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It was the single worst episode of a television show that I have watched in 27 years of life.
That is not hyperbole. That is not bullshit. That is not even a slight exaggeration. That is the unquestioned, money back guarantee truth about season four, episode 13 of “The Walking Dead.” To call it an affront to television would be a compliment undeserved. The episode is the gunk that forms at the bottom of a toilet bowl that no steel wire brush or untold gallons of Clorox bleach can get rid of.
That’s why it’s time to ask the question: When do you give up on a TV show that you’ve already invested so much time into?
I’m not going to spoil last night’s episode for anyone–and truth be told, I couldn’t spoil it if I wanted to–but I will say it was crystal clear that the showrunners didn’t care about those 42 minutes of sewage they forced out of my television and into my eyes. I don’t think anyone can even convince me there was a script for last night’s episode. If you told me director Ernest Dickerson stumbled onto set in the throes of an original Four Loko hangover, picked cast members out of a hat and said, “Go talk until we tell you to stop,” I wouldn’t even question it.
Every show has the occasional filler episode. “Breaking Bad” had the fly episode. “Lost” had any episode that was centered around Kate and her backstory. “Mad Men,” “Sons of Anarchy,” and “Justified” have had them, too. The difference is that even those episodes were watchable, because you had a vested interest in the characters and where the story was headed.
If, on next week’s episode, everyone caught the bird flu and the jumped one by one off a cliff like dirty lemmings, would you care? Would the show be worse if the final two weeks of the season were just montages of walkers in old diners or an obscure Chuck E. Cheese’s, milling around and waiting for some poor bastard to stumble in?
The trouble with those questions is how hard they are to answer. The only reason last night’s episode didn’t make me quit outright was because I soldiered through 13 episodes worth of Herschel playing Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman on some rural Georgia farm while that asshole Carl ran through the forest with a capgun and oversized cowboy hat, and I’ll be damned if I bow out now.
Also, fuck Carl.
So I’m not quitting. Yet. But the seeds have been planted. I think I could walk away. I think I could lie to myself and say I’ll read a book on Sunday nights instead of watching charisma captain Rick Grimes and his merry band of sharpshooters trudge through Centralia. I’ll be back next Sunday. I can only hope the show follows the advice of Ben Affleck in “Boiler Room.”
Just don’t waste my time anymore.
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Spacely Sprockets
Fluent in gin & tonics and Cam'ron lyrics. Forever reporting tweets about weather and Instagrammed food pictures as spam.
@TsarJordan
I guess I’m alone in thinking this was a decent episode. I mean, if you’re only there for the gore and the bigger story of what’s going on, then yeah, it was awful. On the other hand, there are some folks, like myself, who think that character development and fully-fleshing out a character’s back story are just as important.
But then again, I’m weird because I thought Game of Thrones season 1 was fairly well-paced and not slow at all.
I am totally with you on this! I thought I was the only one who thought that the show was about a little bit more than gore all the time. The gore is part of it, for sure, but character development is something that has to happen and is also part of the story
I am one of the few that loved season 2 so I’m all about character development. But I found myself asking “ok, what was the point of this episode?” That’s not really something I want to ask after watching.
The lack of gore has nothing to do with it. They shoehorned a backstory where it wasn’t needed (people loved Daryl already and his motivations aren’t really relevant) and took an entire episode to accomplish what would have taken one scene in a well-written show.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it was a great episode. But I’ve sat through much worse from the likes of Mad Men.
And in response to your initial premise of “giving up on Walking Dead,” I am with you in that the series is definitely in a decline this season. However, I’m still holding out hope that the writers can find their stride again.
I quit two weeks ago, and haven’t thought about it since. They jumped the shark.
I could only guess that they made the episode lame since most people were watching the Oscars.
Fuck Carl.
And was it just me or was last week’s preview for last night’s episode the same as last night’s preview of next week’s episode? Were they tricking me into thinking last night would be more intense than a bad ass recluse and a thirsty whiny teen talking pointlessly for an hour?
So Daryl’s a mean drunk. Still beat watching that award show.
Show blows. They kept Carl alive for to long. It’s all about True Detective, The Following and The Americans now.
The Americans is the best show on TV, no competition
I think you misspelled “True Detective.”
Commie scum.
Lost had an excessive amount of shitty episodes.
I think I got through 3 episodes of season 4 before quitting.
You couldn’t have said it better. if next week is shit, game over.
So what you’re saying is you basically embody the sunk cost fallacy
Made the executive decision to not even start Season 4 after Season 3 did nothing but piss me off. Looking more and more like the right call
Yep. And season 3 was pretty much a joke to me. I don’t care about the characters.They are offensively boring.