The Walking Dead: Twice as Far (6x14)

Okay... I'm just going to put this whole review under a cut. Beware of swearing, and spoilers. I am not at all calm.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? ARE YOU ACTUALLY FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW I'M SO INCREDIBLY FURIOUS I CANNOT EVEN BREATHE. THIS IS SOME NEXT LEVEL BULLSHIT. YOU WOULD THINK THAT ONCE, JUST ONCE, A FUCKING TV SHOW WOULD BE ABLE TO NOT SCREW UP THIS ONE BASIC THING, BUT NO! YOU KILLED ANOTHER QUEER WOMAN, TV UNIVERSE. AND I AM NOT. HAPPY. STOP BURYING YOUR GAYS!

God. I'm livid. I hate this so much. And I hate it even more because I'm going to have to force myself to be objective about this - to think about the good and the bad things about this episode and mention the really wonderful elements of this story. If it weren't for the fact that Denise gets KILLED OFF in this episode, I would actually give it quite high marks. In all seriousness, if there's anybody who wants to talk to me about why I'm so infuriated, I'd be happy to give my thoughts... I don't want to spend the whole review in frustrated anger over this incredibly stupid and insensitive decision. But I will rant about it elsewhere if anybody wants. Let's... let's try and break down what happened here and talk about the good and the bad.

Cons:

In brief, it's stupid that Denise dies because there's this really unfortunate trend in the film and TV industry of killing off queer characters. Particularly queer women. After the upset recently on the CW show The 100, I guess I'm feeling particularly sensitive to this. But seriously. I watch a fair amount of TV, and I can think of way too many examples of this utterly idiotic phenomenon. Queer ladies get so little representation as it is. Why do you have to go killing everybody? (Also, friendly reminder that this is the second time The Walking Dead has killed Tara's girlfriend - Alisha was also killed off.) SERIOUSLY. FUCK.

Other cons include the fact that I barely remembered who the bad guys in this episode were. Basically, there were two main plots that intersected at the end. The main plot that gets Denise killed involves her, along with Daryl and Rosita, going out on a run for medical supplies. Out of freakin' nowhere, Dwight and some of the other Saviors show up and kill Denise. I guess Dwight was the guy who Daryl let go back before the mid-season hiatus, who had the companion with asthma? And Daryl barely got away? I could have used a "previously on," because this character did not make much of an impression on me the first time. It lessened the impact a little. I guess it was just sort of hokey that they found a way for Daryl to blame himself entirely for Denise's death. Since Daryl didn't kill these people the last time they crossed paths, anything they do from that point forward must be Daryl's fault. It's a little too simplistic. In fact, Denise's death might have worked a little better (UGH) if the death had been a totally random accident instead of the result of Daryl's earlier benevolence.

If it weren't for the RAMPANT MURDER OF LADIES-WHO-LOVE-LADIES GOING ON EVERYWHERE, I'd say the biggest flaw in this episode was Abraham and Sasha. As it is, Denise's death takes first place on the suck-o-meter, and Abraham's dumb romantic life takes a back burner. But it's still stupid, okay? Basically, Abraham shows up at Sasha's door at the end of this episode and makes some weird speech about how life's too short, or something cliché like that. To my total astonishment, Sasha invites Abraham inside. Did we ever see a romantic connection develop between them? I know we've seen Abraham creep on her a little bit, but was there ever an indication that she reciprocated? Also, WHO CARES?! Abraham's character is rapidly becoming my least favorite on the show. This episode had other much more important things to focus on than Abraham falling in love with yet another woman who is clearly way too good for him.

Not to belabor the point or anything, but here's another reason why Denise's death is stupid: if you were going to kill off a character like this, in such an unexpected way, at least let the episode linger on that death as the most important aspect. Instead of having a totally Denise-centric episode, we split her time with Eugene. That would be fine, if DENISE DIDN'T DIE. Also, we got some really interesting character work for Carol at the beginning and end of this episode. And that's fine. That's lovely, truly! But why are we focusing on Carol's stuff when Denise just died? Why did nobody even mention Tara, and how they were going to break the news to her when she got back? Why aren't we focusing on the very real and traumatic loss of the community's only medical professional? With only two episodes left in the season, I have no hope that they're actually going to devote proper time to the fallout over this death. It was used for shock value, and to make Daryl re-evaluate his opinions on sparing lives. Denise is going to rapidly become a footnote, and that sucks. She was actually interesting, and there was so much more they could have done with her. And, not only was she a non-heterosexual woman, she was also not stick-thin! There's so little representation of larger women on TV. That's another big loss in the representation column. For serious. I'm pissed. If you couldn't tell.

Pros:

This episode suuuucks for killing Denise because I actually have so many good things to say about it. Too bad it's all totally overshadowed by stupidness!

The plot with Denise, Rosita, and Daryl was lovely because it mixed up the cast in a new way. I don't think we've seen much of Rosita and Daryl together, but here we see that they have a no-nonsense understanding of each others' skill sets, and work together pretty seamlessly. Denise, who has never been outside the walls, is doing it because she wants to learn to be brave and take chances. That's how people survive in this new world. She sees Daryl and Rosita, both alone, taking big risks with their lives but not with their happiness. In the speech she gives just before she dies, she chastises them for not letting themselves really live, but merely survive. It was a great speech, and if the death didn't infuriate me so much that I literally had to walk away and come back to watch the final ten minutes of the episode later, I could admit that the actual moment of death itself was really well done - the arrow is just suddenly there, sticking out of her eye. She keeps talking a little bit, like her brain is on auto-pilot, and then she falls over. Damn. It was unexpected, I can certainly say that.

I also liked the moment when Denise went into a car to get to a cooler, against Daryl and Rosita's advice. It was stupid and bone-headed, and the Walker inside almost killed her, but she vanquished it in the end, and won an orange soda in the cooler for her trouble: something to give to Tara. Denise really shone in this episode. I've liked her all along, and I was really interested in developing more of her relationship with Daryl. We learn that Denise had a twin named Dennis, and that Daryl sort of reminded Denise of her brother. We also learned that Daryl kind of sucks at driving stick shift, and that Denise is really good at it. That was a fantastic moment! If only we could have learned more!

The other subplot is about Eugene and Abraham. Basically, Eugene has the idea of making bullets, since he figures ammunition is the new currency of the land. Abraham agrees, but he also argues with Eugene over the latter's new "bad ass" attitude. Eugene nearly gets himself killed by a lone Walker, insisting he can take care of it by himself, and when Abraham steps in and makes the kill, Eugene yells at him, saying that he can kill Walkers himself, and that Abraham is no longer useful. Later, Eugene gets himself kidnapped and held at gunpoint by Dwight and his gang, and Abraham's timely intervention is what saves them all. Eugene bites Dwight's penis in order to get away, which was gruesome, hilarious, and resourceful all at once. Later, Eugene and Abraham make amends, reaffirming their strange friendship.

I gotta say, I liked the theme of "usefulness" as discussed in this episode. It would have been even stronger if they hadn't killed off Denise, muddling the message, but still. Eugene is very useful, but so is Abraham. The world needs Denise, but it also needs Daryl and Rosita. The balance was really clear. I was oddly proud of Eugene's character progression, and hope to see more of it going forward. Also, Abraham was much more interesting to me when we were dealing with his relationship with Eugene, than when we saw him with Sasha. Seriously, Abraham's love life is boring to me.

Despite the one GLARINGLY OBVIOUS FLAW in this episode, I have to admit that the pacing and the story structure were really excellent. Eugene and Abraham have their story; Denise, Daryl and Rosita have theirs; they come together in a dramatic fashion at the end. The whole thing is bookended by a series of moments in Alexandria where we see that time goes on, patterns are established, and people go about their lives even in the midst of the apocalypse. These framing devices were used to explore Carol's character specifically. As Daryl is changing his mind about showing mercy, Carol is too - after her traumatic experiences from last week's episode, she is realizing that she can't kill people anymore. At the end of the episode, she leaves a letter for Tobin to show everybody: she's leaving, and she doesn't want anybody to follow her. The logic is that she can't love anybody because she isn't willing to kill for them. She can't stay when she knows it'll come to killing again some day, and probably soon.

In some ways this feels sudden, but in others it makes perfect sense. Carol experienced a severe trauma in the necessity of killing those women from last week's episode. She killed Paula, a character designed to be a mirror image of herself, and it made her realize what she had become. From the promo for next week it looks like Daryl takes off after her, reckless and alone, desperate to find her. That's about the only thing in this whole hour of television that could distract me from the idiocy of Denise's death, and I will admit I'm excited to see what comes next.

But mostly? I'm infuriated. I want to be able to give this episode high points for its many good qualities, but I also kind of want to give it 0/10 out of spite and righteous indignation over the very ill advised death of yet another queer woman. Somebody needs to tell studio executives and writers that this cliché is tired, uninspired, and insulting as all hell. I'm just so done.

5/10