*SPOILERS AHEAD … AND UNDERTAKERS … AND NE’ER DO WELLS*
There’s a good chance that no one in this episode would share Audrey Hepburn’s sentiment “I don’t want to be alone, I want to be left alone.”
Oh, there are probably moments, of which there are several, when being alone, for one reason or another, seems like a necessity, but no one actually wants it as a state of being, choosing it only reluctantly, or fighting to keep it at bay, at circumstances dictate.
Bob Stookey (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.) is definitely in the latter camp, a man for whom a state of aloneness is a curse, an inevitability, a gnawing fear, a hated eventuality he will fight to forestall.
“Alone” begins with this great survivor, a man who has been the last man standing for reasons not fully disclosed in two groups of survivors, a man doomed, he feels, to be the last witness to humanity’s dying gasps, walking without company in a chillingly evocative montage that showcases his singular life before he meets Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Darryl (Norman Reedus).
Far from the idyll of the self-sufficient, it shows a man barely getting by, hanging on by the slimmest of threads, relying on his own stubborn will to survive, with no manifest options other than to place one foot against the other and … not die.
It’s so much living as not dying yet, so when Glenn and Darryl, after delivering the standard questionnaire to verify Bob’s “worthiness” as a fellow survivor ask him if he’d like to join them, he doesn’t hesitate for a second, his eagerness to have company, and a reason to keep going that takes another human being, any human being, into account, palpable.
It’s a fitting beginning to an episode which places the survivors featured – Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green)and Bob, then Darryl and Beth (Emily Kinney), and in a snippet at the end Glenn, in various stages of voluntary and involuntary isolation.
But before all the philosophising on the nature of aloneness kicks into high gear, there are walkers a-plenty to fight, beginning with Sasha, Bob and Maggie, in “circle your wagons” mode, alone in the moors-like mist, back to back, armed only with sticks, a few remaining bullets and one can hope in the pea souper that’s consumed them, damn good radar.
Alas someone forgot to pay the radar bill and they’re left to fight off the walkers as they come lurching out of the mist with little to no warning to be clubbed, whacked, head impaled, or, and this only a last resort giving the critical lack of bullets, gunfire.
It’s a richly realised and tense scene that this episode’s director, Ernest Dickerson, who handled the epic action scenes in “Too Far Gone” (season 4) and “Beside the Dying Fire” (season 2) with aplomb and a sure hand, handles well, drawing out the desperation, sense of menace and hands tied figuratively behind their backs feel of the fog-shrouded walker attack.
You’d think that after a gripping encounter like that that everyone would be hugging each other close, singing a rousing round of “Kum Ba Yah” and thanking their lucky stars they have each other.
But quite the opposite happens with Maggie deciding she must find Glenn come what may and slipping off in the night – she does leave a helpful message behind in the leaf litter saying she’s following the tracks to certain doom/sanctuary Terminus; she’s out of her mind with worry, thank you, not socially gauche – and Sasha, who’s convinced they should find a building and bunker down, and Bob, determined to find Maggie who’s says can’t be left alone, part ways.
(Not before of course one of the sweetest and most tended scenes in any The Walking Dead episode when Bob tells Sasha there’s something he has to do, leans in, kisses her – she kisses back which is always a good sign right? – and smiling like a man who has won the biggest prize at the county fair, walks off.)
Bob, quite unsurprisingly, becomes the glue that holds them all together, which eventually they are all again, sanity prevailing over the pursuit of worthy if poorly executed goals (Maggie) and fear (Sasha), at least for the moment, to Bob’s great relief.
“Alone” however finds Darryl and Beth in quite a different place altogether.
Specifically a funeral home, flanked by a rather large cemetery.
The perfect place to pass some time in the apocalypse correct?
Well it looks that way at first.
Safely ensconced in an eerily dust-less home, which is well stocked with all sort of treats and goodies and well preserved, lovingly embalmed corpses which Beth (who managed to do her ankle in escaping a walker) finds deeply touching since it shows someone cares, and Darryl finds matted of factly creepy, they let their guard down, with Beth taking to the piano to play some music and show us just how well she can sing.
It’s all a bit too convenient and perfect, with a “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is” air of impending menace to it and sure enough, a cute dog at the door, which runs off when Darryl tries to pet it, is a sign that out there in the walker-infested beyond, lies trouble.
But hey it’s a dog, Darryl seems to reason, what can possibly go wrong when something that endearing, and worthy of Cheezburger meme generating (assume one had the interweb which alas one does not) comes skipping up to greet you and coyly slips away?
Why plenty of course, with an army of walkers, all of whom have gathered at the door with nary a sound or a warning (aided no doubt by hidden living, breathing dog owners) come knocking at the door, which Darryl just opens assuming it’s the dog again (yup, no, no it isn’t), letting the decayed hounds of hell in for a desperately heart stopping scene that “The Bowman”, as he is later named, barely survives.
In all the confusion, and some claustrophobic fight scenes, Beth is abducted by someone in a very loud, very large car – large enough to play “How many walkers can we cram into this here automobile?” – and despite his best efforts to run after her and track her, he is left alone, slumping dejected onto the road.
Which is where the ne’er do well rednecks, most likely the ones who surprised Rick during his nap a couple of episodes back, find him, and whether Darryl likes it or not, co-opt him into their douche-bag posse.
This is probably the only time in “Alone” where someone probably wishes they were actually Audrey Hepburn-esque but Darryl is a survivor, and sensibly reading the lay of the land, complies for now, having no choice but to go along with the good ol’ boys who have found him, yes, alone.
And what of Glen, in this episode rich with action and narrative pushes forward?
Well he hasn’t found Maggie but he has found the signs for Terminus, sending him down the tracks to find Maggie et al, Rick et al and Carol/Tyreese et all, all of whom will hopefully have a great big get together sometime not too far away.
It’s all so promising and hopeful but it’s hard to get too happy for any of them when you realise that all this impending togetherness comes when Darryl, and Beth, and horribly, terribly alone and in as much peril as you can possible be (save for a walker munching on your thigh).
One step forward, twenty shuffling walker stumbles back …
*Here’s the promo for next week’s episode “The Grove” …
And a couple of sneak peeks …