The Walking Dead – Splinter

By: Jamie Steinberg

After having been surrounded by armed men cosplaying apocalyptic storm troopers Eugene, Yumiko, Ezekiel and Princess find themselves held captive in a group of train cars. Each are locked up and alone while hoping the soldiers will lead them to Stephanie, Eugene’s little on-air honey, or maybe the help they need to defeat Alpha and her horde. Little do they know The Whisperer threat went over a cliff and now they have a bigger problem: Princess and a nagging little splinter that turns an already tense situation into a volatile and possibly deadly one.

Captive Memories

After a narration from Eugene (Josh McDermitt) recapping where we last left off with this group, we see that the soldiers are both organized and heavily armed. Panicked by how they treat Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), Princess (Paola Lázaro) attempts to snatch one of the guard’s guns to overpower the situation. but the men strong arm her to the ground and knock Yumiko out. Outnumbered and without an escape plan, the soldiers drag each of them to their own solitary confinement in a group of train cars. It’s dark and the only beam of light comes from a small hole in the car wall where Princess is able to catch a glimpse of the other cars. Panic starts to take over as Princess, with epic Spanish flair, tries to calm her nerves by reciting U.S. state capitals in alphabetical order. The technique seems to work, as it eases her fear long enough to go investigate the peephole into the other train car. Ripping at it with her hands to widen its view, Princess spots an injured Yumiko and her panic starts to surface once again. To say she is obsessed with helping Yumiko would be an understatement. And considering they have known each other a week, the two must have gotten close since their initial introduction. Striking up a conversation to pass the time, Princess tries to focus on something other than her panic; and it doesn’t hurt that it helps to keep Yumiko from falling asleep with a possible concussion. Guilt is the driving force behind these interactions and Princess is full of it for making matters worse when she tried to grab that gun. She is helpless to save her friends and helpless to stop her own mind from betraying her as she desperately attempts to turn things around for her new travel mates. Picking away at the peephole, a splinter lodges in her hand and catapults Princess back into the recesses of her mind. A memory leads her to a story about another time when a splinter turned her life into a bigger nightmare than any zombie apocalypse ever could.

When Princess was a young girl her stepfather locked her in a closet and while trying to claw her way out she got a splinter that infected her hand. The wound went untreated and went through various stages of healing and becoming re-infected again. She pleaded with her mother to allow her to return to school, even as the infection continued to spread, because staying home was far worse than anything else she could imagine. As her hand got worse her stepfather, who isn’t winning any parent of the year awards, refused to allow her to eat at the table because he couldn’t stomach looking at her injury. Thinking that this man isn’t her father and her mother wouldn’t make her eat in the scary garage alone, Princess made the terrible mistake of telling him he isn’t in charge. A hard slap to her face that broke her jaw must mean her mother would jump in to protect her, right? Wrong. If Princess was afraid to eat in the dark garage alone, her mother tells her “then don’t eat.” She was on her own.

Princess’s stroll down memory lane finds her desperately trying to smile through her pain. It boils just below the surface like a volcano about to blow. We have seen her as this exciting and bigger than life character, but all that smiling bravado is simply just a cover up for a scared little girl just trying to survive her past. All things considered, her life after the turn might be safer than the life she lived before it.  Her story is cut short when she hears the guards come to take Yumiko away and her sadness gives way to anger and panic as she screams, “Where are you taking her?”

Princess goes back to her state capital coping mechanism, anything to remain calm until she can find a way out of the car to help her friends. It isn’t long before she finds a way, as she spots a removeable panel on the same wall as her peephole. She manages to get out and make her way to Eugene, who is being held in the next car over. Wait…I thought that was Yumiko?! Where did Eugene come from? We will get to that, but for now Eugene is worried Princess is going to ruin their chance at finding help. His people back home are counting on him and this little escape of hers is risking all of that. The soldiers haven’t harmed them and they had plenty of opportunity to do so. He is positive that they are not in any danger, so he orders Princess to climb back inside her car. Reluctantly, she heads back in through the escape hatch and is immediately taken by the guards for questioning.

The Interrogation Room

But first, a strip search and a shower! Princess keeps it together as she assumes the guards are checking her body for bites. She tells them she is clean, and they lead her to a room where another guard (Jessejames Locorriere) is waiting to question her. They ask “where are you from” and ones about who the others and what she did before the turn. All go unanswered because Princess is no snitch and even less of a trusting person. All she cares about is if Yumiko is okay and she is not going to give them any information until she can see that she is with her own eyes. Her request goes unanswered and the interrogation ends when the soldier questioning her punches her in the face. A familiar sting that reminds her of that blasted splinter in her hand now and the one from her past. All roads lead to the abuse she endured as a child.

Eventually, she is escorted back to her train car, and that is when she hears someone on the roof. Surprise! It’s Ezekiel (Khary Payton)! He somehow made it out and is now doing his best Indiana Jones impression as he repels down into Princess’s car from a hatch in the roof. Wait…was that hatch there before? Once again, all questions will be answered, but for now Ezekiel is just what the panic doctor ordered. He has a calming effect on Princess, even when they argue over whether or not they should escape. When she rubs her jaw and lets it slip that the guard reinjured her previously broken jaw, Ezekiel, in a soft and almost paternal tone, promises her that no one will ever harm her again. It’s a sweet moment that is cut short when another guard (Cameron Roberts) enters the car with a tray of food. Hiding in the shadows Ezekiel jumps out and attacks him! He is cuffed and at the mercy of the King and Princess as they question him about who he is, what they want from them and why they are being held captive. The young guard doesn’t offer up any answers which enrages Ezekiel to the point of pummeling him into a bloody heap in the floor. Princess screams at Ezekiel to stop but he is in the zone and raining down bloody fist after fist while yelling about never letting anyone hurt him again. That’s when it all clicks. It is not Ezekiel’s bloody fists attempting to kill this soft-spoken guard, it’s Princess! She imagined Ezekiel and probably the escape hatches and her conversations with Yumiko and Eugene, too! Confused and emotionally falling to pieces, she uses her current lucidity to make a break for it. She grabs the guard’s gun and takes off out of the train car door and starts running to the fence that would lead her away from the threat but also from her new friends. As she attempts to crawl under the chain link fence her gun catches and she cannot get through. That’s when she spots a much cockier Ezekiel and two walkers dressed like train conductors, approaching. This version of Ezekiel is smarmy and goading, as he tries to get Princess to leave her friends behind and join him and the walkers. He reminds her that nobody cares about her so there is no sense in trying to save her friends. It is pretty clear this is a manifestation of her stepfather, especially when he mentions her mother. She starts to put the pieces of her own puzzling mind back together and realizes none of this is real. Her past might have been filled with bad people, but her new friends are good.  “They came back for me,” she says, which is more than anything her mother and stepfather did for her.

Negotiations are on the Table

With that glimmer of hope and truth, she walks back to her train car and apologizes to the injured guard. She explains that she suffers from a myriad of mental health diagnosis that range from PTSD to OCD to delusional disorders. What happened in that train car was a result of an overactive imagination that helps her get through traumatizing situations. Like a reflex she cannot control it, but she feels guilty enough about it to cooperate with the questioning. Releasing the guard from his restraints, she tells him she is from Pittsburgh originally and only met the others a week ago. A week in the apocalypse can be a lifetime and if they can provide proof that Yumiko is ok then she is all in on the interrogations. The guard promises her that Yumiko is fine and getting help in their infirmary. Help she wouldn’t have needed if Princess had just followed orders. He explains that his group is made up of good people, but good people are hard to come by these days and their harsh treatment was just to make sure Princess and her friends could be trusted. Her behavior made it difficult to tell if they were the type of people they would even want to help. Now that she is cooperating things should go easier for them. With that, the guard bangs on the train car door to be let out. When the doors open Princess sees Yumiko, Eugene and Ezekiel standing in a line with black bags over their heads. The final seconds of the episode go black as a bag is forced over Princess’s head, too. Is this real or another example of Princess’s delusions running amok? It is hard to say but it seems like maybe the others were never locked up, just Princess who was a wild card and attacking anyone she saw as a threat. Hopefully, this group has the answers and the supplies Eugene was looking for. But, for now, it looks like the four travelers are at the mercy of these soldiers and whatever gauntlets they force them to walk just to get the help they have been searching for.