The Walking Thread

Because I have no soul, this picture is making me laugh SO HARD.
(Spoilers lurch undeadly herein. And they are MORE SPOILERY than usual, even, so consider yourselves duly warned that I will spoil ALL THE THINGS!)

Oh, Walking Dead. I love to hate you SO MUCH, and you really delivered the love-to-hateable goods last night!

These are my actual notes jotted down during the episode last night, followed by some additional commentary AS IT COMES OUT OF MY HEAD. Amazeballs!

Remember the pact! HA HA yep remember the pact, T-Dog. The pact wherein once you got bitten by a zombie, which was definitely going to happen once a few other black people showed up, Carol would shoot you in the head so you didn't "turn." Not because having another zombie around threatens the lives of our ragtag group of asshole survivors, but because of the indignity of getting zombified. Even though it's maybe kind of cool? I mean, it IS an immortality of sorts. I assume. Or maybe not. That's kind of confusing. Because the zombies need to eat? Will they die eventually if they don't? It's unclear. Like everything else in this show where they seem to be making up the Zombie Rulez as they go along.

Andrea's a vixen now? I don't know why I wrote this down, because, upon reflection, I remember Andrea jumping pretty enthusiastically on Shane's billy club in that Prius or whatever. So I guess it shouldn't surprise me that she's getting all come-hither with Merle and Governor Niam Leeson, even though Merle is skeevy and the Guv'nah's an obvious dirtbag. By which I mean: It shouldn't surprise me that the stupid writers of this garbage show imagine women want to rub up against every man they see during a zombiepocalypse, even men with Cuisinarts for arms who once called you a whore.

Suddenly Rick loves Lori again. Sure. After spending the last nine months (or so) making Lori's life extra miserable IN THE MIDDLE OF A GODDAMN ZOMBIEPOCALYPSE with his brooding patriarchal angst, now Grimes is all "WAIT BUT I LOVE HERRRRR!" when he sees Lori at risk of getting bitten? Fuck off. Grimes. You're the worst! And P.S. that doesn't even make sense. Like they're not in life-threatening danger all the time?! It doesn't make sense that, all of a sudden, seeing Lori in danger would suddenly make Grimes realize how much she really means to him. It's just a really bullshit manipulation to make Lori's death all the more tragic.

Of course T-Dog. OF COURSE. Of course T-Dog, virtually the only character left on this show who I LIKE was going to go down. But not before being obliged to perform one last noble display by saving (?) Carol from the zombies. RIP T-Dog. I'm sorry you were the victim of zombies AND racism.

Michonne is an animal? Hey, speaking of racism! I really don't like how Michonne is written like she's basically a skittish woodland creature. Who, by the way, needs to be talked out of trusting her own instincts by a white lady (Andrea), who owes her life many times over to those very instincts. Gross.

Of course Lori is in labor. "The baby is coming!" What perfect timing! Someone get the producers of TLC's A Baby Story on the phone! What—they were all eaten by zombies? Oh. Never mind.

Lori's labor is 10 seconds. You know how ladies are in labor for 10 seconds? Sure they are. I mean, of course SOME ladies are in labor for a very short amount of time, but Lori was literally in labor for like 10 seconds. "Let's get your pants off!" Hey, that's what got her into this mess! BOOM.

Carl is obviously watching the delivery. Carl is obviously watching the delivery.

Blood during labor?! Oh noes! Immediately after Maggie declares that there's something wrong ("something!") with Lori's labor/baby/delivery/attitude, the scene cuts to Maggie's fingers dripping with fake blood, as EVIDENCE that something is terribly wrong. And once again we are reminded that the writers of Walking Dead know about as much about women's reproduction as Republican Congressional candidates, because some blood during a labor is not totally unusual. A puddle of blood on the floor would have been a genuine indicator of something wrong, but I can see why they would want to avoid something so graphic in an episode where we saw one of the main characters get his actual throat ripped the fuck out. That face.

Infantile convo abt trusting convicts. Let us debate in the most juvenile and heavy-handed way possible integrating two healthy survivors into our group since they are convicts even though we've totes murdered people left and right because GRAND PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT MORAL RELATIVISM is as important to this show as GRUESOME EYEBALLS.

Noble black man. Again. Not 16 (?) minutes after T-Dog had to go down in a blaze of noble self-sacrifice (sort of; he was going to get shot in da head anyway because THE PACT), the black convict has to EARN his way into Grimes' trust by shooting another convict. Who is also black. Which doesn't make for problematic racial narratives AT ALL. That face.

"Pro-life" bullshit. Ugh this fucking show. Don't even get me started. Not only did Lori's decision-making and overwrought monologue regurgitate garbage anti-choice narratives, but it also played into every nightmare narrative about women and self-sacrifice and every nightmare narrative about women and consequences for being "dirty whores." (Which are not entirely distinct from anti-choice ideology.) That whole scene was so gross. It broadcast a reprehensibly conservative ideal of womanhood, and it was particularly infuriating to watch that shit after writing half a dozen times this election about male candidates who believe women should figuratively and literally sacrifice their own lives for "babies."

Would Lori bleed out that fast? She died immediately from a Caesarian incision, while Hershel managed to survive a severed leg. Okay. I guess we were meant to understand that Lori was hemorrhaging, based on Maggie's bloody fingertips.

What is this baby going to eat? They should just throw that baby in the prison poop fridge right now. "Sorry, Shane Jr.! We've got nothing to feed you and the last thing we need is a zombie whistle blaring every time you need to fart! IF ONLY YOUR MOM HAD TAKEN THAT PLAN B! Whoooooooops oh well! Goodbye!"

Discuss.