'The Walking Dead' Recap 'Consumed': A Change in Locale and...

The more things change the more they stay the same, according to “Consumed”. In an episode dedicated to how much, or little, Daryl and Carol and their relationship has changed over the past season and a half it was a tad disappointing to see how much the show hasn’t changed in an even longer timespan. And while it is still somewhat ambiguous as to whether or not it is even possible for anyone (though Daryl seems to want everyone to know how hard he is trying) to start over, “Consumed” reminded the viewer both how nice and ultimately how trivial a change in locale is in this world.

“Consumed” focused on Daryl and Carol in pursuit of the car with the cross on the back windshield, which was the same cross of the car that took Beth last season. It was nice to see these two favorites get back together in a meaningful way after about an entire season of not being together (due to Carol’s excommunication). Unfortunately “Consumed” didn’t give the two much to do except wander through post-apocalyptic Atlanta – at least it wasn’t some random Georgian backwoods.

Like last week’s “Self-Help”, “Consumed” felt like an episode of mostly filler material. There wasn’t much conversing between the two, which seemed a comment on both how familiar they are with each other but also that there was some awkwardness with how “different” the two have become since their split last season. The Walking Dead knows it isn’t good when all it does is talk but looking out windows and creeping through zombie-infested areas with little to no danger is equally boring. And since the two really weren’t in a hot pursuit of those who took Beth – they lost the car early on in the episode – their somewhat focused wandering wasn’t all that interesting either. They did run into some trouble in the form of Noah, the orderly who escaped from Slabtown when he and Beth tried to escape. But this was all too short-lived as Carol and Daryl quickly happened upon him later in the episode and retrieved the weapons Noah had stolen from them earlier.

It is important to grow the characters and show how they have changed. That is not a bad tactic. But the reason why “Consumed” was not interesting and felt more like a filler episode was because there was nothing gained nor lost in the interactions between Daryl and Carol. The characters have changed over the seasons but “Consumed” did not comment on how this affected, if at all, their relationship. It doesn’t really help the audience for Carol to tell Daryl she’s noticed he’s grown from the petulant boy in the first season to a responsible man today. We’ve already seen his transformation. Had her noticing the change within him also revealed something about how she feels about him or how their relationship has changed then it could have been a meaningful moment. But noting Daryl’s softer side does nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Likewise, the flashbacks of Carol added little to nothing. Unlike Abraham’s flashbacks last week, which revealed a past we had been uninformed upon previously, Carol’s flashbacks from when Rick kicked her out of the group until her attack on Terminus added nothing (besides not being able to get a little privacy for a good cry on the side of the road). Carol did not struggle to survive outside of the prison. She also did not appear to struggle with her feelings for Rick and the gang while she was alone. While it does seem that she now feels out of place that was not revealed in the flashbacks. In fact the only thing the flashbacks did were serve as a reminder as to how awfully conceived the Governor’s two episode solo arc was last season. Her and Daryl holing up for the night in a woman’s shelter she had once stayed in was a nice touch and a reminder of who she was before the apocalypse but, again, this was not a part of her flashbacks.

So then really, what was the point of “Consumed”? The episode seemed uninterested in really delving into Daryl and Carol’s relationship, instead opting for some ambiguous reuniting. Despite getting held up by Noah and tipping a van over a bridge to get away from a zombie horde (I’m still not quite sure how the fan didn’t land nose first) the two came out relatively unscathed and got their weapons back. Nothing important for the story happened until Noah revealed he knew Beth, which didn’t happen until the last ten minutes of the episode. And while we did get to see the events that led to Carol being rolled into Slabtown – and their methods of getting new patients by, what seemed like, purposefully hitting her) they didn’t really offer much of anything new to our understanding of this world or these characters. Sure, a crossbow-less Daryl is a sight to behold but it only lasted for 15 minutes.

While it wouldn’t be accurate to say The Walking Dead has been dragging the episodes since Gareth was dealt with at the church, the show certainly is taking it’s good old time in rescuing Beth. The order in which this season’s episodes have been doled out has been ineffective (how could there not be an immediate follow-up episode after Eugene revealed he was lying all this time?) and the more recent episodes have revealed so little information in regards to the plot, the characters, and the world in general that they have felt little more than a way to bide time until another “epic” midseason finale.