Here’s the problem with “Still:” I don’t care about Beth, and I don’t know any viewers who do. Narratively, she’s useless in the same fashion as Chris Brody on Homeland or Rickon Stark on Game of Thrones. I think the only reason she didn’t die in the Governor’s attack on the prison is that it would be too cruel to Maggie to take her sister, father, and brother (whose existence Beth reminds us of tonight). Bear in mind, my criticisms of Beth as a character are no reflection on Emily Kinney’s portrayal of her. Kinney does a fine job in a thankless role, and “Still” should have been a great moment for Beth.
Should have.
The diaspora from the prison was an interesting choice, paying off uneven dividends. For instance, it will be interesting to see how Tyreese and Carol’s relationship develops, as the former doesn’t know the latter killed Karen. But for a long time I couldn’t figure out why they paired Beth with Daryl – then it hit me. The Walking Dead wants Beth alive, and teaming her up with Daryl is the best way to ensure that. Daryl is the only character on the show whose survival is absolutely, one hundred percent guaranteed. If Daryl dies, Tumblr will explode. (Beth even tells him tonight, “You’re going to be the last man standing.”) That makes Daryl a badass, but since we know he’s not going to die, it removes any sense of peril.
Intimate, character-driven episodes can work on TWD, and when done right they can act as a necessary and welcome respite from the chaos (season three’s “Clear” is probably the best example of this). But “Still” has no urgency to it, no real story. It’s tough to tell what Daryl and Beth are doing, or trying to do. To wit, they spend the first twenty minutes going on what amounts to a beer run after Beth announces that she wants a drink (she says she’s never had one, which I find hard to believe coming from a girl living that deep in Georgia). They go to a country club, she picks up a bottle of peach schnapps, cries like a sorority girl, Daryl smashes the bottle, and they leave to go to a cabin that he’d previously found with Michonne.
This all begs the question: why go to the country club at all? Why not go straight to the cabin where you know there’s moonshine? Sure, Daryl looks cool braining zombies with a golf club, but Daryl is cool all the time, so any “wow” factor is long gone.
At the cabin, they talk more. They play “I Never.” You never wonder if they’re going to hook up because there is zero sexual tension between them, and almost as little chemistry. Emily Kinney and Norman Reedus both get some meaty monologues, but the emotional beats fall flat. The one standout part of their time in the cabin is when an enraged Daryl drags Beth outside by the arm to teach her how to shoot a crossbow. He’s controlling and brutal, and you see the Dixon he could have been, had the zombie apocalypse not forged a decent man out of him.
Then they talk more, and Beth decides they should burn down the cabin. Which makes sense; if I was surrounded by monsters in the middle of nowhere, I’d burn down my only goddamn shelter in the middle of the night too. Honestly, this is the type of suggestion you would take seriously only if it were said at 5 AM while you were blitzed out of your mind on cocaine: it’s that stupid. This coming from a girl who earlier in the episode insisted “I can take care of myself.” Uh, you clearly can’t, Beth!
But burn it down they do! They start spraying booze all over the place, Beth smiling like an indie movie ingenue, then “Up the Wolves” by the Mountain Goats comes on and the whole thing plays like a zombie movie directed by Zach Braff. Then as they depart, they both flip the bird to the inferno. Jesus. The whole gesture is just too reminiscent of this:
http://youtu.be/mJL9xkx8vG4
(I don’t know why I’m being so hard on Zach Braff here.)
Look, every show has its missteps – one of my favorite shows, Community, had an entire season of them. But I’m being hard on “Still” because for the most part, everything else on season four has been pretty damn solid. The acting is fine – Reedus and Kinney have played their characters for long enough – so I’m going to lay the blame at the feet of the director, first-timer Julius Ramsay. He’s acted as editor on eighteen episodes, so he should have a pretty good working knowledge of what makes The Walking Dead come alive (sweet pun). I hope Ramsay improves, if he’s going to return for future installments. Norman Reedus and Emily Kinney deserve better, and so does the show.
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