“Always Accountable” followed last week’s “Now” by catching up with Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha, who have been fairly absent for the past few episodes. And now we know why they were absent. The episode didn’t do too much in either character building or plot advancement and can be filed under the same sort of slow, time-eating filler episode between the beginning and the end of the midseason. Its disjointed nature also didn’t help it feel like a part of an episode, or even part of the larger whole for later in the season.
Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha finally had led the zombies far enough down the road from Alexandria so that they could turn around and head back. Unfortunately, they were almost immediately attacked on the outskirts of town by some unknown people. Abraham and Sasha crash their car while Daryl escapes into some scorched woods after being roughed up a little bit. This was all the action you’d get in "Always Accountable." The rest of the episode teetered between Abraham trying to reconcile with the fact he now actually had a possible future and Daryl being kidnapped by some lone travelers in the woods.
Daryl’s story was a tad more interesting, seeing as how it was one of the rare times he was not in the position of power amongst this three companions escaping their former settlement to find a lost friend. Unfortunately, their lost friend seemed to have been holed up at the supply depot that is now under Wolves control where Daryl was caught in a booby trap at the end of last season. Though there was an introduction into who these people were and, more importantly, where they were coming from it was all so vague that little will be remembered. In fact the only thing this episode may be remembered for is Daryl losing his crossbow and his motorcycle to these people. A crossbow-less Daryl is a naked Daryl.
Abraham, on the other hand, still has a pretty bad case of bloodlust. He wants to fell every zombie he sees, though Sasha helps keep his head on straight for the most part. After finding some cigars and a rocket launcher, which he initially tried to take from an impaled zombie hanging off a ledge, he returns to Sasha a seemingly changed man. And luckily for everyone he professes his romantic interest in Sasha. Seeing as how Sasha had a large subplot last season, it would seem that this potential love interest won’t be focused on too heavily in the episodes to come in lieu of giving some other characters more screen time, but this is TWD... so who knows.
What these two storylines supposedly achieved was a potential fundamental shift in both Daryl’s and Abraham’s characters. Daryl had mentioned earlier in the season that he felt the need to continue to go out of Alexandria to find new survivors. After his escape and return to his kidnappers there was a moment where he asked Rick’s three questions for admittance into his group, thinking these kidnappers would make a good addition. Of course by the end they proved to not be worthy. Whether Daryl decides that it is too dangerous to find good wanderers or not will remain to be seen – though he was clearly not happy as he threatened their deaths when he found them.
Abraham as well had taken on a bit of a new persona this season as he was throwing caution to the wind in order to just enjoy the thrill of surviving/killing zombies. It makes sense that Sasha was there to help bring him back from the edge, but then again Abraham never really seemed like he was at the edge to begin with. This new devil may care attitude never seemed natural for Abraham especially since it was never fully explained earlier in the season. In actuality his entire character shift felt tacked on just to give the character a reason to have some screen time this season. Hopefully the budding romance between he and Sasha does not follow suit.
After a strong start TWD, has slowed considerably and not for the better. “Now” and “Always Accountable” show that the writers still haven’t figured out what to do at the quarter poles of the season. While there clearly was no way this season could have continued at the pace it had set in the first three episodes, “Now” and “Always Accountable” have felt like nothing more than filler. Now that the three of them are back on their way to Alexandria (complete with some sort of frightened walkie-talkie message) TWD will begin to ramp up to its midseason finale. Disappointingly, all momentum from the season’s first four episodes has dissipated.
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