The Walking Dead – Twice As Far

By starrymag | March 22, 2016

By: Jennifer Vintzileos

 

Whew, last week had me completely in knots, especially watching Maggie and Carol go through being abducted and truly getting a taste of what it means to lose your humanity to the zombie apocalypse. But that was last week and now we’re on to the aftermath of raiding Negan’s compound and the abduction, so let’s get right to it.

 

“It’ll give us some choices next time.”

 

The episode begins with a sense of normalcy returning to Alexandria, yet with adjustments in the aftermath of prior events. Olivia (Ann Mahoney) checks the pantry. Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) walks around Alexandria with his gun strapped to his back. Eugene (Josh McDermitt) takes his shift at the gate while Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) gives him a nod of acknowledgement. Carol (Melissa McBride) is on a porch swing holding the rosaries she found at Alpha, deep in thought. And Morgan (Lennie James) first practices his Aikido and then works on building a prison cell. Rick (Andrew Lincoln) comes in to question what Morgan is doing and Morgan finds this a better way to control any bad or questionable people who come in rather than just killing at first sight.

 

Next comes another day. Olivia is at the pantry again. Father Gabriel continues to walk around. Eugene takes his post at the gate while looking up at Sasha to acknowledge she’s there. Carol shares a kiss with Tobin (Jason Douglas) while he goes off for the day. Morgan practices his Aikido moves. Rosita (Christian Serratos) wakes up to get dressed and start her day, looking over at her latest conquest still asleep in bed: Spencer (Austin Nichols). Obviously, Rosita is still coping with the loss of Abraham and spending time with Spencer as a way to fill the emptiness.

 

Cut to Daryl (Norman Reedus) checking over his bike, pulling a pouch out and inspecting the contents of it, especially a little green soldier statue. While he looks over the bike that he just got back, Carol comes to join him. She notices that in the midst of all the chaos, he finally got back one of the two items that were taken from him during the mission to move the walker herd.

 

“It’s who you are. I’m still stuck with that.”

 

As Daryl and Carol sit together on the curb, he smokes one of Carol’s cigarettes. Carol asks Daryl about the people who took his bike. Initially, he had tried to help them out and be a good person, but it backfired when his bike and crossbow were taken from him at gunpoint. And now, with one of Negan’s men in possession of his bike, he believes that he should have killed them instead of trying to help.

 

Carol gets up to walk away and Daryl questions Carol as to what their abductors did to them. Obviously still shaken up by the incident, Daryl tries to comfort her the best he can. She lets him know that they didn’t do anything to her and Maggie, alluding to the fact that her and Maggie did harm to them instead.

 

A new day then starts, but the scenery is different. The town looks empty. Olivia has not opened the pantry. Father Gabriel is not seen walking through Alexandria. Nobody shown on guard at the gate. The fields are empty. And most noticeably, a snuffed out cigarette with the smoke slowly dissipating, showing an empty porch swing, then Carol on the swing with her rosaries.

 

“What are we doing?”

 

Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and Eugene (Josh McDermitt) are seen walking out of the gates together, on a mission outside of the walls. Denise (Merritt Wever) stands guard at the gate from the lookout point, watching Abraham and Eugene, as well as noticing the walkers that exist outside of the gates.

 

Rosita is walking towards the infirmary to meet with Denise, Spencer hot on her tail. While Rosita looks like she couldn’t be bothered to be around Spencer, he tries his best to invite her to dinner, even offering to make her his famous “jerky stroganoff.” It doesn’t matter to him whether or not they define what they are, but he just looks forward to being in the presence of her company. Rosita, finally giving in, agrees to dinner in a flippant manner. Denise opens the door to the infirmary and Spencer walks away. Rosita comes to meet with her for weapons training. Instead, Denise proposes a better way of spending the day.

 

When Denise gets Rosita and Daryl together, she mentions a place called Edison Apothecary & Boutique, where she believes there is medicine for the taking. Daryl and Rosita offer to go for her, but Denise insists she should go, as she knows the medicines that will be beneficial for Alexandria. Daryl asks her if she has had experience being outside of Alexandria, to which Denise says she hasn’t. Daryl takes that as Denise is inexperienced and, therefore, should not go outside. But Denise continues to insist on going out and puts her foot down that she needs to do this.

 

“I’m ready.”

 

 

With Denise getting her way, she joins Daryl and Rosita on the road-trip to the Apothecary. With Daryl driving a stick shift, Denise starts to comment on Daryl’s ability to use it. Denise, who has had much more experience with it, starts talking about her experience with old pick-up trucks like the one they’re in now. Of course, Daryl tries to tune her out, until Rosita points out a fallen tree in the road that is blocking the path to the Apothecary.

 

Daryl and Rosita go to assess the damage with Denise sitting in the cab of the truck. She watches Rosita take out a walker pinned down by the tree and then come over to open up the truck. She advises Denise that they’ll need to go on foot the rest of the way.

 

When choosing a path, Daryl decides that they should take the road all the way to the Apothecary, while Rosita says that the train tracks would be a faster option. In the end, Daryl and Denise take the road, Rosita takes the train tracks, against Denise’s wishes that they should stick together on this mission.

 

“I’m a survivor.”

 

Abraham and Eugene are on a mission, which is unclear at this moment. During their walk, Abraham takes notice that Eugene has improved on his appearance. Better clothing, the mullet pulled back in a ponytail and more alert and aware of his surroundings. Eugene has started to fight back in the zombie apocalypse and adapt to this new world. Abraham is not quite sure Eugene is ready to be out in this world, even though Eugene is determined to prove that he is changed.

 

Once they reach the factory that Eugene was scouting out, he picks the lock open and he shares his idea with Abraham about being able to use the space in making bullets from scratch. With Negan and the Hilltop, Eugene feels it’s important to be prepared for all future enemies. Abraham feels that Eugene is onto something, letting him know that that is “some damn fine, genuine, outside of the box thinking.”

 

Eugene accepts the compliment, as both of them hear the tell-tale signs of a walker nearby in the factory. Abraham is ready to fight, but Eugene calls dibs, trying to show that he is capable of taking care of himself now. Unfortunately, as Eugene starts to fight off the walker, he is unable to grab his weapon to kill it. Instead, while Abraham watches Eugene losing the fight, he grabs the bar and ends the walker for him. Abraham feels that he was justified in trying to help Eugene, but Eugene thinks differently as he wanted to prove that he was capable of killing the walker on his own.

 

Abraham assures Eugene that he possesses a different skill set than being a fighter. Eugene, clearly upset by Abraham’s assessment, tells him off for making him feel that he is nothing more than a brain. Abraham, who is taken back by Eugene’s rant, tells Eugene that if he doesn’t require help he can find his own way back to Alexandria, thereby stranding him.

 

“Hey, you did good finding this place.”

 

As Daryl and Denise make their way down the road, Rosita meets up with them again and the trio make their way to the Apothecary. During this time, Denise tries to bond with Rosita, asking her who taught her how to fight. When they reach the Apothecary, Daryl is still overly cautious, not allowing Denise into the store until him and Rosita have cleared it. Once inside, Denise cannot handle the smell and throws up. Daryl attempts to crack a small joke by saying “we gonna find out what you had for breakfast.”

 

Now inside, Daryl spots the shuttered pharmacy door and pries it open with a crowbar, revealing all of the drugs in the store. At first, Denise tells him to put the bottles on the counter so that she can read the labels and take what they need, but Daryl insists that they should take all of it instead. So, Rosita and Daryl start to fill their packs with every bottle on the shelf. Denise starts to look around, at first looking at the pictures of children that are scattered on the floor, then over to the keychains on the rack, looking at the names, possibly one in particular.

 

“Tried to tell you you weren’t ready.”

 

While emptying the shelves, all three hear the tell-tale signs of a walker in the shop, but Daryl and Rosita pay no mind to it as they believe it to be only part of a walker. Denise, on the other hand, feels the urge to go investigate and finds that the noise is coming from the closet. When she opens it up, she finds that there is a rotted walker on the ground with their leg in a cast.

 

Upon further investigation, in the sink filled with water, she sees a child’s shoe peeking out of the top and the word “hush” written several times on the wall. Disturbed by this, Denise clumsily makes her way out of the closet, breaking glass items on the shelves. Daryl and Rosita see her, wondering what had her so rattled, but she calmly tells them she will be outside.

 

When Denise gets outside, she sits down on the ground and pulls out the keychain that she had grabbed from the rack. The name “Dennis” shows on the keychain. Daryl and Rosita come out of the store, clearly believing that Denise is not ready for what happened in the Apothecary. But the mission has been accomplished and so, now they can return to Alexandria.

 

“Sounds like we had the same brother.”

 

On the way back to the car, Denise starts to talk to Daryl about her brother, Dennis, for whom she picked up the keychain. They were twins born six minutes apart and the parents thought it would be cute to give them their gender counterpart names. But where Denise was focused on her medicine, Dennis was a bit more wild and reckless. Daryl, who had lost his brother (in Season 3), mentions that it sounds like Dennis was a lot like Merle (Michael Rooker).

 

Coming back to the railroad tracks again, Daryl makes a decision to take the quicker way back to the car, rather than go all the way around on the road. While on the tracks, Denise spots a group of cars, one containing a cooler in it that could be beneficial. When she mentions this to Rosita & Daryl, both of them don’t feel that the cooler is worth the trouble of opening the door to kill the walker. But Denise has other plans. She goes up to the car, opens the passenger door and tries to grab the cooler before the walker can get her. With no luck, the walker manages to have their arm tangled in the cooler and when Denise grabs for it, the walker lands right on top of her.

 

“You wanna live, you take chances.”

 

As Daryl and Rosita hear her screaming, they go back to the site of the cars and are ready to help Denise, but she refuses. She wants to kill the walker and successfully completes the task. Unfortunately, she also throws up yet again. As she opens the cooler, she finds a six pack of soft drinks, namely orange soda. While she finds that successful, Daryl gets angry. She almost lost her life for a can of soda.

 

Denise brushes off his anger, telling him and Rosita that life is about the risks. She doesn’t look at enjoying those simple things as risks, but rather the fact that she took a risk not telling Tara (Alanna Masterson) that she loves her before she went on a run. Denise then goes on to tell Daryl and Rosita that the reason she asked them to come out with her is because Daryl is brave like her brother and Rosita is alone and looks like she could use a friend right now. It doesn’t matter to her whether or not they could protect her, but that she can protect herself and be strong like her brother was.

 

In the middle of her speech, Denise is then shot through the eye with an arrow—the same type of arrow that would come from Daryl’s crossbow that was taken from him. As Denise goes down and dies before them, Daryl and Rosita are surrounded by several men with guns, one of them being Dwight (Austin Amelio), the man who stole Daryl’s crossbow and bike earlier in the season.

 

“Well, hell.”

 

Daryl takes notice that he is faced with Dwight once again, but with burn scars on the left side of his face. Dwight remembers Daryl very well and remembering how Daryl said that he would be sorry for taking his things, taunts him a little bit. But this Daryl, who was once helpful, confronts Dwight by telling him that he should have killed him, rather than held onto that hopeful nature. Oddly enough, Dwight agrees that he should have let Daryl kill him.

 

As guns are trained on everyone, Dwight produces another find: Eugene. With Eugene in his possession, Dwight does not give any room for negotiation. Daryl, Rosita and Eugene will take Dwight and his group back to Alexandria, where they will take all supplies and take over the community.

 

Before an agreement is reached, Eugene distracts Dwight by pointing out that there is another man behind several metal barrels off to the side, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Dwight signals to his men to check out the area and bring the other man forward. With the men distracted and Dwight’s attention at the barrels, Eugene sees the opportunity to strike by giving a strong “love bite” to Dwight’s nether regions, bringing him down in the most painful of manners.

 

And so, the gun show begins. Abraham makes his presence known as he hides in the woods. Daryl and Rosita join in the fight, trying to scare off the men as well. In the end, Dwight and his men retreat back into the woods, Daryl’s crossbow left on the ground. Daryl is finally completely reunited with his bike and his weapon. Rosita makes her way over to Eugene on the ground, who was shot in the fray. Abraham rushes to Eugene’s aid and all three carry him to safety, Denise left dead on the ground.

 

“Welcome to Stage 2.”

 

In the infirmary, Daryl, Rosita and Abraham are there with Eugene. Rosita, who is tending to Eugene, lets them know that it was only a graze from the bullet and that the antibiotics that Denise had been adamant about getting saved Eugene’s life. When Eugene wakes up, he is greeted by Abraham at his bedside.

 

There, Eugene continues to tell Abraham that he must apologize and acknowledge that Eugene contributes more than his knowledge to the community. He says he can also fight and defend when needed. Witnessing Eugene’s “love bite,” Abraham welcomes him in evolving into a stronger person.

 

“You said I have choices. You do have them too.”

 

Abraham, after visiting with Eugene, decides to pay a visit to Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green). Now that he has broken it off with Rosita and taken all the steps to being able to be with Sasha, he approaches her and lays it all on the line. In response, Sasha invites him into the house.

 

Then, the scene cuts to Daryl digging a grave. Judging by the “Dennis” keychain in his hand, he has gone back to get Denise so that she can get a proper burial. Daryl then pulls out a mini-bottle of whiskey, drinking the bottle down as a potential means to numb the pain of losing another person. Carol stands by his side, helping him dig, admitting to Daryl that he was right all along…about everything.

 

“So I’m going like I always should have.”

 

Like earlier in the episode, the daily activities resume. But this time, they’re different. The pantry opens, but instead of there being food, weapons are being placed onto carts. Tobin finds a “Dear John” note from Carol, who has decided that she can no longer stay at Alexandria.

 

With Carol’s letter being read, the audience sees Rosita take Eugene’s place at the gate while he recuperates, with Sasha on the lookout. In the distance, the camper has returned, signaling Tara’s return to Alexandria. Morgan continues to practice Aikido, but turns a blind-eye to the weapons being carted off in the background. And Carol telling us within her letter, no one should come looking for her.

 

The Final Verdict:

 

With this monster of an episode, I love the dissection of key characters and their evolution to adapting. And yet, the need to cling to some sense of normalcy and monotony is evidenced in the daily sequences.

 

Carol continues to become more nervous and scared of everything that happened in the prior episode. Her identity crisis shows a complete breakdown in her character. Unlike in previous episodes, she’s not able to turn off the thoughts. Killing to survive terrifies her because she does not want to become Paula (Alicia Witt). And the way she holds onto those rosaries like a lifeline, I feel she’s trying to cling to some hope before it’s too late. It’s been so long since she has had a chance to breathe and take it all in. And now, she can’t shut out the thoughts with action. She has to face them.

 

Also, big props to Denise and Eugene, because their character development in this episode went above and beyond anything else. I took the title of the episode as a double meaning for their journey because it took them longer than the others to reach this point where they feel ready for this world. Merritt Wever did an excellent job of portraying Denise, with a vulnerability of being inexperienced to this world, but still eager to learn how to fight and protect herself. And her speech to Daryl and Rosita was so spot on, reminding them that it’s not all about denying yourself the good parts. It’s about being okay with being afraid and taking risks. Up until that moment she was shot in the eye, her moral compass was tried and true.

 

And then Eugene. I love how his character has evolved. Eugene may have started out scared, but he proved his worth this episode. He pulled a Rick and took a bite out of crime, literally. Since the fallout with Abraham, Eugene has felt his need to prove that he is capable of fighting and holding his own in battle. Also, his drive to provide sustainability with creating bullets was quite ingenious of him.

 

Rosita also provided a great storyline here. You see her struggling to move forward from Abraham, even jumping into the arms of Spencer at first chance. To be honest, I like “Spensita” (the mash-up of Spencer and Rosita). The pairing off of people may seem a little bit cliché, but it also seems like a natural inclination when the madness of fighting has settled down. I mean, what does one do when there’s stability and a community? You look to move forward and thrive. And with Rosita exhibiting such strength in this episode, especially when Abraham, Rosita, and Eugene (a/k/a/ Abraham’s Army) gets the spotlight, you can see just how much each of them has grown since meeting the group.

 

Also, props to Daryl! I mean, Dwight stole the two signature items from him: his bike and his crossbow. And now, he has finally gotten those items back. He did seem a little bit happier to get back the bike first, but just watching him pick up the crossbow? I won’t lie, I started singing “reunited and it feels soooooooo good!” Additionally, this was the first episode since Season 4 that mentioned his brother, Merle. Daryl has made leaps and bounds emotionally since the beginning and I felt that when he thinks about Merle now, it doesn’t hurt as much as it did when he had to kill the walker version of him in Season 3. I also found the scene where Daryl was burying Denise to be a bit cathartic. He bonded with her, she shared with him, and in the end she died. And it eerily was with a head injury like Beth (Emily Kinney). And while yes, drinking is a way to numb the pain, I felt it wasn’t all bad. He was taking Denise’s advice and enjoying something simple, even if it was whiskey.

 

Don’t forget to check in for next week’s episode “East”, where the search for Carol begins and we learn: “It’s just not what we thought it was. It’s bigger.”