‘What Happened and What is Going On’ couldn’t be a more fitting title for what happened inside my head the first 45 seconds of the anticipated return of The Walking Dead.
The show has always taken risks and in a way, Sunday’s episode was a big creative gamble. From start to end, we are in a dream-like state of flashbacks and foreshadowing. With a flash of opaque red light, we see the railroad to Terminus and the prison. We then see splashes of crimson blood dripping onto a framed sketch of an unrecognizable home – which, predictably, explains itself in the end.
After getting past a slow beginning, we realize that half the gang is missing and the other half has decided to go on yet another road trip in search of new scenery. An addition to the crew is Noah, the boy who befriended our dear lost Beth. If I were to judge his character for the rest of the season based solely on this episode, I would say he’s totally useless – but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
As Rick, Glenn, Tyreese and Noah explore the neighborhood once inhabited by Noah himself, they realize they’ve reached yet another dead-end – literally. Walkers surround the area, many of which being victims of “rebels” who brutally slayed, dismembered and set fire to innocent people, including Noah’s family. Worry not, I’m sure our gang won’t encounter them later on.
Unfortunately in helping Noah search for his family, Tyreese pays the ultimate price. While wandering the home, Tyreese gets bit on the arm by Noah’s young brother, now a walker. Drip drop – his blood seeps onto the framed sketch we saw in the first minute of the premiere. In a fit of delusion and blood loss, he begins to have hallucinations of the dead – Bob, Beth, Mika, Lizzie, Martin and the Governor. While some try to convince him life is not worth living, he exclaims, “It’s not over. I’m not giving up.” But even after the removal of his infected arm, Tyreese’s fight is over. He drives somewhere far away in a car full of those he has lost, joining them in the better life they describe.
I would typically roll my eyes at such a redundant ploy — visions of the dead — in the cinematic or television world, but here, it actually works. As a viewer, you realize the development of Tyreese’s character and the profound damage this new world has done to someone like him – a fatal optimist. We come to understand he is not capable of coping in a world like this or with the things he must do to survive. His internal moral compass is flawed beyond repair, so is life truly worth living?
His conversation with the dead seems to justify his own death a bit more. It leaves us with more peace than the accidental shooting of Beth, for instance. Us viewers can’t handle two main characters dying in a row without some closure. As one of the dead said, “Being a part of it is ‘being’ now.” And so, Tyrese stopped “being.” And I will miss him dearly.
Let’s be honest, we left the mid-season finale pretty pissed off. So much momentum had been escalating in the most stimulating season yet – just to end in the unnecessary killing of sweetheart Beth Greene. Fans were so displeased that protests and petitions to bring her back emerged. As displeased as I was myself, I would like to think Beth’s death meant something bigger in the long run, and Sunday’s return was a noble start to what that something might be.