The Walking Dead S6 E5: Now

The Walking Dead was on a roll for awhile until it screeched on the brakes for the last two episodes. After “JSS,” probably my favorite episode ever, “Now” was one of my least favorites.

I understand the point of a table-setting installment like this one and I understand the need for a breather episode. It just would have been much better if it hadn’t followed last week’s interlude. Watching two episodes of this stuff in a row has killed the momentum for me. I couldn’t have taken any more scenes of two people talking and coming to terms with things scored to piano music or orchestral swells. I need less of that and more of Carol shooting people in the head.

It’s not as if there was no action this week. We did get some forward momentum with Maggie and Aaron searching for Glenn and then retreating in the face of terrible odds. Those skeletal zombies rising out of the mud in the sewer were terrifying and I had to look away. But then all that ends with the two of them scrubbing Glenn’s name off the memorial wall with some feel-good music.

I think Glenn is dead and they will next see him as a zombie. That explains why he hasn’t been on The Talking Dead and why the producer said we may see him or parts of him again.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, that doctor shows feelings (either genuine feelings or what-the-hell-the-world-is-ending-so-why-not feelings) toward what’s her name — Rosita? I can’t tell her apart from the other one. Rick kisses the widow. Carl, who by the way really needs a haircut, gets into a conflict with his friend. Deanna’s son teaches the Alexandrians a valuable lesson about stealing food and then steals anyway. And was that one zombie who attacked from nowhere the Wolf that Morgan let live last week? Did he die and turn?

Deanna herself walks around shellshocked, devises plans for more organized civilization inside the walls, kills a zombie and tells Rick she wants to live. Maybe there is some promise there.

I just hope things get moving again. I may be in the minority but I did not care for the last two episodes.