The Walking Dead – ‘Some Guy’

Death, death and a bit more death. That seems to have been the thought going on in the writers’ room for the last two episodes of Walking Dead. But, as they say, if it ain’t dead and turned into a walker, don’t fix it (it might be something else, I can never remember the exact saying). And so, we move on to ‘Some Guy.’

The fourth episode of this terrific season decides to focus on one main storyline, that of Ezekiel (the ‘some guy’ the title refers to). We follow him attempting to survive and deal with his failure after almost his entire group were massacred at the end of last week’s episode.

The decision to narrow the storyline to one small group of characters is effective. While I usually dislike it when the show does this, this time it works well, allowing deeper character work, a more focused and tension-filled viewing experience, as well as moving the plot along (thanks to the McGuffin of the Saviours’ guns). Saying that, I’m still not looking forward to 45 minutes of Negan and Gabriel in a box, which I don’t see the show avoiding.

The MVP of this week is certainly Khary Payton as Ezekiel, showing a broken king. Although he tries to keep his kingly composure in the immediate aftermath of the attack, he can’t keep it up as he suffers more and more loss. Watching Payton take his character through this journey is fantastic, and you really empathise with him when he can’t bring himself to comfort the families of those he lost in battle at the episode’s end.

The impact of war continues to be felt, and continues to work in the show’s benefit

As I mentioned, there’s plenty of death going around this week, and none were sadder than Shiva. Sure, the CGI may have been a bit patchy, but I’m gonna miss having a tiger around on the show. While there were pretty clear reasons for Shiva’s death (cough money cough), the show does handles it well, using it to further Ezekiel’s character and bring in the emotional mistakes.

One problem that was heavily evident this week was the frequent use of Deus Ex Machina (when a character suddenly appears from nowhere to save the day). We had the random Kingdom foot soldier at the start, the nasty Saviour guy, Jerry, Carol and Shiva. And that’s to save Ezekiel alone. It’s something the show has struggled with in the past, and it’s a difficult problem to avoid sometimes, but they could have toned it down a little bit this week.

The impact of war continues to be felt, and continues to work in the show’s benefit. Even smaller moments, such as Jerry’s rage whenever he flung his axe, showcased the impact this war is having on our protagonists. I hope the show can continue to use this theme for its benefit, and if it carries on with how it started, I don’t see why it can’t.

Khary Payton proved himself to be ‘Some Guy’ this week, offering a powerful performance that carried the episode, which was doing pretty well anyway – 4/5 stars.