The Walking Dead S7 E6: Swear

Not every character needs a spotlight episode. Was anybody really wondering what happened to Blanche/Charmaine/Virginia after she and the other guy left on a mission after killing everyone in the Negan compound?

It’s not that Tara is a bad character or a bad actress. (Fine. I guess I’ll start remembering her name now.) Her awkwardness is sort of endearing and a break from the seriousness of the rest of the cast. It was kind of fun how she walked back to Alexandria clothed in symbols: The sunglasses for optimism, the doctor bobblehead for her love for Denise, and the shell bracelet for her time by the ocean. But this was still a bad episode that shouldn’t have happened.

There were a handful of things I liked. I didn’t mind seeing the beach, since it’s a reminder that as destroyed as civilization is, the rest of the natural world is still there to enjoy. I liked how the driftwood on the beach was a visual symbol of the wandering zombies. That community did seem like it was farther south than the Delmarva Peninsula, with all the bamboo.

I didn’t like the fakeout at the end where the zombie turned out to be an unknown woman and not Heath, as it seemed cheap. I had just been saying it would be fun to have someone stumble across a zombified friend, as the show hasn’t done much with that type of reveal. I also didn’t like how the show cut out the dialogue when Eugene revealed Denise’s death to Tara. A lot of shows elide the big sad moment like this and it’s clichéd and a cheat. Just write some dialogue and show the reaction.

Then there’s this jewel of dialogue: “We have an endless supply of fish here: One of the perks of being close to the ocean.” You don’t say? I guess if they lived close to cows, they’d have an endless supply of steak. You’d think with all the money The Walking Dead makes, they would spend some money on writers. The woman who plays Michonne is a Broadway playwright so maybe they could give her some pages to rewrite.

I understood why Tara lied to Rosita (fine, I’ll remember her name, too) about the existence of Oceanside but it kind of means that the past hour-plus was pointless for the viewers. There’s a way to reveal character without having a show screech to a halt.

I know the show is trying to introduce a bunch of civilizations and widen the world to set up an inevitable clash of cultures. I just don’t think this is the way to do it. I think it would be much more effective if they interspersed a few stories in each episode, just to keep things more dynamic. They could have explored Tara’s story in a few scenes spread across a few episodes. The worst thing about this episode is that it was extra long. It was like the writers said, “We have en extra-boring installment. Let’s give people more of it.” It was like eating a second helping of a really boring pie.