I might need to start giving out a “most unfortunate” award. Every week it seems like The Walking Dead picks someone to dump on for an hour. This week, it was Abraham.
Poor Abraham.
At the end of “Self Help” we finally found out why Eugene always felt so creepy: He’s a huge creep. He defends the mullet way too much, he likes to peep on Abraham and Rosita (who knew they were such a good “friends,” by the way) and then we find out he’s been lying to everyone this whole time.
Eugene admits, before Abraham takes on everyone in his group, that he is not a scientist and does not hold they key to ending the zombie apocalypse. He’s just a guy who thought D.C. would be a safe place to survive and wanted to trick people into taking him there.
When Abraham finds out Eugene’s secret he realizes that everything he’s lived for since he met Eugene was a lie. In a series of quick flashbacks, we saw Abraham scare his family into leaving him then decide to commit suicide just before Eugene found him and asked for his help. Eugene gave Abraham a purpose, but now Abraham becomes a complete wild card. Between his almost-suicide and obvious anger issues, who knows what Abraham will want to do now?
“Self Help” continued this particularly strong season of The Walking Dead, which doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon. It’s even beating football in the ratings, which is almost impossible to do.
The Walking Dead had 13.534 million viewers last night and beat Sunday Night Football in the 18-49 demo for 3rd time in 5 eps this season.
— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) November 10, 2014
Here are my weekly awards for episode five of season five:
MVP of the Night: Glen
Glen is holding his group together. Abraham might be deciding what direction they’re going, but Glen is the person with the real power. Towards the beginning of “Self Help” Glen had to reassure Abraham that he was leading the group and the others would follow. That tells you all you need to know about who’s actually the leader.
Carl of the Night: Eugene
I mean, are you kidding me? The creepy, awkward, mullet-having, helpless guy in the group was lying about being able to end the zombie apocalypse? I don’t think Eugene will die in the next few weeks, but I don’t think he makes it out of season five. He already had a whole world full of walkers to worry about, not I might put my money on Abraham being the one to take out the non-scientist.
Who we met:
No one.
Who Died:
No one, but as long as Abraham and Eugene are together you have to believe that will change soon.
Best part of the night:
Any time there are flashbacks in a Walking Dead episode, they’re probably going to be my favorite part of the episode. Many of the show’s characters are so interesting, you can’t help but wonder what they were doing before we knew them. Abraham provided us with some particularly dark, but still interesting, background information this week. I’d like to see more of where these characters came from in future episodes.
Grossest part of the night:
“Self Help” was pretty light on the gross factor, but the grossest, or maybe scariest, part of the episode came on the form and Abraham’s lust for blood. He said it himself, he thinks absolutely nothing of killing anymore, and judging by his flashbacks, that goes for humans and walkers alike.
What to watch for:
It seems like we’ll only being seeing a few characters per episode for the next few weeks, at least. So here’s something to watch for each one of our groups.
1. Rick and the gang
We left this group with them setting out to find Beth. Michonne found Daryl coming out of the woods with someone we didn’t’ see. We now know that it wasn’t Carol. I think, or at least hope, it’s Morgan Jones. As I’ve written all season, Jones is a great character who needs more screen time.
It might also be Noah, the boy Beth helped escape the hospital she’s currently a prisoner in. Either way, judging by next week’s preview, I think we’ll find out who’s with Daryl when he gets back to camp.
2. Beth, Carol and the hospital
There’s clearly a lot we still don’t know about the hospital, but I want to know how Carol got there. I wouldn’t put it past Carol to fake an injury to get into the hospital if she knew Beth was in there.
3. Glen and Abraham’s group
This group just found out their driving force was complete lie. There is no magic cure-all for the walkers, there is nothing solid to go to D.C. for and before they found out those things they were already at each other’s throats.
I don’t what Abraham will do after his mental break, but you’d think Glen and Maggie would’ve had enough and start back towards Rick and the rest of their original group.