The Walking Dead: Rendition (11x04)

Guess who gives a shit about Leah? Well, I don't know. But it's not me.

Cons:

So, the Reapers are a creepy group of religious extremists who speak in flowery, over the top language and are creatively violent with strangers? Wow, how original. I just can't give a shit about the various cults we've been introduced to over the years. The Governor, Negan, Alpha... where does it end? I can't bring myself to be invested in "Pope" and his creepy speechifying. It all just blurs together in my head.

Even when he burns one of his men, I'm just like... okay? I didn't know that guy. Do I care? It shows that he's insane, but was I really supposed to be surprised by that revelation? If anything it just makes me more bored and annoyed by Leah.

Leah. Leah is... boring? Yeah, let's go with boring. It's not that I can't see myself ever being invested in her, I'm just really annoyed with how it's shaking out here. We saw Leah for one episode with Daryl, then she vanished and joined a cult, and now am I supposed to be... compelled by the potential connection between them again? I'm sorry, but Daryl has a family he cares about, that he would die for, and Leah is some person we barely know! I'm bored! And she's all "these people are my family" and yet they're burning people alive for being cowards, so... I can't exactly trust her judgment, can I?

This episode, and in fact a lot of this season thus far, has felt disconnected from the larger story. What are we building towards? All I want is to check in with the more interesting story with Eugene and the others, and yet we have been thwarted once again. Something interesting better happen soon with these Reapers, or I'm going to get mighty frustrated.

Pros:

Norman Reedus is a good performer. I think it would have been easy with Daryl to make him a bad-ass without any inner softness to him, but here, we see all of who Daryl is. He can hold up under torture and would do anything to avoid betraying his friends, but he's going to be freaked out and scared and he's going to get emotional. There's a lot going on behind what is on its surface a very simple character.

There is one intriguing thing about Leah and the Reapers and all that, which is the idea of Daryl being adopted into a new group. Obviously I don't think he'd ever really leave the others behind, and he'll try to escape or to help them how he can. But if there's one defining tension of this season thus far, it's this idea of cohesion vs. dispersal. Should Eugene and the others join this new community, or should they come home? Daryl obviously isn't better off with the Pope and these other people, but is he really at home in Alexandria? It kind of seems like he hasn't been for a long time. Is Maggie really going to fit back into her old life, or is that doomed as well? If we can follow the threads of that tension moving forward, it makes for a good final season question. Will the gang stay together, or will their lives further splinter, until nobody we even know is left in Alexandria?

Unfortunately that's about all I've got to say on the positive front this week. I'm waiting for the stakes to make sense, for it all to come together and feel like one story. Right now, each episode feels like it stands on its own, and unfortunately a lot of the episodes haven't had much to grab my interest thus far.

6.5/10