The Walking Dead 5.11: The Smiling Stranger

Another thoughtful episode of The Walking Dead this Sunday - 5.11 - in which our heroes are given the dilemma of what to do with someone who shows up, out of the blue, proclaiming and seeming to only want to help them.

Rick, unsurprisingly, is on the verge of killing this smiling stranger, and restrains himself to the point of just punching him out.   But Michonne and Maggie think otherwise - and, for some reason, trust the stranger.   In the end, their take carries the day, and the only one who supports Rick's distrust at all is Carol, who helpfully tells him even when he's wrong, he's right.

And I'm with Rick and Carol - why should our people trust anyone, after what they've been through? Michonne's argument that there has to be a better way may be true in the abstract, but what is it about this stranger which leads her to believe that he's the one?

Presumably what's going on here is that Michonne is so weary of leading this crazy life - and who can blame her - that she's willing to throw good caution to the wind, and Maggie, Glenn, and even Daryl apparently agree with her.  But surely this is a very dangerous gamble.

In something of a denouement, it turns out that the strange is gay - which is an interesting twist (and the second twist of this sort in this past weekend's television, the first having been on Black Sails) - but does this make the stranger, or his partner, more trustworthy?  

Significantly, the episode ends before we see who and what resides behind the locked gates.   So we've yet to get a definitive answer about whether Michonne's trust is justified.   Kudos to The Walking Dead for setting up, out of almost nowhere, a very compelling scenario, even if it did get off to a slightly shaky, not fully motivated start.

See also: The Walking Dead 5.1: The Redemption of Carole ... The Walking Dead 5.3: Meets Alfred Hitchcock and The Twilight Zone ... The Walking Dead 5.4: Hospital of Horror ... The Walking Dead 5.5: Anatomy of a Shattered Dream ... The Walking Dead 5.6-7: Slow ... The Walking Dead 5.8: Killing the Non-Killer ... The Walking Dead 5.9: Another Death in the Family

And see also The Walking Dead 4.1: The New Plague ... The Walking Dead 4.2: The Baby and the Flu ... The Walking Dead 4.3: Death in Every Corner ...The Walking Dead 4.4: Hershel, Carl, and Maggie ... The Walking Dead 4.6: The Good Governor ... The Walking Dead 4.7: The Governor's Other Foot ... The Walking Dead 4.8: Vintage Fall Finale ... The Walking Dead 4.9: A Nightmare on Walking Dead Street ... The Walking Dead 4:14: Too Far ... The Walking Dead Season 4 Finale: From the Gunfire into the Frying Pan

And see also The Walking Dead 3.3 meets Meadowlands ... The Walking Dead 3.4: Going to the Limit ... The Walking Dead 3.9: Making Crazy Sense ... The Walking Dead 3.10: Reinforcements ... The Walking Dead 3.11: The Patch ... The Walking Dead 3.12: The Lesson of Morgan ... The Walking Dead 3.13: The Deal ... The Walking Dead 3.14: Inescapable Parable ... The Walking Dead 3.15: Merle ... The Walking Dead 3.16: Kill or Die, or Die and Kill
And see also The Walking Dead Back on AMC ... The Walking Dead 2.2: The Nature of Vet  ... The Walking Dead 2.3: Shane and Otis ... The Walking Dead 2.4: What Happened at the Pharmacy ... The Walking Dead 2.6: Secrets Told ... The Walking Dead 2.7: Rick's Way vs. Shane's Way ...  The Walking Dead 2.8: The Farm, the Road, and the Town  ... The Walking Dead 2.9: Worse than Walkers ... The Walking Dead 2.11: Young Calling the Shots ... The Walking Dead 2.12: Walkers Without Bites ... The Walking Dead Season 2 FinaleAnd see also The Walking Dead 1.1-3:  Gone with the Wind, Zombie Style ... The Walking Dead Ends First Season
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