Advertisement

5 things we learned from Sunday night's episode of 'The Walking Dead'

This post contains spoilers, obviously. SPOILER ALERT. Click away now if you don’t want to find out what happened in Sunday night’s episode of The Walking Dead. Here’s the video for the Cranberries’ hit Zombie to distract you while you click away:

Sunday night’s episode of The Walking Dead saw fearful leader Rick Grimes and his crew enter the Northern Virginia gated community that new-guy Aaron told them about in last week’s show. It turned out to be more or less everything it was made out to be: A safe place where no one eats each other, run by someone who is not an obvious sociopath.

Despite dozens of super-ominous music cues (“Hey, I found a comic book,” *DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNN*), everything in Alexandria seems OK. It’s extremely clean, there’s electricity and running water, and there are a bunch of attractive people that could easily hook up with members of Team Rick and get about repopulating the zombie-ridden earth.

Here are five things we learned from the episode:

1. Showers feel great in the zombie apocalypse

(PHOTO: Gene Page/AMC)

(PHOTO: Gene Page/AMC)

After you’ve been out on the road massacring zombies and eating worms, a hot shower must feel so incredibly good. I still fondly remember the first shower I took after three muddy days at Bonnaroo back in 2003, and I hardly had any zombie guts on me at the time. No matter how this whole Alexandria thing plays out, you have to figure Team Rick will at least be thankful they were able to clean themselves before it all inevitably went to hell.

2. It’ll take more than running water and electricity to civilize Darryl

The best moment of the episode comes when we see Darryl, still dirty because he refuses to shower, gutting a possum on the pristine front porch of one of the beautiful homes in their new community. And basically every time we see Darryl in the episode, he’s pacing back and forth like a caged lion — so much so that you can pretty much assume that’s how the director said he wanted it played.

It’s unclear what Darryl thinks will happen to him if he showers, but it’s obvious that putting Darryl in a safe place behind walls robs him of his entire identity. Remember that he’s the one dude who seems to be better off after the zombie uprising than before it, what with Merle always picking on him and all.

It’s also unclear why he wouldn’t be put on supply-run duty, since he’s by far the best on Team Rick at pretty much everything and there’s zero chance he’d put up with any of this guy Aiden’s nonsense like Glenn does for a while. But it seems significant that Congresswoman Deanna, the community’s leader, hasn’t found a job for Darryl yet. We know she has exiled guys before, and perhaps Darryl’s unwillingness to get with the new program will be what makes the whole Alexandria thing fall apart.

3. Everyone’s impressed with how hot Rick is

The current beard trend apparently isn’t a thing in the parallel universe in which The Walking Dead takes place, so Rick shaves, and everyone seems pretty into it, like, “OMG you look just like the hot guy with the signs from Love Actually. While he’s walking around shirtless in his new McMansion, an attractive blonde woman shows up and just so happens to be a hairstylist eager to trim Rick’s hair. Later we briefly meet her husband, and he seems like a real jerk. Maybe this is how it all goes wrong.

Michonne and Deanna both seem pretty impressed with how good Rick looks while clean cut. If any sort of love triangle or quadrangle turns violent, bet all your money on Michonne. These Virginians seem pretty soft. Speaking of which…

4. Carl’s been through some pretty heavy stuff

(PHOTO: Gene Page/AMC)

(PHOTO: Gene Page/AMC)

Carl meets a couple other kids his age for the first time in a long time, and they’re all, “hey, we go to school and play video games,” and Carl’s like, “oh that’s cool, I killed my mom in the zombie-ridden basement of an abandoned prison.” Everyone seems like they want Carl to be able to live something closer to a normal life and it’s part of why they’re so invested in the Alexandria thing, but Carl might be pretty far past normalcy at this point. Kid goes out and kills zombies for sport with his dad.

Another thing to remember is that Carl is 14 years old. Remember what being 14 years old was like? The only thing that’s going to suppress your hormones at that age is a zombie horde trying to devour your family. He seems pretty fascinated by Enid.

What’s Enid’s deal, anyway? She’s obviously a bit of a loose cannon, and it’s unclear that she has parents. So first of all, if she was out there surviving the zombie apocalypse on her own, Carl’s probably going to find that about the most attractive thing imaginable. Second, if she keeps coming and going as she pleases, she’s probably going to incur some trouble in Alexandria. Possibly this is how the safe zone goes south.

5. Now they all live happily ever after

You know what would be an awesome plot twist? If the Alexandria community proved a perfect place for Team Rick to live happily for the rest of their years, and the show turned into a wacky, laugh-track sitcom featuring a zombie neighbor who sometimes just walks into the house and helps himself to the brains they keep in the fridge. I’d watch that show. Post-Modern Family, maybe.

But that’s probably not going to happen. If you’ve been reading this post, you might have picked up on the fact that I think life in Alexandria won’t prove nearly this hospitable for Rick and his crew for very long. I think that because I’ve seen this show before. Something’s going to go wrong, probably because Rick will screw something up. And though he alluded to taking over the community at the end of the episode, you know there’s no chance he’ll do that without burning it all down or letting a bunch of zombies in first.

More Pop Culture