Mild Spoilers ahead.
As Episode 11 opens, a kind of dazed confusion permeates. With the known survivors scattered, things feel off-kilter, and Chandler Riggs' painful acting does nothing to assuage this unease. Time, and the unrelenting passage of it, is the overarching theme of this episode. We see time raise its crazy baby-old-man head all over the place. Carl asks Michonne how long it's been since she lost her baby. “Since all this went down,” is as specific as we get. Glenn awakes in the back of a moving truck, after being unconscious for over three hours, miles and miles from the trail that could lead to Maggie. Tara tries to keep a sense of their/her place in the world by noting each turn taken by the military truck helmed by Sgt. Abraham Ford. Carl and Michonne's supply run is meant to return them by noon, as Rick keeps track on the ladies' watch, small in his hand. Rick awakens from his therapeutic nap with a start, to the sound of Bad Men in the house. The tension ratchets up as the clock ticks closer to noon, and Michonne and Carl's potential collision with men who kill casually and discuss anticipated rape so off-handedly, they could be discussing chore duties?
Tick tock, motherfucker.
We know it's been at least a year, probably two, since “the fall,” judging by Judith's conception, gestation and development. Carl's development is an unreliable indicator, as adolescence is a weird time of growth spurts. The number of seasons of the show is also unreliable as a 1:1 ratio for time, when compared with Judith's timeline. With the decline of civilization, time, as a concept, is revealed to be malleable and subjective, rather than the objective measure we currently conceive of it as. Even the span of a day likely feels different in Walkerlandia.
That being said, the meditation on time can get a bit muddled by the introduction of contrived conflict in this episode. The guilty party: Dr. Eugene Porter's firearms handling. It's been at LEAST two fucking years, people. You're trying to tell me that a man who manages to maintain one truly awful mullet has not yet managed to figure out how to handle an automatic weapon? The “under pressure” excuse is not cutting it anymore because if you've survived to this point, and you're on an open road with exactly one Walker in your sights and a machine gun close at hand, you should be able to do much better than that.
It's like you're not even trying, Eugene.
The new characters do not endear themselves. Sgt. Ford (or as I like to call him, Mansplainer General) is a macho, military asshole, more than happy to use violence to compel others to do what he thinks is “right.” There are easy comparisons to The Governor here, and Ford's violent quashing of Glenn's dissent bodes ill for the future. I can't tell if it's morally better or worse that he's so blindly earnest in his convictions, because the end result leads directly to a repeat of The Governor's massacre.
Mansplainer General Explains It All.
And REALLY, Dr. Porter? You expect people to risk their lives on a mission to get you to Washington and when they dare to ask specifics, your retort is “Classified.” REALLY? Now? There's no fucking government, so there IS no “Classified.” And Mansplainer General getting all hyperbolic (“The fate of the entire human race might depend on it”) is not an explanation, and it sure as shit is not going to convince anyone who has managed to maintain any semblance of critical thinking skills. Those skills often seem like they might be the first casualties in a post-apocalyptic world, when our lizard brains would likely be thrown into overdrive.
TWD is treading on some dangerous territory here, as Michonne's character becomes increasingly neutered. I'm not saying she's not allowed to have weakness or flaws, but her mothering of Carl is really distasteful, mainly because it flirts uncomfortably close to the mammy archetype (with her schtick with the E-Z Cheese coming a little too close for comfort to minstrelsy). More importantly, this does not feel like Michonne. Her comment to Rick, that she's “done taking breaks” is supposed to be an excuse or explanation for her softened stance. This doesn't jive with the realities before them. Michonne, in her aloof, steely vigilance, had developed the perfect armor for this world. That armor has not shown itself to be faulty – it has worked, she has survived and she has also allowed herself to become part of a group while maintaining that essential shield. It just seems like she's reverted against type to a more palatable, softer, more “appropriately feminine” character. Carol's transformation is a particularly sharp foil to this “natural” turn – how is it that she, years into this hell-on-earth, has developed steely resolve and Michonne is now melting into surrogate maternalism? There's nothing wrong with maternal strength; I'd argue that's what Carol fully embodies. Michonne's potential transformation is more troubling because it is disempowering a fierce female warrior. Not to get too deep into the symbolism here, but her strong Black arms and chest are now covered by a “comfortable” white men's dress shirt. Chew on that.
Michonne's tickets to the gun show are misplaced. Let's just hope they're not lost forever.
Until next week, my Bloody Mouthfuls, when, as Rick's choice of naptime reading seems to indicate, the journey continues.
It's not On the Road (or even The Road), but you get the idea.
