Whose Episode Is It?

Everyone's here, but the character stuff this episode is for the three characters hit hardest by the recent losses -- our resident Mourners in Chief: Maggie, Daryl, and Sasha.

Achievement in Grossness

Daryl pulls a zombie's skullcap off with his bare hands at one point, but this episode's mostly dedicated to wallowing in misery.

How Far is Too Far?

Normally this section is for the characters' actions becoming questionable in the name of survival, but for this week it's going to refer to the show itself. After last week's slow, grim, padded episode, low and behold this week is even slower, grimmer and more padded. If last week felt like 40 minutes of material stretched to an hour, this week feels like 20.

The first half of "Them" sees the group struggling to find food and water; when they're not searching, they're staring into the distance, looking miserable. Things pick up a bit as the episode progresses, but the first half is a chore. Even the minor plot details are dark, like a bound and gagged zombie found in the trunk of a car, or a pack of wild dogs that are summarily executed by Sasha. Once the dogs are dead, Rick sighs, gets up and we cut to everyone chowing down on dog meat. Fun! Those who consider "The Walking Dead" to be little more than misery porn can certainly point to the first half of this episode as strong evidence for their stance.

A Shred of Humanity

Of course the most miserable Ricketeers are Daryl and Maggie, still mourning Beth, and Sasha, mourning Tyreese. It's certainly necessary for these characters to deal with their grief, but the way the episode goes about it is extremely perfunctory, and since it's the focus of the entire episode, it feels like filling in checkboxes rather than a fully fleshed-out story.

Each of these characters is handling their grief in different ways (Sasha is angry, Daryl is bottling it all up, Maggie is wondering what the point of it all is), and each of them in turn are given a pep talk by one of the other Ricketeers. It's sort of interesting that while Daryl and Maggie get caring responses from their loved ones (Carol and Glenn, respectively), poor Sasha just gets a "get over it" lecture from Michonne. It really shows how Sasha has lost those closest to her, and might grow more alienated from the group. (Further evidence: when Abraham tells Sasha "You're with friends," she immediately responds with "We're not friends.") Not much is made of it in this episode, but it's an interesting narrative string to be explored down the line.

And then our mourners basically clear their emotional hurdles by preventing a horde of zombies from breaking into the barn where the team takes shelter. First Daryl, then Maggie, then Sasha all notice what's happening and silently pitch in to shore up the doors. None of them call for the others (I guess because they all knew they were the focus of this episode and didn't want anyone else to undermine their catharsis). Everyone else does wind up pitching in, but the fact that no one takes a second to shout "Hey, we're under attack!" strains the bounds of both credulity and basic common sense. I suppose that those who suffered through Season 2 should know by now that when barns show up on "The Walking Dead," poor narrative choices follow.

This Week In God

Which brings us to the religious streak running through this episode. It's little things at first, like Father Gabriel burning his priest's collar in the fire and then immediately apologizing when the miraculous rainstorm starts, or Maggie making note of a Holy Bible next to the lone zombie in the barn. But then things get particularly crazy when the storm washes the zombies away. The forest all around the barn seems to have been leveled, trees and all, but the barn remains unscathed. It's so unbelievable, it's funny rather than miraculous. Sasha points out how unbelievable it is, but that doesn't make it less unbelievable.

You could maybe chalk up all these things to coincidence rather than a planned religious theme, but then a guy named Aaron shows up and says he's got good news, which apparently causes Carl's broken music box to magically start playing. It's as subtle as, well, "The Walking Dead" usually is.

It's interesting, because save for Father Gabriel, religion isn't brought up that much on "The Walking Dead," and it wouldn't be surprising if a character turned to religion, considering the extreme circumstances the characters find themselves in. All the hints this episode might be pointing to something like that coming down the line, or maybe it was just some hand-waving to clear out the zombies without a fight. Regardless, hopefully Aaron's good news is that something happens next week.