The Walking Dead - "This Sorrowful Life" - Review

One of the underappreciated aspects of television is editing. The best tv series use their editing to add to the tension, humor, etc. But above all else, the editing prevents a show from being boring. The Walking Dead is a terrible offender of having swaths of dead air time. There are such large gaps of time where nothing happens, to the point where it’s distracting. Silence isn’t a bad thing for a show, but that silence needs to be used for a purposeful effect.  But on The Walking Dead, the time where there’s neither action nor people talking isn’t used for any other purpose than as transitions between scenes.

It’s annoying because the show should just jump from one scene to the next but instead it’ll cut to a new location and nothing’s happening yet. And the feel from such a visual choice is that the writers aren’t quite sure what they want to do and so they’re filling up air time with these transitionary breathing periods. The writers on The Walking Dead have never been quite certain as to what they’re doing either in the large scheme of things or in the individual moments, but it’s in these moments where nothing is happening that it becomes apparent that they really don’t have a full conception of what they want to do. They’re just filling up episodic time with this location establishment/dead air time because they were a few minutes shy on a script’s adaptation to the screen. That’s how it comes off. 

It’s a shame they chose to do this because, The Walking Dead actually on occasion has stories that are somewhat interesting, on paper at least. The conflicting feelings over whether to hand over Michonne to the Governor are a clearly stated problem that has the potential to bring out some interesting thematic questions and character reactions. Merle’s story arc in this episode also had the potential to be something incredibly engaging and complex. And they could have become these fascinating pieces of television to watch, but rather than using the extra screen time to add a few more scenes to round out the conflicts and characters, they kill screentime so we get a full hour of television. 

Michonne is a cool character; I fanboy up whenever she wields that samurai sword, but we know next to nothing about her. Yea, she’s resourceful and she’s handles herself well in a fight, but what exactly makes Michonne tick? I’m not quite sure. Similarly, Merle’s sudden desire to do the right thing and go out in a blaze of glory does seem to come slightly out of nowhere. If the writers wanted to build to this, they could have hinted at it a few times before hand. All we needed is a couple scenes where Merle talks with some other characters and we learn more about how he’s tired of being the bad guy and tired of being looked down upon by everyone, particularly his brother.

The choice between giving up Michonne to the Governor and allowing her to stay is also a problem never quite developed to its full potential. It almost feels inevitable that Rick is going to retract his decision to hand her over, mainly because Rick needs to be the better person in order for the conflict with Woodbury to work the way the writers have established it. The conflict between Woodbury could have been more nuanced and less one sided, but the Governor (as of last episode) has now gone into full-on villain territory, and so we’re far past a conflict where our opinions and feelings are divided and complicated. Rick’s decision to call off the “Ricktatorship” just doesn’t build from a well-established, organic place. Rick’s choosing it because these are the “good guys” and not because it was something he struggled with and had an epiphany about.

The first eight episodes of this season had problems but what made them far superior to nearly everything that came before them was the level of certainty with which they moved forward the story. There was still dead air time, but it seemed like the writers had a much clearer vision of what they wanted to achieve. After the smoke cleared from the mid-season finale, it became obvious that they didn’t know how to handle the aftermath of the conflict between the prison and Woodbury. They’ve been stretching out a conflict that logically would have happened much sooner except for the fact there’s more episodes of this series that need to be aired.  

Stray Observations:

-The car alarm scene is legitimately exciting even if Merle doesn't act to logical in it.

-“That’s a good idea” “It was Michonne's” – I don’t think you could be any more on the nose.

-“I’ll do whatever he says” – Rick is the leader because Rick is the leader, and not because he’s necessarily qualified.

-Glen asked Maggie to marry him. So, yea, that happened. He amusingly steals a ring off the finger of a zombie.
-Norman Reedus's acting is great when Darryl comes across zombie Merle.

Grade: B-