After the full-on chaos and gunfire of last week’s Walking Dead episode, this week’s ‘The Same Boat’ is a smaller, more compact entry… but no less intense. Here’s our belated review…
The raid on Negan’s compound went well… to a point. With many of the men in the compound dead, Rick and his survivors – as we saw/heard at the end of last week’s episode – suddenly realise that Carol (Melissa McBride) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) have been captured by another faction of the ‘Saviors’. This group, led by Paula (Alicia Witt) retreat to an old slaughterhouse that they can defend more easily and assess what to do next. They’ve seen the savagery of Rick’s attack on the others and don’t believe Carol’s assertion that a deal for everyone’s survival can be reached.
As time ticks away, Paula and Rick strike a potential deal over the walkie-talkies, neither trusting the other. But Carol knows that the simmering distrust is likely to end badly. She recognises Paula as someone who could easily have been herself with only minor changes to luck and fortune and finds that she’s loathe to kill someone so similar . There will undoubtedly be blood-shed before the day is done, but can she save herself and mum-to-be Maggie or will she have to once again turn to desperate measures?
This is, to all intents and purposes, what the industry refers to as a ‘bottle’ show – essentially a situation where an episode take place in one location. In this case, the location looks like – and apparently is, in reality – a set previously used in the cult grindhouse movie SAW. Add to that that it’s also a chapter with a limited amount of regulars (for the most part just Carol and Maggie) and you can see that on a practical level it’s a good cost-cutting exercise, enabling more money to spent on the likes of the previous action-heavy episode and what is likely to be following very soon. That’s not to say this is wasted – there’s a solid history of The Walking Dead making the most of its pauses to crank up the moments of tension into opportunities for character-study.
Melissa McBride once again excels… whether she’s ‘playing’ the humble, scared, religious lamb or the vengeful lion, there’s an innate truth she brings to both outlooks and it’s a tribute to how well McBride can act without words that every twitch and glance is filled with nuance and tension. She really deserves to get some major awards this year for playing one of the most interesting characters on television. It makes one wish that the episode’s rather generic title might have been better-shaped with the likes of ‘Cookie/Monster‘ or the referenced ‘Kill Floor‘. Lauren Cohen also simmers nicely and guest-star Alicia Witt makes the most of every scene she’s in – which is most of them.
If anyone suspects that the season finale may try some bait-and-switch with the fate of characters as portrayed in the original comic-story then there’s perhaps reason to think that – – – POSSIBLE SPOILERS – – – – Carol’s journey *could* be the one that’s getting tied off. This is a character that’s gone from mother and battered wife to pragmatic, efficient killer and here we see her both wanting NOT to be ruthless unless she has to be and also seeing the way that a similar darkness is changing mum-to-be Maggie. In many ways, that’s a good place to take a character arc, but beyond that – we’ll see. It would still be fantastic to have her around for the foreseeable future.
A welcome ‘quieter’ episode, but one still full of carnage, emotionally and physically…
9/10
