The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 13 Review: Is This Real?

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This… it isn’t real - Sasha.

Now, Sasha may be having the most anxiety with the survivors’ reintroduction to civilization in The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 13, but I don’t disagree with her feelings. Alexandria really seems like a surreal fantasy.

Scenes with Daryl and Aaron taking out walkers trying to rip apart a horse (which totally reminded me of The Walking Dead Season 1 Episode 1) is the norm in The Walking Dead world, and dinner parties and chatting about pasta makers isn’t.

Granted, I don’t know how this town of people have managed to survive this long without a security detail (something Woodbury did have) or people that seem adept at dealing with walkers and various threats.

Sure, not everyone has to be a super fighter with awesome head shot skills, but there’s something eerie about not seeing other people as hardened as Rick and his crew.

Or maybe, we just haven’t gotten to meet those people yet? Or maybe, Alexandria has just been really lucky in who has come across the location.

But the cleanliness and the friendliness has me on edge waiting for something bad to happen. And I’m sure, on some level, it makes members of the group feel the same way.

And yet, the promise of all these good things, of living in a world where the worry is not being able to make your favorite meal instead of becoming one has to be a positive. I think even Rick has recognized that to some degree, even in just seeing Carl interact with other kids talking about kid stuff like video games.

At the same time, Daryl has really been on the outside looking in, a man who has found his element by living in the wild, and he hasn’t been keen to join the group by “playing house.”

So it was great to watch him and Aaron bond (after some angry hesitancy from Daryl) to the point where they had each other’s backs, and Daryl was even willing to stop in for some spaghetti.

Aaron with a Gun - The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 13

He’s still got a long ways to go before he looks and acts like the June Cleaver that Carol is portraying, but it’s clear that he was sincere in his trying.

Plus, to get to ride a motorcycle again? Maybe not such a bad trade off for him.

However, Rick and the survivors in this upside down world, with a group that seems convincingly like good-natured people, are starting to feel like the scary ones.

Rick’s last comments in The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 12 or his stares at the husband with Jessie?

But man, did Carol take the cake when she went super dark on that kid threatening to feed him to the walkers if he told his mom that she was grabbing the guns. What an intense scene that perhaps, if I hadn’t been watching The Walking Dead up until now, might have thought she was one of the bad guys on the show.

It really goes back to the experiences that Rick and company have had (which have been some pretty scary ones) when compared to the people inside Alexandria that seem to have been able to avoid for the most part that adaptation to the dangerous outside world.

I just worry about the main characters and really wonder if it is possible for them to even come back to something of a civilization after all they have been through.

And let’s not forget that “W” carved into the walker. Didn’t we see something like that earlier this season with stuff carved into walkers?

Either way, there’s something still amiss amongst all this goodness that surrounds Alexandria. Really, I love how disconcerting and disorienting this new location has become for the survivors.

I get that this hour was more acclimation to Alexandria, but the sort-of dreamlike atmosphere that surrounds the walled-in town and the survivors figuring out how to live there (and still hold onto their outside skills) has been intriguing.

It still feels like something brand new for the series, even with the survivors having seen Woodbury, and I’m eager to keep digging into Alexandria… but like Rick, I'm not ready to trust the place 100% either.

Who carved that "W" into the walker? Is there something that Deanna hasn't revealed about Alexandria? Sound off below, and get further acclimated with Alexandria when you watch The Walking Dead online.

NOTE: The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 14 will be titled "Spend" and will air on Sunday, March 15.

Forget Review

Editor Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
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User Rating:

Rating: 4.4 / 5.0 (39 Votes)

Sean McKenna was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. He retired in May of 2017. Follow him on Twitter.

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