‘The Walking Dead’ Episode 5.6 “Consumed” (9 out of 10) Created by Frank Darabont; Starring Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Chandler Riggs, Steven Yeun, Lauren Cohan; Sundays on AMC.
After waiting two weeks for a look at what Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) were up to while Beth (Emily Kinney) was learning the horrible rules of Grady Memorial Hospital, we finally get an episode that puts them front and center. Their time spent tracking Beth through the ruins of Atlanta is packed with the metaphorical weight of Carol’s sometimes fractured sense of morality.
Spoilers ahead!
White Crosses
Throughout the episode, we get a mixtape of Carol’s greatest hits. It’s interesting to see some of these scenes from Carol’s perspective—watching her stand above the smoldering corpses of the flu victims and foraging for survival after Rick (Andrew Lincoln) sends her packing convey the sense of lonely survivalism that has come to define Carol. These flashbacks are excellent windows into the core of who Carol has become.
In addition to Carol’s specific flashbacks, the entire episode feels like a journey that we’ve been on before—in a good way. It felt nostalgic to see Daryl and Carol combing a hostile environment for a missing girl, since their ultimately tragic quest to find Sophia in season two was what initially brought the two together. The setting has changed from the wilderness back to the shattered urban sprawl of Atlanta—there’s even a scene in which the pair walk past a tank that looks an awful lot like the one Rick holed up in at the end of the show’s first episode. This backdrop is an excellent environment for the two characters to discuss how much they’ve changed over the course of the zombie apocalypse.
Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride have built a unique type of chemistry over the course of the show, and I love it when we get to see them interact. As the episode’s dialogue was sparse and lean, it allowed these two actors to really explore the nuances of silent interaction. Both Reedus and McBride bring a hefty dose of charisma to the table, and it’s quite amazing how well these two can emote without saying anything at all.
Choices
It’s tough to watch this journey through a city-turned-hellscape without thinking of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” The ruined city of Atlanta is representative of Carol’s abusive and dysfunctional past, and the person she is in season five has done many questionable things to become self-sufficient. As she navigates the urban ruins, she is navigating her own conscience in order to find a reason to keep on surviving. Daryl, who is also not the same person he was at the beginning, fills in for Virgil in this Dante analogy, as he is the one guiding Carol through a literal and figurative purgatory. Daryl, who Carol describes as a “kid who became a man,” shares her sense of pragmatism in the undead world, but his attitude seems to have been seasoned by Beth’s—he’s a much more optimistic zombie hunter than he used to be.
Their philosophical debate is put to the test when they find Noah (Tyler James Williams) pinned down by a zombie. Earlier, Noah held them up and stole their weapons, and Daryl wants to leave him in his current predicament—after stealing his pack of cigarettes, however. When Carol pleads for Daryl to help him despite his treachery, it feels like she’s put that cold survivalist persona away. It’s fitting that only moments after she has this breakthrough that she gets hit by a car, however.
Verdict
Every so often, “The Walking Dead” throws us some solid storytelling and character building without an influx of undead action. Though tonight’s episode didn’t totally skimp out on the action—the van plummeting from the bridge was a beautifully tense scene, for example. When these episodes arrive, it’s important to have actors who can dig into their characters and change them around a bit. Reedus and McBride are exactly the type of actors that you want for an episode like this, as they even fill the silence with serious stage presence.