The following review contains spoilers for the Walking Dead season 5 Episode “Forget”
The Walking Dead Stays On Point
The last two episodes of the Walking Dead brought us to a great and promising place, the Alexandria Safe Zone. We were given hope that the traveling was done and the roaming alongside barely threatening walkers was finished. “Forget” did, quite fittingly, make us forget all of that. It seems very clear now that the group is ready to stay in Alexandria for the long haul, no matter what it takes. Most of the group started to open up to the idea of staying put, most important of which was Rick. All of the trust issues and conflicts set up by “Remember” continued to grow this week, and grow they did. Rick falling for the married Jessie, Carol brutally threatening a child, and Daryl finally finding his place and making a new friend were the highlights of a very character driven episode that was well done across all fronts.
Free For All
While last week focused mostly on trust issues between Rick’s group and the denizens of Alexandria, this week focused on the awkwardness of everyone somewhat being forced to accept each other. Dianna proclaimed that Rick’s group was there to stay and she seems determined to make it work. We aren’t exactly sure where Rick stands but we’re starting to get a pretty good idea. What this left us with was a party as awkward as a middle school dance, and every bit of it was great.
From Abraham and Rosita’s entrance to Rick kissing Jessie in the same house as her husband, we got a good sense of how odd it is to try and go back. To go from survivors on the road to members of a functioning society. Not every member of the group is handling it as well as the others and most of them are somewhere in the middle.
This disparity amongst the characters is what is making Alexandria so great so far. While it’s mostly brief scenes and nudges, (almost) all of the characters are getting pushed along. We’re getting at least something for most of the cast which is refreshing after how the last season and a half had gone. What’s so well done is that each character seems to be in a different state of mind which helps fuel the conflicts and create interest moving forward where it seems like almost anything can happen. Sasha is off the deep end, Daryl went from total outcast to a useful and valuable friend of Aaron’s, and Rick finally seems to be making a decision on how to approach the whole situation.
We could really sink our teeth into each character (almost) and speculate about where they’re going and how they’ll get there. These types of lingering thoughts that stick with you throughout the week are signs that the Walking Dead is back on track and set to stay there.
Forget Final Takeaways
- “Forget” had plenty of memorable scenes but the one that sticks out the most was Carol’s almost “Grimm’s Fairy Tale” like story of what would happen to Sam if he didn’t keep her secret. I expected her to be a little tough on him to not risk anything but it turned out totally brutal and twisted. Great writing coupled with a great delivery by Melissa McBride.
- It was a relief to see Daryl and Aaron’s pursuit of Bubbles didn’t last an entire episode, and great thing it didn’t. The whole sequence from Daryl thinking about joining the party to having dinner with Aaron and finding out what his place in the community could be was fantastic. Another case of great writing and Norman Reedus really stepped up to the plate.
- Last week, it was blatantly obvious that the walls were poorly thought out and having the supports on the outside made absolutely zero sense. It was nice to see them address that in this episode, I sense that someone might use those supports to get in giving Rick a good “I told you so” moment.
- It could be the wolves that exploit Alexandria in the next few episodes as they were hinted at again. Usually, I would complain about such a brief hint at real potential threats but there was so much at play in “Forget” that it turned out to be a nice touch, making sure we don’t forget that they are out there somewhere.
Conclusion
For the second straight week, we were shown that The Walking Dead doesn’t need to be action packed or terrifying to be great. While we had some minor gripes with “Remember”, it’s hard to find any significant flaw with “Forget”. Director David Boyd followed up his earlier work in the season, “Strangers“, with another great effort. It was, put simply, solid across the board. It would have been nice to at least see every character, Gabriel was ignored for the second straight week and Eugene was no where to be seen, I can’t recall Tara being around either but that’s par for the course. Thankfully, the previews seem to suggest that Gabriel and Eugene will be featured in next week’s episode which could greatly help keep the momentum going.
What did you think of “Forget”? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to rate the episode!
