The Walking Dead Episode 5 Rendition Recap: Daryl, Leah, Dog

One of the most entertaining elements of The walking Dead they have always been his bad guys. Once the initial emotions of the zombies are gone, the show has pitted its heroes against idiots, thugs, the governor, the cannibals of Terminus, the wolves, Negan and the saviors, i the Whispers. While Negan’s group was an anomaly, the villains have become increasingly unstable over the years and I am delighted to say that the Reapers have followed this proud (?) Tradition.

Really, I’m delighted! Although for the first time it appeared that the Reapers were nothing more than alpha male killers pretending they are in their own real life Call of Duty game, they have so much more. Episode four of season 11, titled “Rendition,” also works well because it’s a solo episode of Daryl (Norman Reedus), which means the story is more focused than usual and has as the protagonist is a character we care about unequivocally. It starts with the Reaper attack we saw at the end of the second episode of the season. Daryl disperses like Maggie, Negan and the others, and is chased by a lone reaper. Eventually, the two fight, Dog gets injured and Daryl separates from him. The next day, he tracks them both down and is surprised to see Dog sitting next to the reaper careless of the world, and he won’t come, even when Daryl calls him. Then the reapers take off their masks and we realize why: it’s Leah (Lynn Collins), the person she lived with for almost a year, the woman for whom she almost gave up Alexandria, and Dog’s first owner, as was seen in season 10 Daryl and Carol’s flashback episode, “Find me“.

Yes, Leah is a reaper and not alone. Daryl is captured, and it turns out that Leah bothered him enough — that he initially chose Alexandria over Leah despite their relationship, only to quickly change his mind, return to his cabin, and find her missing — to allow him. that he had been embarked repeatedly for information. about the people he had seen. He follows his story that he had only been with the group for a week and didn’t know or care about it. Leah still has enough affection to buy it, finally.

Unfortunately, one of the Reapers who was wounded in the attack on Maggie’s group dies and the bad guys are really upset that one of their comrades-in-arms has been killed. This is our first new track that has a few loose screws because maybe if they don’t want their people killed they shouldn’t look for people and start shooting them with guns without provoking them. The second clue is that the Reapers have a priest who speaks in tongues about the corpse. The third is Pope (Ritchie Coster), the group’s mustachioed commander, who reacts to death by saying, “God is here. He is angry. I’m angry. Go make them feel angry. ” Yes, the Reapers are an elite military unit, a religious cult (although it remains to be seen how many of the staff are true believers), but we will get there in a second.

Leah tries to convince Pope that Daryl is the perfect fit to join the Reapers (as far as she knows), but he replies that Daryl is just “trying to put on his pants,” which is hilarious if 1) you know Daryl and 2) remember that romantic reunion started with torture. Finally, Leah convinces Pope to let him join, which is, of course, why the Reapers close. both of us Daryl and Leah in a shed and burned her. When Daryl saves them from a hell truly taking off from the slats of a window, Pope welcomes him with open arms, not only has Daryl shown that he will not leave behind a sister-in-arms, but has now been “baptized by the fire. ”And that’s when we know the wild and shitty origin of the Reapers.

Thanks to “Find Me,” we knew Leah had militated and we reunited with her team after the deaths of the dead. They eventually separated, during which time Leah and Daryl spent their year together. But after he left, he was able to reunite with his teammates and bring back skull masks and kill people. After the baptism after the fire, the commander shares a drink with the new member of the Reapers and tells his story in more detail, and the quotes here come directly from Pope:

• Before the apocalypse, they served as soldiers in Afghanistan where they did terrible things. “We saw God everywhere. He was in blood, horror and death.
• They then formed a mercenary company and did more terrible things in Afghanistan, but were better paid for it. “We did all the ugly, dirty work that no one wanted to do.”
• When the zombie apocalypse began, they were hired to fight the United States, presumably against the zombies and the many living people who lost their shit. “The real dirty work started after the fall.”
• One day, “God came.” Apparently, the increasingly panicked government has just started dropping a ton of bombs on places and Pope implies that at some point they were intentionally dropped on the staff.
• This included merchandise somewhere. They sank into a church and, despite all the destruction surrounding them, emerged without scratches. “And that’s when I learned we were the chosen ones.”

All the groups of nogoodniks faced by the protagonists of the series have been a cult of one kind or another, because they have all attracted people to believe their absurd practices (or have made them too afraid to disobedience), either cannibalism or wearing masks made of rotting human flesh and walking with zombies. Negan and Alpha certainly led personality cults. But the Pope and the Reapers are the first religious cult we have seen The walking Dead, which is a bit surprising given the … apocalyptic zombie apocalypse.

Of course, which makes the Reapers Walking Dead-The appropriate thing is that its leader seems to believe that he is on a divine mission of God to wear Halloween masks and to kill everyone he sees, because of course he does. Which makes them uniform month Walking Dead is that the Reapers care so much for their comrades that their main principle is to always have their backs and never give up. That’s why at the end of the episode, Pope celebrates one of the Reapers for bringing his fallen compatriot 10 miles to his camp. He then throws the same reaper into a burning bonfire because all the wounds of his battle are on his back, which Pope decides he first abandoned his squadron mate and then dragged his corpse.

This is a wild jump, especially considering that the Reapers attacked Maggie’s group from all directions and they all had their backs exposed to one enemy or another, and it’s even wilder because, again, the Reapers did their best to start the fight in the first place. But I guess people don’t get to lead sacred murder crusades having an overabundance of common sense, which is why it’s so funny that these supposedly healed people have chosen to follow someone who could burn them for the glory of God or some something like that. nonsense at a given time.

I doubt it The walking Dead it will define the religious affiliations of the Reapers beyond that they are on a mission of “God”. I worry a lot more about how badly the concept of the Reapers can be broken if the show doesn’t care, because dangerous religious fanatics are a very real thing in our world and the show doesn’t have the ability to handle any of that. with any amount of touch, grace or subtlety. But for now, they are merely The walking DeadThe newest group of murderous idiots, and I will try to enjoy it as much as I can … Amen.

Various reflections:

• Another member of Maggie’s group is captured by the Reapers and placed in a cell next to Daryl. Daryl has to tell the boy to shut up, and then describes the full story he has told the Reapers so that this boy doesn’t contradict him. It’s fun heavy.
• When Daryl finally has to intuit something about the group he was with to help Leah convince Pope of his dignity, he says his leader was a woman and a “tall, thin boy who never shuts up.” I thought Jeffrey Dean Morgan had been very thin this season. He’s no less handsome, of course.
• I’m sorry that Samantha Morton’s Pope and Alpha can’t share screen together, just to hear their incredible battle fights to the death.
• Daryl’s flat look at Leah at the end of the episode sums it up perfectly. The corpse is on fire, the pope cries out to God, and Daryl’s expression toward her is, “Really?” That is the dipshit you decided to follow? “

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