Melissa McBride as Carol and Chad L. Coleman as Tyreese in AMC's The Walking Dead
There are more than a few definitions for the word
ethics, but common to most of them are moral obligations dictated for any given situation either through the nature of the universe, a higher power, or standards of rationality. Depending on your perspective, these ideals and ethical standards are the very foundation of society and what make us human, the basis for what separates us from all other life on this planet, or pure bullshit and lies we tell ourselves to make us feel special and at the center of the universe.
Many works of fiction generate conflict by testing these principles in situations mirroring the lifeboat dilemma. There's always a ticking time bomb or a horrible act that must be done for the greater whole. In relation to this, one of the core themes of The Walking Dead is something that's central to the genre going all the way back to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. The circumstances of the situation brings out the worst tendencies in humans, turns our best qualities against us, and in order to survive, a balance has to be found between the two. With almost any zombie story, the afflicted can be seen in such an entirely different light when you realize the zombies aren't meant to be "evil" or even the "villains." The zombies are no different than a thunderstorm, or a hurricane, or an epidemic. A thunderstorm can cause bad things to happen, but a thunderstorm in and of itself isn't evil. It's just a part of nature that we deal with, and how we deal with it can sometimes depend on the type of people we are. Therefore, the true evil in most zombie apocalypses comes from humanity. With the world crumbling around them, the human characters still can't put aside their differences to save each other. They would rather fight over the last scraps of civilization, or hold on to slights and grudges that serve to help no one survive.
And that is the great subtext of zombie fiction. Here in the real world there are so many problems that seem as implacable as a zombie apocalypse, that if we only worked together and saw reason we might be able to do wondrous things that would benefit everyone. But we don't and people suffer.
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In 1884, the English yacht Mignonette sank northwest of the Cape of Good Hope. Four members of the crew made it to a lifeboat that had no supplies of food or water, and for more than three weeks the lifeboat drifted at sea. On the 20th day, still detecting no sign of rescue, two of the sailors on the lifeboat decided to kill one of their fellow survivors, a 17-year old cabin boy named Richard Parker, and his body was devoured by the three that remained for sustenance. When the lifeboat was finally rescued and what happened became known, the two sailors responsible for Parker's death were arrested, charged and convicted of murder on the high seas. The case of Her Majesty The Queen v. Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273 DC, established a precedent in English common law that necessity of survival is not a defense for murder.
Believe it or not, this sort of lifeboat dilemma occurs every day on both a macro and micro scale. No, we don't currently have major problems with cannibalism or zombies. But over the past decade and a half, public policy debates have usually been centered on actions taken in the name of necessity of survival. Every time one of our drones drops a Hellfire missile targeted at someone on the terrorist watchlist, the justification for the action is the greater good of public safety outweighing any ethical qualms created by the action. And whatever collateral damage may occur, whether it be the people in the car with the target or the people at the wedding with the target, is worth it because, as Spock said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. And that line of thinking is not only done by governments, but by every individual in how they live their lives and value the lives of others with their decisions. Whether it be the clothes on your back, the computer you're reading this sentence with, or your shiny new iPhone, there's probably a certain amount of suffering that went into each of those products. Someone somewhere (probably China) worked in a shithole of a factory with no standards so you can take selfies and upload them to Twitter and Instagram. And most people put that unfortunate knowledge to the back of their head while enjoying their merchandise.
But one of the subtexts of a zombie apocalypse is that those concerns can't be so easily sidestepped. And the premiere episode of The Walking Dead's fifth season puts these questions and themes front and center in probably one of the most brutal episodes in the history of the series. When we last saw Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the others (all except for Carol, Tyreese, and Baby Judith), they were being held captive in a rail car in the town of Terminus. They had been led to the town with promises of sanctuary. The truth though is that Terminus is a trap run by cannibals, and the group is about to be slaughtered as cattle. According to the ratings, 17.3 million people tuned in last night to see what would happen.
One of the biggest criticisms of
The Walking Dead is that it basically reuses the same formula over and over again. The group moves to a place, thinks it's safe, it isn't, people act dumb, things blow up, burn, and people die. And then they move on, find a new place and the same thing happens again. Lather, rinse, repeat. However, this episode sidesteps that problem by not dwelling in Terminus and padding out the story arc. In fact, the show probably could have wrongly spent multiple episodes in Terminus in the same way it hovered at the farmhouse and the prison, but we get the gist of what it represents and its significance to the characters in just these 43 minutes.
This episode depicts two groups of people who have been brutalized by this new world. Rick and his group have been changed and hardened, but they still cling to the last small bits of the values of what came before. The people of Terminus have let go of those values and become as monstrous as the things that have attacked them. And there is the thinnest of lines that separates the two groups.
Zombies + exploding propane = walking, burning death.
- The banality of evil: One of the interesting things about the characterization of the people of Terminus is that none of them show malice in their actions. They don't hate the people they capture. They're just indifferent to the suffering of their "cattle." Rick and the others who are dragged into the slaughterhouse are only "things" to be carved up and consumed. In their own way, they're no different than the zombies. After Sam (Robin Lord Taylor) got the bat to the head and the slice to the throat, it was obvious the other two "red-shirts" were not going to make it out of that room alive. But I never really felt Glenn (Steven Yeun) was in any danger, even though they tried every way in the world to sell the tension of those interrupted swings.
- I don't have any friends ... just assholes I stay alive with: The debate between Martin (Chris Coy from Tremé) and Tyrese is indicative of the contrasting values of the two groups. Martin argues Tyrese is a "good guy," but too naive to survive. After watching two little girls die, Tyrese wants to be a caretaker, not a killer, even when killing may be justified. The moment Martin threatens Judith, I think his fate is sealed. But does the fact that Tyrese ends up killing Martin prove Martin's point? On the other hand, since we never actually see a body, was Tyrese telling to the truth to Carol? Or did he lie because he knew Carol would kill Martin herself instead of leaving him alive? Also, we see Gareth (Andrew J. West) get shot, but I have to believe he'll be back at some point.
Carol puts on her zombie camouflage.
- From timid mouse to born-again hard: If there's a star of this episode, it's Carol. Over the course of the series, I don't think any other character has changed and developed as well as she has. In the first season, she is a useless and helpless, abused woman that is now a person capable of going Rambo on a town single-handed. I loved after her reunion with Rick and Daryl (Norman Reedus), Rick greets her with a hug and a smile while saying, "Did you do that?" But Carol is also the character that is the most like the people in Terminus. Since the death of daughter Sophia (Madison Lintz), Carol has hardened to become the most pragmatic and utilitarian of the group that is determined to help those she cares about survive at almost any and all costs. It was Carol that killed two people, which included Tyrese's girlfriend, and burned them for what she thought was for the greater good of the group. But unlike those at Terminus, Carol has held on to just a little bit of her old self. Melissa McBride has talked about this in interviews, while explaining that Carol's experience with Lizzie (Brighton Sharbino) taught her that survival isn't everything.
- Hollywood physics: I want Adam and Jamie at Mythbusters to test blowing up a propane tank with a bottle rocket. Although, they did accurately show that just shooting a propane tank won't make it explode (in fact, it took Mythbusters a mini-gun with incendiary rounds to get a Hollywood like explosion). And since Carol is such a bad-ass MacGyver type now, she didn't even have to aim that damn bottle rocket at the propane tank. She just pointed it in the general direction of the damn thing and it got there.
- A cure?: Is Eugene (Josh McDermitt) telling the truth? Or is he full of shit? The comic-book version of this character goes in a certain direction, but there's nothing that says this Eugene is exactly the same. In Eugene's big explanation scene, I don't think he came off as convincing, as much as he seemed like a part-time Elvis impersonator that's a crazy loon.
Never again ... Never trust ... We first always.
- You're the butcher, or you're the cattle: At the end of the day, Terminus is meant to represent a possible future for Rick and his group. As we see in flashback, the town of Terminus really was a sanctuary once. The people there were no different than anyone in Rick's group. But then thugs came and took control, threw people in train cars, beating and raping women, including Mary (Denise Crosby, best known to Star Trek as Tasha Yar). When the townspeople of Terminus retook control, they took the situation as a sign their kindness was weakness, and the only way to survive was through selfishness. But, just like The Governor and the people who followed him, their ruthlessness is no guarantee of survival. Also of note, while it's not exactly clear in the episode, the crazed man Rick and the group free from the train car during their escape, who keeps saying, "We're the same" before being eaten by a zombie, is the rapist seen in flashback at the end of the episode.
We gotta let those people out. It's still who we are. Its gotta be. —Glenn
- Small victories: While the battle inside Terminus and its climax is largely dependent on convenience (e.g., Carol just happened to attack the town at the right second before Glenn was to die, and Rick just happened to get loose in time, etc.), the escape still worked for me. I bought Rick's anger, since it mirrored the reaction the people of Terminus had to what they encountered. Rick is ready to massacre the entire town for what they've done, and he makes sure to leave any townspeople either to be eaten or turn. But he's also not too far gone to see reason when Glenn pushes to free all the prisoners and the group talks him out of going back to kill anyone left.
From Alan Sepinwall at
HitFix:
If the slaughterhouse scene is as bleak as "The Walking Dead" gets, the episode's concluding moments are as happy as it's possible for the show to be. Carol has an emotional reunion with the group, from a tearful Daryl to a smiling Rick (who has, like Tyreese, allowed circumstance to justify forgiving her for what she did back in the prison), and Rick and Carl are in turn reunited with an alive-and-well L'il Asskicker. For a show that at times struggles to make the fates of any of these people compelling, it's a powerful, effective sequence, and it leaves our group mostly reunited (save for the still-MIA Beth), well-armed, and with a newfound purpose in getting Eugene to Washington.