Margaux and I geek the hell out over last night’s stellar episode of The Walking Dead.
Trevor: Goddamn, that was a hell of an opening. “No Sanctuary” proves that when The Walking Dead tries – instead of just resting on its “#1 show on TV” laurels – it’s one of the best genre shows on the air. Everything at Terminus in the cold open was terrifying. It’s so good to see this shot like an actual horror film, instead of hack and slack fan fiction starring Daryl and Michonne.
Margaux: I’ll admit, the “Then” and “Now” cold open, coupled with this new horror movie look had me double checking the guide to make sure I was actually watching The Walking Dead. It was a hell of premiere, the most tense since the series premiere, I’d even venture to say. Except “No Sanctuary” had one marked improvement since its first season: More Carol. Fuck yes.
Trevor: How Melissa McBride doesn’t have a shelf full of Emmys is anyone’s guess. She’s a former casting director who’s showing up seasoned actors. The Carol from seasons 4 and 5 is unrecognizable compared to the passive whiner of season 2.
Margaux: Dude, Carol is all Rambo: First Blood in season fives opening episode – she is getting hella shit done while Tyreese has become the opposite of his hulking sized character. And if you think about it, a zombie apocalypse really has brought out the best in her character. But should we catch up with the gang trapped in the train car first?
Trevor: Yes please, because it gives me a reason to talk about Gareth, my new favorite villain. Andrew J. West is amazing in the role, and the horrors perpetrated at Terminus wouldn’t be as, well, horrific with a more “stock” villain behind them. Gareth is businesslike and even handsome, less of a cartoonish evil than the Governor (who, let’s face it, could be pretty cartoonish at times). I also loved – loved – the THEN flashbacks, showing Gareth as a former scared prisoner of the boxcar. I can’t wait to find out what happened between THEN and NOW.
Margaux: There was a lot of chatter before The Walking Dead started back up that we’d get to know Gareth better this season, which I too am looking forward to, even more now. Gareth didn’t get a whole lot of screen time in “No Sanctuary” but you can already tell Gareth really harkens to Rick in more ways than one. And even though Rick doesn’t get to kill Gareth like he wants to, I highly doubt this is the last time we’ll see him.
Trevor: Yeah, there’s no way this is the last we’re seeing of Gareth, thank God. This season excites me as well because I don’t really know what the plan is. The only two loose threads are Beth’s kidnapping and Eugene’s trip to Washington, which seems to be build on increasingly specious reasoning.
Oh, real quick, since we were talking about this being shot like a horror movie – that walker with the blood-stained apron was straight out of Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights. I LOVE that Rick just let them turn. That guy lost all his fucks when they locked him in that train car.
Margaux: Uh, Rick lost all fucks at the end of last season when he fucking BIT A MAN’S NECK OFF. When he tells Bob to let Bloody Apron turn, I wrote down in my notes, “damn Rick, you’ve changed man”. But speaking of Rick’s Mike Tyson moment, do you think the gang that took over Terminus is the same group that Daryl was briefly rolling with last season? The lighting of all the “THEN” scenes made it a little hard to tell who exactly was causing havoc in Terminus, making the formerly good people to get all “you’re either the butcher or the cattle.” I only bring this up because Glenn and Rick free a man from a train car, that they assume is in trouble, only to find a crazy biker dude with face tattoos, ranting and raving about everyone being the same or some such shit.
Trevor: I don’t think it was Daryl’s old buddies; I have to believe that if they took over Terminus, Joe would have been running things instead of Gareth. I feel like the Terminus cannibals are way more cultish. No idea what was up with that tattooed guy, though, but I found myself thinking “Tattoos? Beard? Ranting about bullshit? It’s like looking into the future!”
But to be fair to your point, it was hard to keep track of everything after Carol BLEW UP THE PROPANE TANK. God I love that woman.
Margaux: Carol took the biggest dump on every dude on the show, she straight up owned and out-smarted every single a-hole in Terminus – take that you cannibals! But really, Tyreese was getting on my nerves – why didn’t they just kill that hick on Outlook (who had a weird actor-mouth-tic thing going that was super distracting) – he literally did nothing but make that subplot more annoying.
Trevor: He had balls, though, I’ll give him that, even if he was doing his best impression of Miles Teller in the Footloose remake. One thing you don’t ever wanna do, though: assume Tyreese needs to be armed to kick ass. “No Sanctuary” did a great job of not showing violence in these scenes; there were the sounds of Tyreese singlehandedly taking out the group of walkers, then the sounds of him pummeling the guy’s face, screaming “I won’t!” over and over. Chad L. Coleman does “tortured” very well, and he’s inspired casting as Tyreese.
Margaux: When Rick and Co are reunited with Carol, I got legit choked up at Daryl hugging her. Walking Dead does heartstring tugging tempered with ass-kicking really well, like you said before, when they want to. It was touching to see Rick and Tyreese’s bro’ed out exchange when Rick sees baby Judith, whom EVERYONE assumes will die soon. I half expected Rick to make Tyreese Judith’s Godfather. That’s how emotional this episode was getting.
Trevor: This was a hell of an episode. It’s popular to say that this show has sucked since Frank Darabont left, but that’s bullshit because Scott Gimple – who wrote “No Sanctuary” – is the best showrunner TWD has ever had. Quite frankly, I’m tempted to go five stars, but I might be saying that because The Walking Dead is so uneven most of the time that episodes like this just make my jaw drop. It’s thrilling how well-executed this was.
Margaux: I think five stars is a touch premature, Gimple hasn’t been fired yet so we can expect more of this – hopefully. I’d give it a solid four stars, even four and a half ‘cause it was a Carol episode and every episode of The Walking Dead should be a motherfuckin’ Carol episode.
Trevor: I’ll go four and a half. But the fact that I even thought about five makes me really excited for this season.
Margaux: Beyond excited for what’s in store this season, even if I’m mentally preparing myself for the death of a main character. Just don’t take Carol!
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