Stunt Granny Conversation: The Walking Dead – Season 5 – Episode 4: Slabtown
Jeremy: hey the OHPA 21 is f’ed. It is a 17 min audio of an architectural presentation.
Kevin: My favorite part was right before the show started, Ken’s wife wondered for a moment on why I’d be interested in this subject Ken brought to the show.
Jeremy: Ha nice. Based off of the building you chose for the pic it should be cool
Kevin: I had never heard of the guy but he certainly is an interesting character.
Jeremy: SEGUE! So yeah, Beth is boring and I had a really hard time caring about her last night.
Kevin: Ha. Smoothest segue ever. I was going to start the day by saying I’m glad I don’t have to write a Monday Morning Mop Up column with Walking Dead columns in full swing. Maybe I should have written that though because this one could be a short conversation.
Jeremy: Not a lot to talk about man. It wasn’t a terrible or even bad episode. It just wasn’t all that interesting. There was a lot of tension but you knew it was going to go bad with lessening that tension.
Kevin: I was laughing at the write up for the episode. “Things are really nice on the surface, but underneath, things are ugly” or some such nonsense. You’ve used this trick at Woodbury, we’re not buying it again.
The male police officer all but raping Beth in the first segment throws that thought directly out the window.
Jeremy: It was pretty clear from the second she woke up things weren’t good. This is mostly due to many seasons of watching the show. Being a bit nitpicky on this one, um, her IV sure came out easy. I was waiting for some pain. Probably from seeing The Human Centipede too many times but whatever.
Kevin: I don’t feel like it takes much for them to pull out the IV when I give blood. Anyone who would think an IV needle is really threatening is a dummy.
Jeremy: You haven’t seen Human Centipede then. Yuck.
Kevin: Nope, only heard about it on South Park. It didn’t make me want to see the movie.
Jeremy: Dude, the first one is pretty messed up and gross without being too graphic. The Second is full out gore and violence.The sequel is much more over the top as a response to criticism the first wasn’t gory enough. Oh, but yeah, Walking Dead; um, isn’t it the first rule of the show that as soon as you meet someone to nice and too convenient they are bad news?
Kevin: Yeah, exactly but they weren’t very nice. The group was either guilting you into doing work or trying to rape you. How does anyone construe that as nice?
Jeremy: The doctor was way too nice so when she gave the patient the wrong meds it was obvious he lied to her. Then she meets Chris, er Noah, and he immediately spills his plans about leaving.
Kevin: The doctor was the only fascinating part to me because of the Caravaggio painting. Loved how they worked the lighting in the doctor’s office to be similar to Caravaggio’s painting style.
Jeremy: Yes I noticed the similarity wit that and the painting but have no idea of his style.
Kevin: My biggest problem was whether a Caravaggio painting would actually be in Atlanta. After looking for an answer, the painting currently is in New York. The painting traveled better than any human on the show. Caravaggio is my favorite painter so I knew what it was before the doctor even said anything.
Jeremy: Read that is is worth $10 million as well so if money mattered that group is rolling in dough but then they have no plan to leave other than the cars, which, well, leave. You have four cars out there and make runs. Why the hell are you staying on one floor of an abandoned hospital in a city that is over run?
Kevin: I’ve got no idea why you do that. It made no sense to me that all the gates were open but no walkers were around except when Beth was trying to escape? Or when the almost live human was dumped down the laundry chute? Consistency in story telling was not the strongest in this episode.
Jeremy: Right, I understand the ease of disposal but you are inviting the walkers in. Also, hasn’t it been established a hoard can break down doors so how they are even in there is beyond me. The group even eventually cleared the prison.
Kevin: That has been established which made the doctor’s story about why he stays baffling. I come down here and taunt walkers when I’m thinking about leaving.
Jeremy: Yeah I just rattle the cage of the killer to make sure I don’t leave. Out of the people in the hospital I am looking froward to him getting it the most. He is the worst kind of evil, weak.
Kevin: He doesn’t seem as in a bad spot as the scientist in Woodbury so I have no sympathy for him.
Jeremy: Right, Milton was at least in it for the science. This guy is just doing it as to not go out on his own. I suppose the environment is breeding this thought.
Kevin: I’m trying to come up with some other topic for this episode but like you, I just wasn’t very invested in it. The lone thought is about Daryl and Carol. Daryl said he knew where Beth was but she’s not herself. Did him & Carol send her into the hospital on a covert mission or is she in there because they did something dumb?
Jeremy: Remember Beth got taken last season by the car with the cross on the back window. The car was in the parking lot as well when her and Everybody Hates Chris were escaping, which was really silly. Why would Beth sacrifice herself to make sure he escapes? Why would Beth give a damn about any of thee people other than to escape a situation she clearly didn’t ask nor want to be in.
Kevin: That certainly is another topic but I’m not sure she gave a damn about Chris. Beth needed his help to escape. She was sprinting ahead of him during the escape scene but instead of dodging walkers like gimpy, she got all trigger happy.
Jeremy: Yeah but she smiled seeing him escape. Only thought I have is that was her payback for him taking the beating for the medicine mix up. She did have a redeeming moment when she lured Gorman in and then bashed him with the suckers jar.
Kevin: I was of the mind set that she was happy someone escaped. That could tie back into Daryl though. They didn’t show who was with Daryl so maybe it’s Chris. Beth did play Gorman pretty well, but was he in the scene where she got tied up again?
Jeremy: Nah he is dead. Probably at bottom of elevator shaft. I thought the episode was ok but when they added the reveal of Carol on the gurney, while giving us a holy shit moment, it made the rest feel unimportant.
Kevin: It stems from the fact that the writers haven’t ever given us much of a reason to invest in Beth. The woman officer mentioned the suicide attempt but even that was down played after the one episode it happened in. Her running around with Daryl before getting kidnapped was her first extended camera time since that attempt.
Jeremy: Good call. As soon as the audience is given any investment she is taken away. In meantime the audience has been exposed to non-stop bad assery. She shows back up whimpering and scared it was such a drastic change in direction.
Kevin: Hadn’t thought of it that way. The Walking Dead usually has a slower pace to it as the episodes build. Chinese Kevin expected them to be talking for three episodes after the season opener. This was the first episode that was a majority of talking this season.
Jeremy: Yes it was and a lot of the same thing repeated. It did contain one of the better gore moments this season.
Kevin: Beth stomping on the walker’s head?
Jeremy: No, the sawing off of the girls forearm and hand. Brutal stuff just knowing she was awake as well. Then the psychological part of it knowing she was being kept alive against her will so Gorman can continue owning her.
Kevin: I’m not sure how I forgot about that. They took their sweet time with that segment too. No blowing through that painful procedure.
Jeremy: The question needs to be asked; worse amputation Herschel or Joan?
Kevin: Do you mean Hershel’s leg or head?
Jeremy: OH man, I forgot about that. Poor bastard was mutilated. At least Joan got to go out on her own terms and tell Gorman ” Fuck You” at the end. Herschel just got chooped up again and left to turn.
Kevin: I’d go with Joan’s amputation as being worse only because they used a garrote wire. Double yuck.
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