The Walking Dead "Chained" - TV Review

It's not Carl's fault there's no one his age in the whole world.

A show's plot should always feel organic. These events lead to these events, which lead to these events... The best shows never feel like they're forcing something to happen just so they can get to this next plot point, which is the one they really believe in. Unfortunately, that happened in this episode.

We only follow two groups in this episode - the Rick & Carl show with Deadly Aunt Michonne, and then Glenn & the Newbies.  Michonne and Carl go on a supply run while Rick stays home to recouperate from his wounds. Timeline-wise, it's still only been 2-3 days since the Governor's final attack. The bonding time between Carl and his new mother figure (big sister figure?) reveals more about Michonne than we've been allowed to learn in three seasons. Back at home, though, Rick has to avoid a band of armed brothers who've picked his house - of all houses! - to poke around and take naps.

I find it interesting that Jeff Kober played the leader. We barely see him, which makes me believe his crew's going to meet up with Rick down the road.

The other storyline was the most problematic one. Abraham, Rosita and Eugene are here. Now what? It just had this lurching quality to it. Glenn wakes up. He freaks out and gets Abraham to stop the truck. Glenn and Abraham fight long enough for Eugene to grab a machine gun and shoot everything including the truck's gas tank when no one else is noticing the approaching walkers. Eugene says he knows how to fix the zombie crisis but won't give anyone the details because it's "classified." And no one presses him on this.

So their tale ends with the five of them (Tara's here too!) walking south to find Maggie and the bus, and we know that it's about 150 miles south of where they are now.

I don't know why they dyed Michael Cudlitz's hair red when his mustache is staying blond. I just hope they make better use of them in future episodes so their presence and actions don't feel so forced.

I also think from now on, as long as they're separated, I'm going to refer to each group Game of Thrones style.  Today we followed House Rick and House Glenn. Hopefully next week we'll see where House Daryl, House Tyreese, and House Maggie are doing. I like Jim Gaffigan's suggestion at changing the opening credits to show us who is where at the beginning of each episode.