The Walking Dead 5×13 Review: Forget

I’m a bit surprised at this, but I have to admit that I was quite taken with “Forget”. Despite having concerns about how well the writers would portray the beginnings of the Alexandria story line, so far they’ve pretty much been hitting it out of the park.

One of the main reasons I think that they’re handling it so well is the contrast between how different characters are dealing with the sudden and extreme change of living in the “Safe Zone”. Especially the women – though we didn’t see much of Maggie, poor Sasha can barely contain herself, Carol seems to have gone off the deep end, and Michonne is struggling to set aside her katana-wielding persona and embrace their new situation.

“Forget” sets these women who we know and love in stark contrast against the women who have been living behind Alexandria’s walls for most of the ‘apocalypse’. namely Olivia with her almost overbearing friendliness and stash of chocolate , Jessie with her optimism, and Deanna appearing to place far too much trust in people she barely knows – and in her walls. I’m with Sasha on that – you have all these people, and you don’t keep someone in the clocktower to keep watch?

On the other hand, we have Daryl actually bonding with Aaron – to the point where he ends up turning down the gun that Carol stole for him. There were clearly several things that led to Daryl making that choice, but I think most of them are based on his interactions with Aaron. They not only fought side by side, but had to deal with losing the horse (seriously, WHAT does this show have against horses?), skipped the cocktail party and had dinner together, etc. etc. etc. I was definitely a little surprised at how quickly he changed his mind, but I do love the idea of Darryl and Aaron recruiting together. Aaron said it best when he told Daryl, “You do know the difference between a good person and a bad person.”

(I just prefer not to think about what that may mean for the safety – and therefore the future – of his character.)

But again, while Daryl seems to be amenable to trying out a place in this community, Carol is nothing of the sort. She did tell him last week that he had to try to blend in, but she doesn’t seem very happy about how far he’s taking that. Rick also seemed slightly indecisive about the gun situation. Yes, in the end he took one of the guns, but it’s likely he’s going to be the balancing act between Carol and Daryl…which could make for some interesting developments.

And speaking of Rick and that gun, how about his reaction to Jessie’s husband Pete? On Talking Dead, Chris Hardwick said that last week Pete was a “porch dick”, which was an amusing and accurate descriptor. In “Forget”, Pete seemed pretty normal and friendly. The question is, does Rick dislike Pete because he likes Jessie, or does he dislike him because he can tell there’s something inherently bad about him?

The show is definitely keeping much closer to the comic book story line than they have in quite a while; I for one have a hard time not reminding myself that they’ll inevitably mess it up, likely sooner rather than later. But like I said last week, even when I don’t care for certain outcomes on this show, it’s because of episodes like “Remember” and “Forget” that I can’t help but stick with it.