'The Walking Dead' Recap 'Self-Help': Surviving for Dummies

The Walking Dead midseason doldrums are upon us. This should come as no surprise as TWD is certainly known for its midseason lulls after strong season debuts. After last week’s diversion with Beth at least “Self-Help” directly correlated to what had happened back at the church when the group split up. And while “Self-Help” showed some better tonal balance and gave us some backstory on Abraham, it also too quickly dashed the slim hopes of anyone on the show and the episode dragged on, despite the reveal at the end.

Let’s just get right to it – Eugene was a liar all along. While he can spew verbiage in excess, and has learned a thing or two along the way, he is not a scientist and can do nothing for the world. He reveals this at the end of “Self-Help”, along his reasons for going to Washington D.C. Of course this enrages Abraham, who was easily angered all episode (as will be discussed later), and dashes the hopes of the rest of the Abraham group. The main problem with Eugene’s reveal, however, is that it basically all happened within this one episode. While he had been somewhat skittish in the opening episodes of the season he didn’t seem like he was actively trying to sabotage his mission to get to D.C. Likewise, much of his guilt was not manifested until “Self-Help”. Some hints as to Eugene’s lies and possible sabotages throughout this season and last.

Now that there is no hope in saving the world the tonal balance the show had recently achieved beginning with Bob’s optimism could be in jeopardy. Why was it so important for TWD to reveal all of Eugene’s lies in this episode? Often times TWD feels like a hopeless slog and Eugene’s promise of a cure, no matter how convoluted it seemed, at least gave the characters some hope. Their hope manifested in some lighter moments, which the show often lacks and certainly needs to make the lows feel lower. And it felt like TWD had finally realized this at the beginning of this season and was utilizing it fairly well. Even though TWD is often hopeless the characters still need to hold onto hope otherwise there’s no point in living on.

Abraham’s hot-headedness seemed out of proportion in “Self-Help”, even before Eugene told the truth, and while his flashbacks tried to explain his psyche his reluctance to ever head back, or even around, made little logical sense. It is clear after “Self-Help” that Abraham has a penchant for mindless violence after he killed a couple people in a grocery store by bashing their heads in with a can of food. But his flying off the handle when any of the group even suggested returning to Gabriel’s church made little sense. Sure, he has always been focused on getting Eugene to DC but refusing not to go around an entire horde of zombies didn’t make any sense – regardless of whether they had a fire truck to bust through the horde or not. It was nice to see in the final flashback that Eugene had given Abraham purpose so it should be interesting to see how Eugene’s coming clean affects Abraham in coming episodes. Though who knows when we’ll see this group again.

TWD has never been good at juggling storylines, especially when those storylines take place in varying locales. “Self-Help” was no different. Like with “Slabtown”, “Self-Help” was half story and half filler. While this did give the show an opportunity to have some lighter moments between the characters – Eugene watching Abraham and Rosita have sex with all of them acknowledging it – there just simply wasn’t much going on in “Self-Help”. The mere fact that the bus had only made it about 15 miles away from Gabriel’s church should have been indication enough that there wasn’t going to be enough to fill an entire hour of show. Ideally “Slabtown” and “Self-Help” should have been combined into one episode.

The inability to juggle storylines also hurts the cohesiveness of the show. After “Slabtown” those of us who were, or were converted, Beth fans and were interested to see what happened to Carol were forced to wait at least one more week. The possibility of not being updated could end up being even more of a detriment with Abraham and his group now that they have no reason to continue on to DC and have to deal with Eugene. The prospect of not seeing the aftermath of Eugene’s revelation until next season (there are only three episodes remaining of the first midseason) is kind of ridiculous. By splitting up these episodes so that they intertwine with other stories TWD would feel like there was more forward movement from every story, even when half of the material is filler as “Slabtown” and “Self-Help” have been.

Ultimately, what “Self-Help” means is that the tonal balance that has been reached between hope, optimism, and lightheartedness and post-apocalyptic survival is in jeopardy. As I said earlier you need some lightness to every episode so that when something bad happens it feels as devastating as it should feel. Now we will be returning to the dire hopelessness to which the show is more accustomed. “Self-Help” also means that the only group that was moving forward and not stuck in some sort of stasis is now without purpose. It is important for TWD to have at least one storyline that has some sort of goal to achieve otherwise it’s all the same stuff. While Abraham and the rest could still charge on to Washington D.C. to see if Abraham’s suspicions about D.C. having the highest likelihood of being a safe zone, their journey will no longer seem as significant.