This Sunday was the midseason premiere of “The Walking Dead” and it was a great episode to start the season up again. From this first episode and the clips of what is to come, it seems that the rest of the fifth season will be Rick’s group fighting the growing feeling of hopelessness.
The survivors have been out for too long, as Michonne says to Rick and Glenn in the returning episode, and it seems that the group is beginning to lose hope as another possible home is found destroyed. The biggest example of the group’s growing despair is in the death of Tyreese after the group had already lost Beth in the midseason finale
This episode was one of the more hauntingly beautiful episodes that has come of the series so far. It opens with a confusing series of images from the past and some images that won’t make sense until the episode continues. These images include past settings, like the prison and the town of Woodbury, and even a funeral of what we are led to believe is Beth’s, but by the end we know is actually Tyreese’s. As the images end, we see Noah leading the group into a town that hopefully was going to be a new sanctuary for them, but it was destroyed and left in ashes. While there, Rick agrees that they should head to Washington D.C., which I think will be the plot for the rest of the season.
Tyreese and Noah go to Noah’s house and find his mother and one of his twin brothers brutally murdered. As he is staring at the photos of Noah’s younger twin brothers, a walker comes up from behind him and bites him in the arm. The walker was not the quietest and Tyreese has gotten himself out of more dire situations, so the idea that he was bitten seems a bit unlike his survivalist self.
Once bit, Tyrese sees the ghosts of those that have died before him including the cannibal Martin, Beth, Bob, the two little girls and The Governor. They help him through what he believed were his mistakes, like allowing Martin to live, and then tell him that it would be all right to accept death. After saving Judith and forgiving Carol, the ghosts tell him that “it’s better now.” Tyreese accepts his fate soon after and dies as the group is trying to save him.
This was the first death where the audience was allowed to view it through the eyes of the character and see his thoughts throughout the death process. In the beginning, Tyreese says that his father would listen to the news on the radio and Tyreese would listen to these gruesome stories and would not ask his father to turn it off. As Tyreese is dying, the radio goes on and tells the story of the group’s survival, but in terms that he would hear when his dad had it on. When Tyreese realizes he could not help the group anymore, he asks the ghost of Bob to turn it off.
This leaves the group in mourning over the death of yet another survivor. It was a bold move to kill another beloved character in the mid-season opener. Hopefully, the rest of the season is just as interesting as the first episode leads us to believe and will satisfy what has been an interesting season so far.
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