Eyes High

The music was fantastic in this episode. I loved the drumline at the end.

It was entirely out of character. When caught out by Morgan, the Carol I know would have made a big show of dropping the issue, ensured that the Wolf was secured--and Morgan wouldn't have objected to ensuring that the Wolf couldn't go anywhere--and, once the crisis was over, would have gone tattling to Rick the way she did about Morgan letting the Wolves escape OR would have quietly dispatched the Wolf once Morgan was distracted and explained herself to Rick after the fact. That's who she is. She doesn't do direct confrontations when there's no real urgency. She doesn't pick a fight with someone who is anticipating an attack. She goes around people (killing Karvid). She disguises herself to avoid direct confrontations (the Wolves, Terminus attack). She sneaks up on them (the Wolf attacking Morgan, the Wolf she shot from behind). She corners them when they're alone (Pete, Sam, etc.). She smoothly lies to conceal her true intentions. Carol doing what she did was completely out of character, and the only explanation I can think of is that she was so concussed that it was affecting her behaviour. Excellent point. It's not as if charismatic, insane, murderous, atrocity-happy warlords with highly eccentric beliefs lack historical precedent. The "murderous whackadoos in a failed state environment creating their own extremely violent gangs or dictatorships" part of TWD is actually pretty realistic.

I disagree. They are extremely lucky (and these are just off the top of my head!): 1. No witnesses when Peggy hits Rye. 2. An improvised weapon is on hand when Rye comes at Ed with a knife. 3. Charlie misses when he shoots at Ed. 4. Noreen distracts Virgil at a crucial moment, allowing Ed to get the upper hand and kill Virgil. 5. Dodd killed one of his own henchmen. (Peggy took down Dodd, but could she have survived two-on-one?) 6. Dodd drops a weapon that Peggy can use against him to incapacitate him. 7. Lou is at the police station with Ed and is smart enough to save him from Hanzee. 8. Hanzee goes on a rampage to put his name in the papers when Lou is trying to track Hanzee down, which allows the shopkeep to identify him and contact the police. 9. Hank and Lou arrive at the right moment to force Hanzee to flee before he murders Ed and Peggy. 10. Hanzee shoots at Ed at close range, but is out of bullets.

Sure, in the Ed at police station/Peggy at the house situation. However, that was when Ed and Peggy had already refused Lou's help. If they'd thrown themselves on his mercy and confessed everything, he might have been able to smuggle them away and make sure that they were properly protected. I think Dodd would probably carry the day with a "We don't want to look weak"-type argument. How will it look if other people can just go around killing our own without consequences, blah blah blah? Even if Floyd put her foot down, I have no doubt that Dodd would just go ahead and do it anyway and either lie about it or tell Floyd that she made the wrong call. I wouldn't put it past him. Hmm. Good point. I hadn't thought of it that way. The show's been pretty good about slowly pulling back the curtain on the extent of Peggy's mental illness. We had hints before--Peggy refusing to acknowledge the seriousness of her situation, e.g.--but the first real sign was the Basement of Hoarding. Hank then lampshaded the problem when coolly undercutting Peggy's insistence on the need for her to make the conference on time with a "You're a little touched, aren't ya?" And then in 2x08 we have Peggy having a full conversation with someone who isn't there, which quite properly alarms Dodd, Peggy stabbing Dodd when he won't mind his manners, and Dodd calling Peggy crazy (or words to that effect) several times. Dodd's not the sharpest knife in the drawer (unfortunate pun not intended), but he's right about Peggy. Lou's problems in dealing with Ed and Peggy is that he's been expecting them to react the way rational people react. Trying to reason with them is completely the wrong approach. Agreed.

I'm enjoying the season, but I really hope there's some ray of light at the end, because the sheer weight of the tragedy of these characters--yes, even the career murderers--is beginning to wear me down: 1. Lou: devoted family man watching his wife waste away and powerless to stop it. 2. Hank: devoted family man who lost his wife recently and is afraid that he will lose his daughter soon, may or may not be researching alien lore in an attempt to save his daughter's life. 3. Betsy: grimly aware that she is dying, that her husband will be distraught upon her death, and that her daughter will grow up without her. 4. Ed: wants nothing more than a cozy domestic existence and to protect his wife, even thought it costs him pretty much everything. 5. Peggy: feels trapped in her life with Ed while lacking the intellectual ability or emotional vocabulary to navigate a way out, severely mentally ill (we can add hallucinations to the pile of red flags), completely out of her depth and unable to realize it. 6. Floyd: grieving her son and now her husband, has now lost a son and a granddaughter whose deaths she doesn't yet know about, is watching everything her husband worked so hard to build being systematically destroyed. 7. Bear: smart enough to know the damage Dodd has caused but unable to do anything about it, killed Simone to protect the family even though it tore him apart, grieving his brother and his father (and even Simone, I think). 8. Simone: So desperate to get rid of her abusive father that she makes a deal with a devil and is killed for it. 9. Charlie: So desperate to be of assistance to his family that he volunteers to go on a hit and is facing 10 years in prison as a result. 10. Hanzee: "Rescued" by the Gerhardts from what was probably a hellish existence in a residential school and treated as a servant and as Dodd's property as a result, decorated veteran who's treated like garbage on account of his background, did multiple tours in Vietnam out of PTSD, has gone on a killing spree because he has had enough racist bullshit for a lifetime. 11. Mike: Desperate to prove himself to KC honchos who treat him as subhuman because of his race, desperate to make a deal to save his life (getting Dodd) that we now know can never happen, ostentatiously parades his superior wit and learning to fend off others' racism. And so on. I feel as if the humour is to distract us from the fact that this is all so sad. Pretty much all of these characters are either dead or won't survive the season, except for Lou, Betsy, Charlie, and maybe Hank. I'm going to need some shred of optimism to cling to in Season 2 if the season won't be entirely depressing. The only happy-ish ending I can possibly see right now is Charlie, who might have to go to prison but who will be free of his awful family; if he weren't in prison, I have no doubt he would end up as collateral damage in the mob war, so he's probably much safer where he is.

Promo Summary: 1. Heavyset male cop surveying a bound Ed and Peggy in the cabin: "So this is what all the fuss is about." Female cop answers "Yes, sir." 2. Four cops, Schmidt, Terry Kinney's character, and Hank looking at Ed and Peggy. Heavyset male cop, to Ed and Peggy: "You don't look like much." 3. Mike standing by the side of the road next to his car, in an awesome coat. A sign reading "South Dakota" is nearby. 4. Mike in a phone booth, wearing the same clothes: "I'm on my way to collect the eldest Gerhardt male." 5. Mike's car heading down the highway. 6. Ed, bound in the cabin, speaking to the cops: "The meeting's set at 8:00 a.m." "Where?" "Sioux Falls." 7. Ed being marched into a hotel by a cop. 8. Floyd, on the phone with Hanzee: "I'll handle this myself." Hanzee responds "Yes, ma'am." 9. Lou seeing Floyd and Bear drive by in a truck. 10. Schmidt in the woods, to Hank: "You know they'll send, like, an army." 11. Bear and his goons walking menacingly through a hotel parking lot at night. 12. Hanzee driving. 13. Hank on a hotel (?) bed in a white T-shirt, staring at the ceiling. 14. Floyd surveying the same hotel parking lot where Bear's goons are moving in. 15. MIke holding out a gun in the back seat of a moving car. 16. Lou busting in on...a hotel room full of cops in T-shirts playing cards and drinking beer. 17. Officer Terry Kinney on the radio with Lou, in a car with Hank and Schmidt: "They're going to find out a thing on this one about what a Dakota man can do (...) Take a seat on the bench!" Sneak Peek: Lou walks into the cabin over to where Ed and Peggy are bound, surrounded by police officers. He tells them with some urgency that they will be offered a deal, and that they should refuse it, ask for a lawyer, and ask to be taken into custody. He says that he's responsible for Ed and Peggy. Peggy responds angrily that he's half the reason they're in this mess. The senior male cop attempts to silence Lou as he tells Ed and Peggy that they're not "ready for this." He talks about how serious the situation is and says that he can't just leave them behind. The senior male cop sneers at Lou to pack his shit and get out. Lou does, telling Ed and Peggy that their luck will run out, with a parting shot to the senior male cop that "This is on you!" So based on the description and what we see in the promo, some speculation about the sequence of events: -Ed and Peggy spill about the meetup with Mike at the Motor Motel. -The senior male cop sends Lou packing. Before he goes, he urges Peggy and Ed to refuse any deals and ask to be taken into custody (for their own protection). Lou warns them that their luck will run out. -Hanzee, having escaped and still alive, tracks Ed and Peggy to the hotel, and tells Floyd about Ed and Peggy's location (blaming Ed and Peggy for Dodd's untimely death). Hanzee offers to take Ed and Peggy out for Floyd, and Floyd says that she'll take care of it herself. -Booted out by the senior male cop, Lou attempts to armchair quarterback, but is shut down by Officer Terry Kinney. -MIke drives down to Sioux Falls, making a call to his boss to announce his intention of getting Dodd. -Floyd heads down to Sioux Falls with Bear and a small army in tow. -Ed is manhandled into a hotel by the cop. -Night falls. -The cops hole up in a hotel en masse. Hank is with them. -Lou either disobeys the order to go back to Luverne or initiall obeys it and changes his mind. -Lou sees Floyd and Bear drive by in a truck and realizes that holy shit, the Gerhardts are in Sioux Falls, too!!! (Alternatively, he sees Floyd and Bear and realizes that the Gerhardts are rolling out) -the Gerhardts roll out in the hotel parking lot, ready for murder. -Lou busts in to alert the cops to warn them about the Gerhardts, finding them out of uniform, drunk, and completely unprepared. -Massacre of Sioux Falls ensues. -Ed and Peggy escape somehow when the cops charged with securing them are murdered or are called away to deal with the massacre.

I'm all about the slow burn, but I'd rather they do the "sweet, emotionally-charged friendship that turns into something deeper" than the "they bicker to conceal their sexual tension." I hate the latter trope so, so, so much. The only reason it worked with Han and Leia was the chemistry between the actors. Sweet people being sweet to each other for the win! Rey and Finn holding hands in that one shot from the trailer was a promising beginning. We'll see how things stand at the end of Episode VII.

They had me at "Walton Goggins."

Morgan was defending himself against someone who was charging at him with a knife ready to kill him, and, having seen her murder people she considered a threat before, he knew full well she was capable of going through with it. It's not right to blame Morgan for not treating her with kid gloves or showing gentlemanly deference to her injury; she was ready, able and willing to kill him, concussion or not. Was he supposed to let her murder him by taking it easy on her out of chivalry? I think the basis for the defence of self-defence rests on proportional force: you don't get to stab someone to stop them from slapping you in the face. I think a body slam was completely justified given that Carol was coming at him with a knife with a stated intent to kill him and wasn't going to stop until knocked unconscious or killed. It's the same reason police officers don't try to kneecap people once they've decided to shoot them but aim for the chest (largest area) instead. Going easy on Carol would have resulted in Morgan's death, and he was justified in defending himself against Carol's attempt to murder him and not dying out of courtesy. Also, Morgan is not at all at fault for refusing to step aside and let Carol murder the Wolf. Carol was probably right in the sense of the danger the Wolf posed to the group, but she was dead wrong for not only making the decision that the Wolf had to die at that precise moment (not her decision to make, definitely not the right moment), but also deciding that she was going to enforce that decision at that precise moment and kill anyone who interfered. She should have done what Morgan suggested: wait until the walker threat passed to sort out her beef with Morgan. She could have raised the issue with Rick, who would have agreed with her about the Wolf and would have firmly enforced the decision with Morgan without waving a knife in Morgan's face and threatening to kill him if he refused to back down. A bonus might have been that Morgan probably would have been exiled for his continuing subversion of Rick's authority in favour of his "all life is precious" creed. Instead, Carol forces the issue at the worst possible time, forces a fight with a superior hand-to-hand fighter (Carol's actually pretty crap at hand-to-hand if she faces a ready opponent as opposed to sneaking up on them), and gets her ass beat. Hard to sympathize with her, especially since Carol is usually so much smarter than that. Also, I don't think it's open to people who present themselves as coldblooded murderers to expect to be treated with kid gloves by people they are trying to kill who have seen them murder other people, DV survivors or not. If you hold yourself out as a dangerous person, you can safely expect to be treated like one. Carol wasn't just a concussed, distraught DV survivor waving a knife around; she was someone Morgan had seen calmly murder people before his very eyes. Carol gave Morgan every reason to take her at her word when she said she would kill him. He shouldn't be blamed for acting accordingly.

Bear's comments to Hanzee in 2x05 suggest that there is no blood tie between them, that he only views him as part of the family by dint of his service to the family. If there was blood between the main Gerhardts and Hanzee, that would make their treatment of him as a servant even worse in retrospect...although I suppose the Gerhardts' understanding of "treating someone like family" is somewhat less positive than the usual meaning of the phrase, given how awful the Gerhardts seem to be to one another. With that said, I do agree that it's significant that Dodd's insults to Hanzee were both slurs usually reserved for someone of mixed heritage: "half-breed" and "mongrel." (Obama, who has parents of different ethnicities, has notoriously been referred to as a mongrel by some prominent racists.) Given the variety of other racist slurs we've seen the writers have characters use to refer to Hanzee--redman, e.g.--those choices seem very specific. That flashback of young Hanzee with the magician also showed him in a classroom that appeared to have other Native American children (maybe a residential school?). I wonder if we'll ever get to the bottom of it. I don't think the other Gerhardts have ever called Hanzee that, but they have called him "the Indian" or "Dodd's Indian" and "redman." Did anyone catch Dodd complaining that he couldn't feel his legs just before Hanzee killed him? Did Peggy paralyze him when she struck him?

Based on what we know now... 1. Peggy and Ed agree to follow through with their plan at the Motor Motel: Their plan was to trade Dodd for security, so either they try to trade Dodd's corpse instead of Dodd, or they come up with a new plan. This presupposes that they somehow evade Hank and Lou, who have them dead to rights at the end of 2x08. It will be interesting to see how they manage that. 2. Lou faces jurisdictional politics: I'm guessing Lou finds out about the Motor Motel trade somehow, but the local cops refuse to listen to him and roll in with a ton of men, fanning the flames. 3. Hanzee reports back to the Gerhardts: I'm assuming Hanzee will blame Dodd's death on the Blomquists and sic the Gerhardts on them to cover his tracks. Thus his "I know where Dodd is" phone call from 2x07.

I'm already shipping Rey and Finn. Yes, I'm aware that I haven't seen them have a whole scene together yet. Yes, I'm aware of how premature shipping worked out for people who shipped Luke/Leia after Episode IV. Yes, I'm aware that they could be related. Yes, I'm aware that JJ Abrams has said that their last names are secret "for a reason." Yes, I'm aware that the casting people have been Don't care. I ship it. Haters to the left, etc. etc.

Well, we don't have any real-life precedent for a zombie apocalypse, but there are real-life situations where there has been a near-complete breakdown in the social order (i.e. failed states). (Insert your own biting comment about how North Americans' fantasy fare is a grim reality for people in other parts of the world.) I wonder if there's been any research into whether people organize their relationships any differently in "apocalyptic" living conditions--constant clashes between armed factions, no public services, limited food, etc. etc.--or whether they organize their relationships pretty much the same way they would under "normal" living conditions. Even though I don't know of any such research findings, I do think it's likely as a matter of common sense that you'd see more "intentional" families as people get separated from or lose their family members to violence, illness or starvation, just as in TWD people lose their family members and stick with a group of people to whom they're not related: Carol loses Ed and Sophia, Michonne loses her son, Morgan loses his wife and son, Maggie loses her whole family, Sasha loses Tyreese, Judith loses her mother and her (likely) bio dad (although she's still related to Carl), etc. etc. On a less cheery note, I think you'd also see more people staying in less than ideal or even abusive relationships for survival reasons. I'd also expect more domestic violence due to all the PTSD. I'd expect more rape and more sexual abuse of children, as they are endemic in closed communities with no links to the "outside world" (The Atlantic did a great article on rape and sexual abuse in isolated Alaska communities recently, and there are any number of exposes about rape and sexual abuse in cults, communes, and isolated religious communities). The isolated Alexandria community quietly tolerating Pete's abuse of Jessie seems very realistic in that respect.

I think the incident where Hanzee flashed the knife at Sonny when Sonny was cooperating but getting on his nerves with Vietnam talk implied that Hanzee has killed people just because they pissed him off before. I just doubt he's been this careless about it before (using a loud weapon in broad daylight, leaving witnesses, etc.); compare this with the murder of typewriter guy earlier in the season (done at night, with no witnesses, in a deserted lot). Hanzee does have excellent bone structure, though. And Zahn McClarnon's live tweeting was pretty funny (in sequence): 1. Breaking on through to the other side there, Peg? 2. Peg, did you just tenderize Dodd? 3. Positive Peggy has a penchant for punishing? 4. Hanzee has declared last call. 5. [in reference to Dodd's pillowcase] Those dudes back at the bar probably wear white hoods, too! Bye bye 6. Hanzee is looking for a redhead...Tinder maybe? 7. Walk-ins welcome?

I don't think you can lay Hanzee killing a bunch of people because he suddenly decided he's had just about enough racist bullshit at Peggy and Ed's feet. That's on him. And I still find them fun and lovable. I blame the actors, the writing, and the show in general. If I see them deliberately putting innocent people in harm's way the way Lester did in Season 1--framing his brother, letting his wife die in his place--I might revisit my opinion. Side note: Is "shitbird" a racist slur? The "shitkickers" (and I love that that's how the actors are credited at IMDB) kept calling Hanzee that.

I'm no closer to understanding why Hanzee was so loyal to Dodd in particular to the point of adhering to a dangerous lie, even when Bear offered him an out, especially now that we know that Hanzee deeply resented the way Dodd treated him. Why was he so loyal to Dodd for so long and only now snapped? I'm sure it wasn't the first time Dodd called Hanzee a half-breed or a mongrel. Wouldn't Hanzee have gotten tired of Dodd's bullshit ages ago?As for Peggy, the law certainly wouldn't absolve her for failing to call for medical assistance for Rye or contacting the police. I do think that she believed that Rye was dead and that's why she "left him to die," although again the law would not absolve her for just assuming that without checking for a pulse. I'm not sure if the premiere bears out this opinion, though. Thought experiment: what would have happened to Peggy if she had done the right thing and immediately called the hospital and police when she hit Rye? What would the criminal consequences of that be? More importantly, do you think the Gerhardts still would have gone after her if she'd been straightforward from the first?

I expect Lorelai's reaction would have been similar to Lorelai's reaction to Logan in his more mature incarnation: pleasantly surprised and appreciative, but wary.

Constance is a lesbian. We have no idea what Hanzee's sexual orientation is.

Pretty awesome. Someone in the AV Club episode comment section said that the Blomquists have this weird mix of ineptitude and competent resourcefulness. Tara Ariano mentioned something similar in the recap. How can Peggy be so stupid (getting so engrossed in the movie that she lets Dodd get free, blabbing details to Constance about their super secret hideout, damaging the hostage by stabbing him) and so smart (snapping off the hilt, getting Ed down when he's suffocating)? How can Ed be so stupid (blabbing details about his location to the shopkeep, using the same phone, leaving Peggy with Dodd) and so smart (using Dodd's car, using a public pay phone, going to Mike when the Gerhardts aren't receptive)? It boggles the imagination.

I doubt it, although I suppose there's a chance (Hanzee let the friendly shopkeep live, after all). Poor Constance. All she wanted was to seduce Peggy, and for her trouble, she ends up dead. Peggy vs. Dodd, Round 2 was awesome. Dodd met his match, and it was a woman! Peggy got the best of Dodd not once, but twice! I love that Dodd died because he was a racist asshole. The quick death he got from Hanzee was too good for him.

Ed and Peggy are adorable together. Yeah, I said it. Poor Hanzee. Dodd really picked the wrong time to let the racist epithets fly. Why was Peggy still alive when Ed got back? A humiliated misogynist like Dodd would have beaten Peggy to death in a heartbeat as punishment for emasculating him...unless he was still a little scared of her, on account of the stabbing and all.

In his defence, Jess did get Lorelai to shut up and leave him alone, a Herculean feat. If he'd been less crude, she might have taken it as an invitation to bestow on him yet more condescending nonsense. It was indeed crude, but it was effective. I also loved that Lorelai assumed that Jess was soooooo screwed up because he wasn't interested in her patronizing nonsense. Jess had many, many issues, but impatience with Lorelai's bullshit wasn't one of them.

In all seriousness, even after the MSF, I still see the possibility of some sort of connection between them, for all that Carol would not appreciate someone who had laid hands on her. Carol doesn't even like or trust Morgan, let alone love him, but she takes an interest. She pays attention. In 6x02, she not only killed Morgan's attacker but also doubled back to give Morgan a gun after Morgan blew her cover and endangered her. Carol also took her suspicions about Morgan to Rick and Michonne to talk some sense into him rather than threatening him or executing him summarily. Given Carol's personality these days, Carol's refusal to go nuclear on Morgan until the last possible moment and her insistence on giving him second chances says a lot more than sappy speeches would.In the MSF, she was prepared to go through with killing Morgan, but she really didn't want to. Carol, coldblooded executioner Carol who has calmly murdered scores of people, even innocent people, to protect the group, when facing down Morgan, was shaking, glassy-eyed, almost unhinged, spouting justifications at him. Morgan definitely has an effect on Carol, although it's questionable whether or not it's an effect that's beneficial to Carol. To weigh in on the Daryl debate, he sticks out at me as being the only adult lead character, male or female, to have no sexual or romantic past or present. Even grumpily celibate Eugene has sexual desires that we know of. Michonne had a hot man back in the day. Carol had Ed. Abe is involved with Rosita and lusting over Sasha. And so on. Daryl's just one big blank. Not even no sexual or romantic relationships, but also no lusts or desires to speak of, even surrounded as he is by hot ladies and hot guys. For someone his age, barring issues stemming from his abuse, is that remotely realistic unless he is indeed asexual?

I'm not sure what you mean by "skin damage."

Who is logical when they've lost a child, let alone a husband and a child? Who is logical when seeing their life's mission destroyed? Who is logical when they are faced with imminent, 100% certain death? Who is logical when they are wounded, feverish, and in great pain? Deanna being serene and accepting towards Rick in general and in particular in this episode, especially given that she was nearly catatonic with grief over her husband's death not days before, is some bullshit.