhile, Fr. Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) the Episcopalian minister whom the group saved from certain death at the beginning of the season, has a little heart-to-heart talk with Deanna in which he does not exactly have kind words for Rick and his group.
I haven't been this disturbed by a character's death since Lizzie (Brighton Sharbino) killed her sister Mika (Kyla Kennedy) back in season 4. Noah's extremely graphic demise as he is ripped apart by walkers is arguably the most gruesome death that has befallen anyone who has belonged to Rick's group since the series began.
What makes Noah's death truly disturbing, though, is that even though the character has only been around for a few episodes, it really seemed as though the writers had plans for him, especially in view of the fact that Beth sacrificed her life for him. It also seemed as though Nicholas, the character whose cowardice and refusal to work together with Glenn in extricating them from the revolving door in which the three of them had found themselves trapped, was simply going to get his comeuppance and that would be that, so Noah's death felt a bit out of left field, thus adding to the shock. Even from a cynical standpoint I figured that, as a black man and one with a limp at that, Noah's days were always numbered, but I didn't figure they would kill him so soon, and so brutally. The actor who played him never even made it to the opening title crawl. He never even had a full-blown story arc.
Finally, a bit of the dialogue exchanges between Nicholas and Aiden, just before the group abandoned their futile attempts to pull him off the wreckage on which he had been impaled, disclosed that this was the way of Alexandria: to leave their own people behind. This was also reflected in Tobin's reaction to Francine's falling helpless into the midst of walkers. Noah was a victim of that very philosophy, and Glenn nearly was too. It was scarce gratification or consolation to see Glenn catch up with and beat up Nicholas as the latter tried to commandeer the van from Eugene, whose redemptive arc was probably the sole positive note in this unrelentingly bleak episode.
I wasn't angry at Noah's death, because unlike that of Beth and later, Tyreese, it didn't feel pointless or badly written, but I was genuinely, deeply shaken. I think it's to the writer's credit that I honestly could not feel the anger or disgust that punctuated my viewing of "What Happened and What's Going On" but actual shock and sadness.
Still, it's hard to blame the people furiously calling the show's writers racist. After all, three black men have been killed in the course of the season, and four "minority" characters given that Beth, as a woman, also occupied a position of somewhat less privilege than, say, Rick or Daryl (Norman Reedus). One writer even reportedly stated in an interview that Beth was killed to help Daryl develop as a character which, if true, makes them unbelievably crass. By betraying the group at the end of the episode, Father Gabriel has, I would think, basically marked himself for death, too, which would make him the fourth black man to die over sixteen episodes (though notably, he did something similar in the comics and is still around). If Morgan (Lennie James), who has been tailing Rick's group since he reappeared early in Season 5, finally joins up with them in Alexandria, he had better stay with them for a loooooong time.
Daryl makes a brief appearance in this episode, having settled into his new job as recruiter, but Carl (Chandler Riggs) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) are absent. They have their own running story lines brewing, and they are sure to come to a head in the two remaining episodes, especially considering that the last one will be ninety minutes long.
With two episodes left in the season, there are still plenty of unanswered questions. What is really going on between Pete and Jessie? Why does the reclusive teenager Enid (Katelyn Nacon) sneak out of Alexandria periodically, and what is she hiding? Who carved the "W" on the forehead of the walker Carol killed while she was meeting outside Alexandria with Rick and Daryl? Who was the group of psychopaths who cut the residents of Noah's decimated Atlanta community in half and left the zombified top halves stuffed in a truck? Who are the "Wolves?"
The answers to many, if not all of these questions will, if this episode is any indication, most likely be drenched in blood.
8.5/10
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